Does the empeg read only the id3 tags?

Correct.

If not, how does the file name work into it?

The file names are not used by the Empeg, so you can name them whatever you want. I do recommend making your PC file names and directories in a similar fashion that you would expect to organize playlists. For instance, I like to have my playlists in Artist/Album format, so my PC's files and directories are in that order as well. Empeg doesn't need that, it just simplifies the task of dragging and dropping the files onto Emplode.

If the order of the songs on a given album is important to you, I recommend naming the files with the track number before the song title. Like so:

Rush- Moving Pictures- 01- Tom Sawyer.mp3
Rush- Moving Pictures- 02- Red Barchetta.mp3
Rush- Moving Pictures- 03- YYZ.mp3
(etc.)

Again, the Empeg does not use these names, it just simplifies the task of dragging and dropping the files onto Emplode in the correct order. You can rearrange the song order in Emplode, and it's pretty easy, but having your files listed in order in Windows ahead of time saves this step. (Although you have to select them in reverse order in Windows Explorer to get it to send the names to Emplode correctly. Darn Windows.)

Another thing... if you're filling out your ID3 tags right now, it would be a good time to choose the proper ID3 song titles for items in your collection that have the same name. The Empeg doesn't have any trouble with duplicate song titles, it's just nice when you're searching the playlists to know which one is which. For example, I have two versions of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus": the original one from the Violator album, and the Acoustic version from the single. If I hadn't added the text "(Acoustic)" to the end of the single's song title, then I wouldn't know which one to select when performing a search. Likewise, I have many live concert albums as well as the corresponding songs from the studio albums. Adding the text "(Live)" to the end of the song titles helps immensely when I'm performing searches or scrolling through the Now and Next list.

Finally, you might want to go through your files and make sure they all feature the correct Year and Album in the ID3 tags. Although this is definitely not required, it's nice to have if you're proud of your music collection. Many rippers do not fill out the year automatically (since the CDDB doesn't store that information), and many soundtracks/greatest-hits albums have the compilation name listed instead of the original album listed. For example, when I encoded the soundtrack to "The Sopranos", I didn't want the Frank Sinatra song to list "1999" as the year, or "The Sopranos" as the album. I wanted the correct original information in those fields. If you ever have trouble looking up this information (for instance, if the album sleeve doesn't list it), you can use the database at Allmusic.com to look it up.

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144