TechnologyCrowd

Although I often use Pandora or Last.fm when I want to listen to music on my Droid, there are times when it is nice to listen to my own downloads and playlists.  One thing that is lacking on the Droid is a music manager similar to iTunes for transferring music and video files.

I started out by mounting the SD card after connecting the Droid to a PC which does work, but it is not as intuitive as I felt it should be with one of the latest gadgets.  After doing some research on the web I found a program called Double Twist.

Since I have several devices that I use at different times for transferring music, I was not looking to add another manager, but after trying out Double Twist, I found out that it is an excellent solution to replace the other managers that I have been using.  Along with getting the job done for my Droid, it also works for my Zune and Sirius Stiletto 2 and many other devices that you may have.

Installing the Double Twist application in Windows is quick and simple.  Just go to http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Download/DownloadWindows.dt and follow the typical installation instructions.

After the application is installed it will begin scanning your PC for music files in the standard folders.  If your media is not stored in the normal Music folder, you can change the location under Edit –> Preferences.  One minor issue that I had is that my music is stored on a network drive and it would not allow me to use that as the designated folder, but I was able to click File –> Add Folder to Library to easily import the music that I wanted.

The first thing that you will notice after the application opens is that is looks very similar to iTunes.  Obviously there is no iTunes store, but recently the Amazon MP3 store was added if you are looking to purchase songs to add to your library.

On the left side of the screen you will see your Library, which is the information contained on your PC broken down by Photos, Video, and Music.  Underneath the Library you will see any playlists that were imported.  The next section below that is the devices section, for some reason it recognizes my external hard drive but that does not cause any issues with other devices being added.

Now to connect the Droid, you plug in the device with a USB cable, when the notification appears on the device, select it and choose to mount the device.  As you can see in the picture, Double Twist will recognize the device and ask for options on what you want to sync to the device.

You can choose whether to select all Picture, Music, or Videos or further options by selecting the tabs across the top to select only certain playlists.

After you make your choices click on the orange Sync button on the bottom right for the sync to take place.  If you only want to move certain items to your device you can leave the check boxes blank and go to the library and drag only the items you want.  Once you drag an item it will automatically sync.

Another excellent feature that I uncovered when using Double Twist is the ability to import youtube videos into the software and to my device.  By clicking on File –> import from web and adding the youtube URL, Double Twist will import the file to your library.

Depending on the file it takes a few minutes, but the process couldn’t be any easier.  Once its in the library drag it to the device and it will make sure it is in the correct format.

Overall, I was extremely impressed by Double Twist.  It provides everything I was looking for to transfer music to my Droid and will also allows me to get rid of some other music managers for other devices.  The video import was a big bonus and I look forward to continuing to use Double Twist for adding media to my Droid and other devices.