Is there any way of extracting the track/album list from the B2?

[Julian Pearcey]

I want to load the album/track list from my B2 to my Mac to update my CD database. Is it possible to download it to a stick?

[Jamie]

The B2 has a very basic facility for downloading an index of your music.  You can find it in the B2 box menu structure at:  

Settings / Maintenance / b2db to USB

However, this file is not in a very user-friendly format.  Each row in the file contains either an artist name or an album name or a track name.  You will have to write a simple program to reformat the file so that each row contains a track name and the related album and artist names.  I do this in Windows by opening the extract file in Notepad, copying and pasting the contents of the file to an Excel spreadsheet, and running a simple reformatting program.

I don’t know why the b2db file is in such an unfriendly format.  Perhaps it was because the file was only ever envisaged as a tool to help B2 support staff.  Maybe Martin could comment.

There are at least two further ways of obtaining an index of your music.  Both require you to expose the B2 via NAS and both require further effort.

The main music library file structure on the B2 has three levels:

1. Artist folder
   
2. Album folder
   
3. Track file.
   

The two approaches are as follows.

First, you can construct an index of your music by finding (or writing) a utility program to read through the B2’s folder structure and write an index record for each track.  Again, you could do this in an Excel spreadsheet.

Second, you can construct an index of your music using a third-party tagging tool.  These tools allow you to tag your music with tags not supported by the B2 software.  However, at least some of these tools also allow you to download an index of your music, including all tags, to a spreadsheet.  I use a tool called Tag & Rename for this purpose.  However, I think that Tag & Rename is a Windows-only tool.  I don’t think there is a Mac version but there may be equivalent tools for the Mac.

Here is a link to Tag & Rename for any Windows users who want to create a spreadsheet index of their music.

http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm

In summary, there are multiple ways to obtain a useful index of your B2 music but there is no out of the box solution.

[Julian Pearcey]

Jamie,

Thanks for the useful reply. I can manage this in Excel now I have a way of getting the file off the B2.

[Jamie]

I've just had a look at my b2db spreadsheet.  The b2db file does not have artist name rows as I suggested in my previous post.  It has album names rows and track name rows, plus some additional rows with album and track counts.  The basic point is correct however.  You have to reformat the file generated by the B2 to create a useful index.

[Jasper Warwick]

Hi 

I have written an Excel program that scans the library and auto builds a spreadsheet of artists and albums. You are welcome to try it

Jasper,