Music at Work from Portable Disc Drive

I now have the opportunity to listen to music at my office without disrupting my coworkers. Have a bunch of FLAC files that I can put on a USB portable hard drive (employer is very uptight about installing external files on computer's hard drive and won't permit additional software installation). Have Windoze Media Player installed on computer and tried the shuffle or random play, but with over 1000 songs on the drive it starts repeating songs within the first 10 and plays some of them several times within the first couple of hours. I don't want to spend the time to create a bunch of playlists, so how can I get a random play that doesn't repeat excessively without installing additional software?

Alternatively, I'd be willing to do something completely separate from the work computer if it isn't too inconvenient or too much $, but need to play FLAC files from a USB drive.

With the demise (though I guess there may be a resurgence?) of MicroSD slots on phones, I've been pondering going back to using an mp3 player. I believe some can properly play FLACs, though I sort of wandered off shaking my head over the Pono thing after being convinced that the super-high-res they were touting was useless. But that's a tangent unrelated to FLAC.

Of course, the last cheap mp3 player I bought was particularly bad at shuffle. Hoping the better ones are... Better.

I used to sell stereo equipment, so here's a little terminology pedantry just to help steer you in the right direction.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some software get this wrong, but if you're buying, say, a CD changer from a name brand, they all seem to respect this.

Shuffle and random are distinct and different features. Shuffle is the premium feature over random. Shuffle creates a random-order playlist, in which each track is played exactly once before repeating. Random plays all tracks in random order, possibly repeating tracks, possibly even repeating a track twice in a row. A track is played, the player rolls the dice, and the next track is played at random.

What it sounds like is that you want shuffle in place of the random play you're experiencing.

In reply to Mike:

I did not realize that there is an actual difference between the two terms. Just thought what they called it varied by manufacturer.

Based on that info, yes I want a true shuffle instead of random. Can Windows Media Player do shuffle?

The button on the far left that looks like two crossed arrows pointing up should give you the shuffle play option you seek.

As an IT person, I would be extremely nervous about allowing anybody to just stick a random USB stick into a company computer. In fact, I would be extremely discouraging about that.

Instead, I would recommend taking a simpler player device like this one (no connection to the seller, no idea if it's any good) into work, assuming that you can't take a cellphone with you. Otherwise, just get an appropriate app for your phone.

In reply to BoxheadTim:

I'm trying to find a way to play through speakers from my collection of FLAC & MP3 files. Problem is that I can't really do headphones at work, so phone or media player is just a USB storage device. IT shuts down any kind of internet streaming very quickly. I would only be sticking in a random USB stick to initially transfer files to my portable drive that stays hooked up to the computer.

In reply to EastCoastMojo:

Thanks, I'll have to try that on Monday. Haven't messed with Windows Media Player in at least 5 years, but last time I did I couldn't get a true "shuffle" as described above and just gave up and created a few playlists with a couple hundred songs each. I did that during lunchtime in my old job, but don't really have a lunchtime now.

What about using a amplifier not connected to your computer? These small little amps work well, I use some of the non-bluetooth around. Here is a $34 unit https://www.parts-express.com/lepai-lp-269fs-4x45w-mini-amplifier-with-remote-usb-mp3-media-card-fm-and-bluetooth-antenna--310-304

Connect some small speakers like these https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-b452-4-1-2-2-way-bookshelf-speaker-pair--300-452

and you have a little stand alone set up to make the cube-mates jealous. I have a couple similar set ups and no complaints.

In reply to former520:

A stand alone setup would keep me from getting on the wrong side of the IT folks. My question with that type of setup is how do I play the files? Seriously, I have something like 700 CD's ripped to MP3 and another 200-300 ripped to FLAC. I'm slowly working on getting the entire library to FLAC.

The only reasonable way to store all that music is on a portable drive as far as I see. I don't want to have to keep changing out songs on my phone or a player and I'd like to have access to all of it in case I get in a mood and want to listen to something specific. Most of the time I just want to have a shuffle play where I'm not listening to the same songs every week so having the full library available would be nice and would keep me from wasting time messing with background music. If we had any decent radio stations around here I'd just get a radio, but in the few hours a week I spend with the radio on in the car I keep hearing the same songs every couple of days.

How many gigs are we talking about?

Pandora or Jango or ? On your phone with a double ended headphone cable plugged into the mic port or your computer sound card.

I also want to know what kind of phone you have.

I have a Galaxy S5, and it has a Micro SD slot. In that slot is a 128gb card. On that card is roughly 90gb of sonic awesomeness. I have been using an app called Pulsar to listen, because the stock Samsung app can be a PITA.

Another option (if your IT dept. hasn't blocked it) is Google Play Music. You can upload 20,000 (maybe more these days) tracks from your home collection and stream it in decent quality over a browser or on your phone. I haven't used it much since getting the 128gb card, but it is pretty awesome. Just don't sign up for the streaming stations and it's free to use.

• Transfer the files to a dedicated music player like an old iPod or Zune etc with a true shuffle
• Spend $50 on a small soundbar with an Aux in
• Win at life

BoxheadTim wrote: As an IT person, I would be *extremely* nervous about allowing anybody to just stick a random USB stick into a company computer. In fact, I would be extremely discouraging about that.

At a few places I've worked, if you stuck a USB drive into a computer, it would either get formatted and encrypted (if you had the rights to use removable media) or it just wouldn't work.

The external drive on a phone thing sounds like the best idea.

secretariata wrote: In reply to former520: A stand alone setup would keep me from getting on the wrong side of the IT folks. My question with that type of setup is how do I play the files? Seriously, I have something like 700 CD's ripped to MP3 and another 200-300 ripped to FLAC. I'm slowly working on getting the entire library to FLAC. The only reasonable way to store all that music is on a portable drive as far as I see. I don't want to have to keep changing out songs on my phone or a player and I'd like to have access to all of it in case I get in a mood and want to listen to something specific. Most of the time I just want to have a shuffle play where I'm not listening to the same songs every week so having the full library available would be nice and would keep me from wasting time messing with background music. If we had any decent radio stations around here I'd just get a radio, but in the few hours a week I spend with the radio on in the car I keep hearing the same songs every couple of days.

If you have a phone that supports USB-OTG, I think you'd be able to load all your music to the drive, plug it into your phone, and be good to go with the FLAC playing software of your choice.

Pandora or Jango or ? On your phone with a double ended headphone cable plugged into the mic port or your computer sound card.

Spotify has a web player (if you have it, I have had Spotify premium for years now and love it).

I use the web player on one VPN and the downloaded App on another VPN.

Can't you run winamp from a folder on the USB drive?

Raspberry Pi with custom case, DAC + amp add-on, and touch screen.

https://www.hifiberry.com/products/ampplus/

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1601

Then just plug in your usb harddrives. Just make sure you have enough of a power supply to run everything. You could even mount it to the speaker or build it into the cabinet even.

EvanR wrote: How many gigs are we talking about?

Currently about 250. Will go up as I get more switched over to FLAC.

To try and answer some of the questions above...

Phone does not have a micro SD slot. Android OS. Poor cell reception in the ancient bunker that I work in. IT blocks all streaming via internet w/in a few minutes if you find a new site that hasn't already been blocked (seriously, we get instructed to watch specific training videos online and have to individually request permission to watch it, heaven forbid if you wait until the last day...). Old building with somewhat limited electrical (I think there are 2 normal outlets in my office). Yet, I can plug anything I want into my computer until I upload a virus for the 2nd or 3rd time...

RossD wrote: Raspberry Pi with custom case, DAC + amp add-on, and touch screen. https://www.hifiberry.com/products/ampplus/ https://www.adafruit.com/product/1601 Then just plug in your usb harddrives. Just make sure you have enough of a power supply to run everything. You could even mount it to the speaker or build it into the cabinet even.

Honestly just a RasPI running to a decent powered 2.1 computer speaker setup would be better audio than what your PC is putting out to what I can only imagine is a cheap set of unpowered stereo speakers.

^Pi audio is not that great. Also, that's way overkill for his situation. He just wanted a shuffle button.

Figure out how to do in WMP. Or just get a different music playing program that will run from the USB drive (no need to install).

Is there some reason you can't just carry in a little MP3 player? I have one of these with a 32GB memory card in it (& 12GB onboard), it's barely larger than a USB stick anyway. With the "Rockbox" custom firmware you can even play Doom on it (really!)

secretariata wrote: Currently about 250. Will go up as I get more switched over to FLAC.

You're not transcoding MP3 -> FLAC are you?