MP3 -> Cell Phone
October 23, 2004
I think my first update after the previous will be one of benefit to the entire world. If you, like me, just bought yourself a nice Sony Ericsson SO506ic cell phone (see Docomo, or Sony Ericsson for more information), then congratulations! You’ve just got a neat little phone with a fairly decent camera for stills and videos, nice resolution screen, a nice springy flip, fun spinning dial control, and the best of all - the ability to listen to music on the go.
I had no trouble getting used to the control, layout, and navigation. Typing English can be a bit of a pain since it will display capitals first and you have to press * to change it to a lower case letter each time. Other than that, the controls are fairly intuitive.
I was quite excited about having a device to listen to music ever since my MD has been screwy and good MP3 players are fairly costly. I bought myself a 128 Memory Stick Duo and a memory stick card reader. Going over the manual, you’ll notice that the phone only takes ATRAC3 song formats. My first attempt was to download Sonicstage for Connect - the software that allows you to download songs from Sony’s online music store. That litttle program has an MP3 to ATRAC3 converter. I’ll save you the headache - it doesn’t work (I tried ATRAC3 on all bit rates, then ATRAC3 plus - no avail). To be fair, I only found the “Move” file function - I couldn’t “Check out” to the memory stick.
Looking deeper into the Sony page, I noticed they recommended the Sony brand card reader - at first I thought it was for profit reasons but then I noticed they package SonicStage 1.5 along with the reader. THIS is what you need.
I returned my generic reader and got the Sony one instead. Got home, installed the software, imported my music library - you’ll need to convert your files into ATRAC3 132 bit rate. Once this is done, go to “Record”, plug in your memory stick into the reader, select your songs, and “Check Out”.
Just plug in the memory stick into your phone and go to the music panel (press the camera shutter button as a shortcut) - the phone will read the card and display the first song. Press play!
Might I suggest Love Psychedelico? They’re the best Japanese band I’ve ever heard. Kumi the singer seductively sounds very much like a cool Sheryl Crow and the songs have a fused country, blues, pop influence. Very awesome.
November 17th, 2005 at 02:21
Hey there, I came across this when I did a search for my phone that I bought (SO506IC) I am in the US military, stationed in Japan, and I just got this phone. I am trying to get a song from my computer to my phone. I downloaded SonicStage 1.5, but it won’t let me check the song out to the media device, because it doesn’t reconize any device being installed. I am using the Memory Stick Duo Adaptor that came with the phone. (It sticks right into my memory stick slot on my computer) I’m wondering if that’s the reason I can’t get this to work. I’ve even tried Optimizing the song to ATRAC3 132 bit rate with SonicStage and then just copying that file (.omg) to the memory stick under a directory named “HIFI” Anyways, I was wondering if you had any ideas as how I could get this to work. I know you posted this more than a year ago, but any information you could give me would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! -Jason
November 17th, 2005 at 06:20
Thanks for your message Jason,
I tried just copying files directly from my computer onto the memory stick but that never worked. What did work was using the “Check out” option in SonicStage 1.5.
On the SO506ic webpage, it says you need the Magic Gate Memory Stick Duo (yours probably is… but just checking). On that page it also gives a list of the VAIO computers that support Magic Gate. You might want to check if your computer is one of those. Hope you read some Japanese :-p
I’m sorry this is all the help I can give you. The last person who mailed me about the SO506ic only got it working after buying the USB reader that I mentioned. I’m sure that’s not the only way.
If you get it to work, could you write back and let me know?
PS. Where are you stationed?
December 6th, 2005 at 16:14
Sorry for the long delay… I haven’t really looked into this anymore past what I mentioned to you. I might end up buying the USB reader, I just can’t seem to get myself to do it (haha) I can’t help but thinking…. “there must be another way” Anyways, until I do either figure out another way, or submis to my reluctance, do you know of any musics sites I could go to download music from my phone? English would be preferred of courrse, but if it can’t be helped, oh well. Thanks again, I’ll keep ya posted on any updates I have. BTW, I am stationed at Yokota AB.