Originally Posted by ScottKY

Yeah, it's dead simple if you just want to select specific albums and/or artists. Or if you just want to randomly shuffle through all the music on the thumb drive. Where it gets a bit more complicated is when you want to use playlists that contain a mix of music from different artists and such.

Originally Posted by rooster3171

I use MediaMonkey to create playlists and dump on the flash drive. This is free software and have been using it for years.

Originally Posted by rooster3171

ScottKY, you are absolutely correct! Lots of people here do not understand the problem. Yes, you can make folders on your USB and listen to them, you can even do artists, genre, etc., but when it comes to playlists it is totally different.

Originally Posted by swingdj

Thank you all for the notes but having some difficulty. The bike is reading the playlist but it can't find the songs. Here's what I did.
1. Added 1,000+ songs to USB drive (J:\)
2. Used Playlist Creator 3.6.2 to create playlist. Added songs directly from the J: drive. In the Playlist content screen, it even shows the location of the songs as J:\AC_DC\Back In Black
3. Create Playlist and saved to J:\
4. Inserted USB into bike. Waited for loading, then found the playlist. To the left of the name is a triangular-shaped warning sign and when I select the playlist there are no songs listed.

Thoughts?

Originally Posted by .357 Magnum

I LOVE the .m3u handling of this stereo! Whatever gripes anyone may have about these '14s, this feature alone basically fixes EVERYTHING that was ever wrong with all preceding generations of stereos. I can load up my "favorites" list with different playlists, and fill up the USB stick with all kinds of finely-tweaked mixes. I have lists of audiobooks for the long interstate rides, classic rock or 80s pop/rock for all purposes, percussion-heavy trance/chillout for Arizona 89A just outside Jerome, recent "Now That's What I Call Music!" mixes for when a kid's on the back, etc. etc. etc. Now that Sirius XM has lowered their bitrates and sound noisier than ever, this stereo steps up with the features, file, and playlist handling to make it all okay.

Unlike the cassette and CD players of past generations, this stereo will keep doing the job well for decades.

Designflaw, do you have an Android-based phone? Google recently changed the Android operating system so that such phones won't function as a USB bulk storage device any more. So most car stereos (and this new Harley one) won't read it like a plain ol' USB stick. There are a few things you can do:

1. I currently work around the problem by just streaming via Bluetooth if there's something on the phone I want to hear. Fortunately, this doesn't happen very often, because most stuff I want to hear, I just transfer to the USB stick. It's too easy.

2. "Root" your phone (break the carrier's limitations that prevents phone owners from running any software they want) and install an app that restores "USB Bulk Storage" or "UBS" capability. Search the Play store for those terms.

3. Give Harley a few years to update the stereo software so that it speaks Android's new "Media Transport Protocol" (MTP). Though, be forewarned that many car manufacturers aren't updating their stereos at all. They're just saying, "hey, it's Google that screwed you by dropping this popular standard... complain to them."

I use option 1 but also like option 2; it works well for the Android phones my wife and I use in her Nissan. I just haven't done it to my current phone yet.

Originally Posted by kalikali

This is complete nonsense! Harley needs to step up their game! Spent several hours trying to figure this USB out and havent figured it out, I am not going to go through my 10 gigs of music and rename all the files to the finicky ways of Harley. Why fiiddle with some bs script and apple nonsense? WE pay this much for a bike we shouldnt have to spend time with this USB vsb msb script bs. My 2010 ultra I upgraded the head unit with a top of the line pioneer $200 unit and have no problem playing my music. Harley cant put together a basic system that can read my basic USB stick that every car reads and every PC reads?! Plus on my $200 stereo I can easily stream Pandora.