Question about Artist Link

[mattsplat]

I know this has been covered a lot (I looked t_t) but I was wondering if there have been any new improvements about Artist Link?

For the longest time I could get nothing linking at all, then I imported 2 albums using CP (previously all my mp3s came from iTunes) and now they link to each other. I've imported several other albums using CP and transferred them onto my player (A3000) yet I can't get anything linking.

Any advice? Does Sonic Stage 4 offer any improvements to this? Sometimes the status bar changes to something about artist link when I start up CP but I can't notice anything different.

Thanks in advance

[Menno]

SonicStage CP enables Artist Link for the A1000/3000 series (though it is a pretty useless feature IMHO). You can get it @: http://support.sony-europe.com/DNA/sonicst...l.asp?m=ss&l=en

Upgrading to firmware v3.00 (http://support.sony-europe.com/DNA/Downloads/downloads.asp?c=WM&sc=NWH&f=FRM_NW_A3000&l=en) is recommended.

[mattsplat]

SonicStage CP enables Artist Link for the A1000/3000 series (though it is a pretty useless feature IMHO). You can get it @: http://support.sony-europe.com/DNA/sonicst...l.asp?m=ss&l=en

Upgrading to firmware v3.00 (http://support.sony-europe.com/DNA/Downloads/downloads.asp?c=WM&sc=NWH&f=FRM_NW_A3000&l=en) is recommended.

I've got all the CP upgrades and firmware upgrades.

And while I agree the whole artist link function is rather useless, but at the same time I feel a bit cheated that I can't get it working properly. I mean it has its own button and everything. I would just like to see it work a bit better than what it's currently doing.

I started downloading Sonicstage but it was going so slooooooow. I've seen a few mixed reports on it. Worth the download? I know they've added support for the A-series unique features - is that what you mean by "SonicStage CP enables Artist Link for the A1000/3000 series" or is there something else?

[Menno]

Downloading SSCP wasn't very fast here either, took me probably half an hour.

To me it was definitely worth downloading it though. I'm running it on an Athlon 64 3200, 1 GB Ram rig and it's pretty fast to start up (few secs) and doesn't crash/bug/lag/etc even when transferring a lot of files at once.

Previous versions of SS didn't support (but still worked with) the a1000/3000 series, so not all functions were accessible. With this version Sony have added support for a few features specifically designed for this series, like Artist Link and also added support for MC35ELK (remote control) and AAC playback. Just read the release notes and the SSCP help file.

Hope that answers your questions.

**edit** MC35ELK support is added by the firmware upgrade, not SSCP.

Also, if you use SSCP to transfer music to your a3000, it may slow down your player considerably when browsing album/artist lists. Defragging it (see YosNoor's post: www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1725&st=30 ) solved that problem for me.

Edited June 12, 2006 by Menno

[mattsplat]

Thanks for your insight!

I think i'll stick with CP for now. This morning I opened it up, and it started going through every song in the library with the "updating artist link" message in the bar down the bottom. Up untill now, that message has only flashed on for a few seconds or so, but this time it counted through EVERY song. After plugging my unit in and updating database etc, now artist link appears to be working!

It's nice to see it actually work now. Despite it's uselessness

Thanks again.

[rtn]

Can anyone "share" the Artist Link file, exporting it to a file an uploading it to the forums....

Its a bit annoying to "link" all the artists, if someone has decent links it could be usefull to share them!

Thanks

[micks_address]

i still cant get this to work on my wife's connection.. gives - no internet connection when i try to get more cd info for tracks imported to my library even though i can get to gracenote no hassle when importing cd's! on dsl always on internet connection.. any help appreciated - cheers , mick

[Jim]

I find that there are some artists it can't find any link info for. I also find that it has trouble finding link info for artists on compilation albums, even if it could find that info for the same artist on a single artist album. I have been able to get the link info by selecting "get CD info" for that track but then the artist gets updated as "Various Artists" which I then have to restore to the artist name.

It would be really great if they could get this working.

[ad2006]

I've found the Artist Link Button a bit useless-but the artist link shuffle is a lot of fun. Best using it with Sonicstage-you can edit it to better link things e.g if you disagree with the genre of something or for some obscure stuff you may have.

Edited July 12, 2006 by ad2006

[micks_address]

Finally got artist link working.,.. every time i tried to get additional cd info from within 'My Library' i got the no internet connection message even though when importing cd's sonic stage was connecting to gracenote fine and getting info that way. Solution was to upgrade my version of Internet explorer to version 7 which is in beta 3 at the moment. As soon as i did that - the next time i opened sonicstage and clicked on My Library it told me that i could get additional info and away it went and downloaded the artist link stuff...

wierd but wondeful i guess to have it working at last!