How to make a Playstation 3 Music playlist on your PC

Ever play Wipeout, Street Fighter, SSX or Burnout on PS3 and had the issues of transferring your music playlists from the PC to PS3? I feel your pain.

After sitting and putting together some great playlists on my PC over the weekend I tried to figure out a easy way for me to transfer these playlists through my network and have the PS3 automatically add the correct songs in the right playlists or, even better, transfer the playlists in their entirety.

I managed to find a way which, might take a little setup but I think is the easiest to transfer and maintain in the future (IE add more tracks to).

You will need :-

• a USB memory stick, size is dependent on your playlist size but 1gb or bigger will make the task easier. This should also be formatted to FAT32
• a copy of Winamp 
• a copy of MP3TAG

note - my instructions are for PC Users, sorry Apply fans.

1. Construct your playlist! - collect all the songs you want to use into a single playlist in Winamp. To do this right click the 'Playlists' header on the left hand panel and select 'New Playlist' then add the songs from your library straight to the playlist
2. Transfer to the USB memory stick - if you're letting Winamp handle your USB memory stick management (which is recommended for this tutorial) click the 'Send-To' button at the bottom of your playlist and select your USB Stick
3. The waiting game - Winamp will now make a copy of every single track in your playlist on the memory stick, this is hugely important as we are going to change the ID3 tags of the songs and dont want to mess up your perfectly organised and well presented collection. While waiting its a good idea to download and install MP3TAG as we will need to use it shortly.
4. Changing tags - with the songs now on a memory stick, load up Mp3tag and select 'File' then 'Change Directory' and point it at the USB stick with your music on. let all the music load up and then select them all (ctrl + a). now change the 'Genre' on the left hand side to something unique. When I was going this the first time it was for an SSX playlist so I named mine 'SSX Tricky'. Once you've picked your Genre press Ctrl + S to save it, this might take some time depending on how many songs you're using.
5. Transfer time! - once mp3tag is finished insert the USB memory stick into the PS3 and head over to the Music section of the XMB and press triangle on your memory stick. This will give you a few options but we want 'Display All' which will show all the folders that appear. Press triangle again and select copy multiple then select all the folders of music you wish to copy and start it off!
6. Finally - Once the copy has completed go back to the music section of the XMB and check if your genre is correct (you should be able to sort songs by pressing square) and you're all done!

Now if you're like me and you want several playlists just rinse and repeat this process as many times as you need and don't forget this is also a great way to add tracks in the future too as all you need to do is alter the genre and put them on your PS3.

Happy gaming!