Transferring music from Apple Music to the B2

[Charles Pratt]

Hello, forum

I received excellent advice and help from members of this group when having issues with USB backup from the B2, so I'm venturing out with another problem.

Namely, I'm having a devil of a time figuring out how to get my purchased music from Apple Music (formerly iTunes) onto a USB stick so that I can load it onto the B2.

Previous advice on the forum and the Brennan site make it sound easy, but when I click on the Music icon on my Mac and try to click and drag an album to my FAT32 formatted USB stick, nothing seems to happen.

I have been able to drag exactly one song to a Sandisk stick and transfer it properly. A few other songs seem to have transferred, but they must be renamed, and even that is tough.

I am really hoping I don't have to burn tracks to a CD, then rip that disc onto my B2, renaming the album, artist and individual tracks. That's a lot of work, and I have quite a few albums I've purchased on iTunes over the past few years.

I'm probably committing some elementary errors, but as an amateur at tech, I am at a loss.

Sorry for such a lengthy plea.

Charles

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Charles,

I'm not very knowledgeable about migrating Apple Music out into the free world, but I had a quick look at the Youtube video on the link below and it does seem to be reasonably straightforward. I googled 'How to export from Apple Music'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj9-W198K1A

I think that your problems might boil down to the fact the the Apple Music needs be be converted to a 'standard' format such as 'mp3' first.  There are some converters built into the Apple Music product by the looks of things.

Have a look at this and see if it helps.

Regards,

Peter.

[Charles Pratt]

Thanks for the advice. It makes sense that the music on Apple needs to be converted to a more acceptable format. I think Apple may have a proprietary format for data in Apple Music. I’ll take a look at the video on my Mac and see if I can replicate the process. Again, thanks, Peter. Despite a few hiccups on my end, I’m enjoying my B2.

Charles

[Mark Fishman]

That video is about using a specific application -- "Apple Music Converter" -- to capture the playack of Apple Music files from iTunes (playing in the background) and encode it as mp3.

Charles, you started this thread by talking about purchased music from Apple Music. My understanding is that "Apple Music" is, in part, a replacement for the old iTunes Store, so I'd expect that the music you have *purchased* is in files that sit on your computer and you can copy them anywhere. (I would not be surprised if Apple is less co-operative, but that's my initial expectation.)

So as long as we are talking abut purchased music files, I will ask: can you find them on your hard disk using Finder? iTunes used to have a library under your home folder, under Music, does Apple Music have the same thing? If you find that folder, maybe we can make some progress.

[Charles Pratt]

Thanks, Mark. I’ll give it a try. I may have mentioned that I really miss the relative simplicity of iTunes. I’ll keep the forum posted.

[Charles Pratt]

Mark, et al,

I've had both failure and success with finding my iTunes library on my Mac. On Finder, I did locate a music library, but somehow managed to permanently delete all my playlists. No worries, as they are still on my iPod. I still have all my albums and songs in my Apple Music folder/app. I've learned that I can transfer songs from iTunes to a USB and then to my B2, and successfully transferred a new playlist I created. The USB to B2 transfer seemed to work, although I haven't played any songs yet. It also appears that my transfer only downloaded the music data, not the names of the tracks. Maybe that's an error on my part, and there was something I needed to do. I spent a lot of time in a call with an Apple rep, who had not heard of the Brennan B2, but who told me what I wanted to do (USB transfer) was possible if I had a device like an iPad or iPhone connected to my Mac.

Also, the tracks I transferred were MP4, not MP3. Should I have changed that somehow, or can the B2 change the formatting?

All in all, I'm disappointed in my own lack of knowledge here. I have lots of music on iTunes that I'd like to transfer to my B2, but I can't devote that many hours to renaming every "unknown" track.

[Charles Pratt]

I (happily) stand corrected.Once I renamed the playlist I downloaded from the USB from my Mac, the names of the individual tracks did appear on the Brennan UI. So, all good there. I feel a bit sheepish, but I really want to express my appreciation to the many contributors to this forum!

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Charles,

I think it may help you if you understand how the B2 deals with Music and playlists.

1) ALL the B2 music files are stored under a single top level directory structure with the name "Music". Under that come all the directories for each ARTIST, and below that come directories pertaining to each Album/CD you have for that ARTIST. Finally below this in each Album/CD directory come the music FILES for that Album/CD, along with a file containing the cover art for the album.

2) the B2 "Scan Disk" function builds a database/catalog of your "Music" directory and uses this both to display your music in its interface AND to locate the music on the HDD. This database/catalog file is called " b2db" and is a test file you can open in a text editor.

3) B2 playlists are text files built from the information in the " b2db" file and while they therefore point to music on the B2's HDD,  they contain NO music.

I hope this helps

Fred

[PMB]

Hi CharlesP,

Have you checked that the MP4 tracks loaded onto the B2 actually play - it's not one of the supported formats?

Paul

Brennan Support.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

I have some MP4s that play OK.

[Mark Fishman]

MP4 is a "container" format, i.e., it can hold both audio and video (and subtitles). Youtube offers MP4 as one of its filetypes, for example.

M4P is Apple's DRM'd variant of M4A, which is an audio format, usually using the AAC codec.

M4V is Apple's variant of MP4, so they could add DRM if they wanted to.

MP3 is a codec as well as a file format. MP4 is not a codec.

Abbreviations are hell on dyslexics.