Would it Be Possible...

[happymedium27]

I have dutifully backed up everything on my B2 to an external USB drive and that process has worked flawlessly. No missing folders or files — everything as it is supposed to be. My question is this...

I have an EXTENSIVE rock n' roll Christmas music collection that I like to listen to around the holidays. But only around the holidays. Is there a way for me to rip all those CD's to an external USB drive (separate from my current backup drive for everything else) and then play from that drive exlclusively when the holidays roll around?

Cheers,

John

[Daniel Taylor]

You can copy all your Holiday Rock music to a FAT32 formatted USB disk and plug it into the B2.  The files must be organized as the B2 expects with the Artist\Album\tracks structure. Then you can select and play anything that's on it.  But I don't think you can make a playlist that includes the USB disk, or get random play on that disk.  I wish you could, and I'd be glad to find out if I'm wrong.

[Daniel Taylor]

John sent me this private message:

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"Can I use the B2 to rip all those discs to the FAT 32 formatted external USB drive only? I don’t want them on the B2 with the rest of the music during the rest of the year"

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You can't rip directly to the USB disc on the B2.  If you want to use the B2 to do it, rip to the HDD, put them all in a playlist, run the Export Playlist command, then delete them (after you've checked to make sure they are all on the USB disk).  Or you could just rip them using your computer - probably a lot faster and easier.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi John,

My method of dealing with this was to create a folder at artist  named  'ZZZ Christmas Music'.  Then name each album as normal for example 'The Best Christmas Songs Ever!' and so on.

So all of my Christmas CDs are in your 'ZZZ Christmas Music' folder.

The reason for the 'ZZZ' is that the folder only appears at the very end of any alphabetic listing, so it is out of sight.  I have done this with some other categories of music that I want to retain but don't want to listen to regularly such as 'ZZZ 1920s music' etc.  The 'ZZZ' is needed to place the artist folder after 'ZZ Top', the last artist in my collection. !

Then you can use the new playlist feature called 'Blacklist'.  You create a playlist called 'Blacklist' (without the quotes).  When you place any artist or album folder, or any music tracks into this playlist, then these items will never be played when the B2 is in random play mode.  When Christmas arrives just remove the 'ZZZ Christmas Music' from the blacklist.

Just a suggestion!

Regards,

Peter.

[happymedium27]

Hi Peter,

Yes that all makes complete sense, but it doesn’t address my main concern/objective: not taking up precious drive space on the B2 with 150 CDs that only get played seasonally once a year. That’s why I was hoping there was a way I could rip the discs with the B2 ~ move them to an external drive on their own ~ and play from that drive during the Christmas season vs playing “directly” from the B2. See what I’m getting at? It’s really more a storage issue.

Cheers, 

John

[Brian R]

Hi John

I do what you want to do and it works well. Copy the offending albums from your backup drive to a new  FAT32 formatted USB stick. When this new USB stick (or drive) is plugged into the B2 the albums will show as Gold highlighted entries at the end of your list. After satisfying yourself that they play OK you can then delete the original entries.

Brian

[Peter Lowham]

Hi John,

I understand now.  Brian's suggestion will be best for you.  Daniel's solution above to use 'Export Playlist' to export only the Christmas music content will work in exactly the way you require.

Regards,

Peter.