Transfer from B2 to USB stick

[Terry Beech]

Hi, I'm very new to the Brennan B2 having only just purchased one.

Sorry if I'm asking a repeat question but is it possible to transfer music from the hard disk FLAC format directly to a USB stick in MP3 format and how do i do it? 

If not, is there an easy way to do this.

Regards, Terry.

[Daniel Taylor]

It's possible to transfer the FLAC files to a USB disk as FLAC files.  But you cannot do the MP3 conversion in the same process.

The easiest thing for you would be to transfer the FLAC files, then plug the USB disk into your computer, and use a separate program to convert the FLAC files to MP3.  There are free programs available to download that will do that for you.  Or you may already have such a program on your computer.  I seem to remember reading that Windows Media Player could convert files (but I'm not sure about that).

Many of us use dBpoweramp.  It costs about $50 or £30, but it is very handy and works very well.

There is another, less convenient way to get MP3 versions of your FLAC files on the B2.  But it takes a LONG time, and the MP3 files are only 128k resolution (personally, I don't have the patience ;o).  If you want know more about that option, just ask, and someone will be along to explain it.

I see that I didn't tell you how to transfer the FLAC files.  Please let us know how you would like to proceed and more information will be coming.  In the meantime, you can learn an enormous amount about the B2 by reading on their website:   www.brennan.co.uk

[Richard Brook]

Hi Terry

I’ve had this issue too. The easiest way is to mirror the FLAC files already stored on your B2. This creates a MP3 file for each track, and you can then export them to a USB stick. I wanted to transfer some files on to a stick to use in my car and it worked. The only problem is that the B2 takes a long time to process the mirror files, so if you have a lot of tracks already stored, it may take a while. Going forward I changed the ripping settings to FLAC/MP3. 

Take a look here. 

https://thebrennan.com/blogs/how-to-guides/creating-and-using-mp3-mirror-files

Hope that helps. 

Best Regards. Richard.  

[Terry Beech]

Hi Daniel and Richard,

Thank you very much for your replies. Yes Richard, that is exactly what I'm trying to do, Create a USB stick to play in the car. When You say you changed the settings, can you rip in both FLAC and MP3 at the same time? I will look into the mirroring. I've already been backing my files up to an external USB HDD. I'll let you know how I get on.

[Terry Beech]

Hi again,  Having just read the link you posted about mirroring Richard , i hadn't realised that you could compress in both FLAC & MP3  at the same time. I was so excited to get going I just used the quick start guide. I have so far ripped and compressed just over 8,500 tracks and I'm about half way through my collection. I purchased the 500Gb version and I'm not sure that if I mirror I will have enough disk space. I've used 185Gb so far.

Regards, Terry.

[Richard Brook]

Hi Terry

What I meant is, you need to change the compression settings. So if I rip a new CD now it will create both a FLAC file and also a mirrored MP3 file for each track. I didn’t know about the mirroring function either until I’d ripped and compressed almost 9,000 tracks as FLAC, so it took a long time to get them all mirrored and available to transfer to a USB stick as MP3 files. So it sounds like your in a similar position to me, but once it’s done it doesn’t need doing again. I used to dim the display, and let it do it overnight, as suggested in the link. Not entirely sure about the memory requirements as I bought the largest capacity available, but I think the mirror files only require a fraction of the space the FLAC files use, so hopefully you’ll be ok memory wise. 

Best Regards

Richard 

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Terry,

I have run your collection figures through my 'Estimator' spreadsheet and have got some figures for you to consider.

These figures assume that you will have about 17,000 tracks when you have completed ripping your collection.

17,000 tracks in '.flac' format will require about 350GB of disk space.
17,000 tracks in '.mp3' (as mirror files) will require about a further 55GB of disk space.

So you should have sufficient space for both formats.

There are some facts that you should be aware of, but I am travelling at the moment so I'll update you later on.

Regards,

Peter.

[Daniel Taylor]

One small point:  The B2 does not convert to FLAC and MP3 at the same time.  It waits until all the files have been converted to FLAC and then it starts on converting the FLAC files to MP3.  If all the previously ripped CDs have already been converted, then getting the MP3 versions won't take as long as it might otherwise.

Once you have all the MP3 files you want, you can use the Export MP3s command on the Playlist menu to copy all or selected MP3s.

[Terry Beech]

Hi, Many thanks to all of you, you’ve been a great help. So, I’ve stopped ripping for a while, I’ve changed the settings to flac+mp3 , I’ve dimmed down the display and I’ve now started a Compress Now which seems to be compressing my flac files to mp3’s. I’ll just leave it now until it’s all done. One thing, when I do a backup to an external USB hard disk will it copy all the mp3’s From the mirror as well?

Many thanks and regards, Terry.

[PMB]

Hi Terry,

I don't think the 'mirror' folders are backed up - but someone may correct me.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Ray Dion]

The mirror files are not copied as part of an export. This is part of the How-To guides on the Brennan website:  Creating and Using MP3 Mirror Files – thebrennan

Additional Information Notes

1.  During the period that the Mirror files are initially being created you can use the 'Export MP3' function to create USB mp3 playlists.  If the B2 has not yet created a particular Mirror folder, the B2 just moves on to the next playlist item.

2.  The ‘Export’ function does NOT save the ‘mirror’ files, because these files can be recreated from the 'flac+mp3' compression option.  Therefore if you run an ‘Export’ to a USB device, then format the B2's HDD and then ‘Import’ from the USB device, the ‘.mirror’ files will have to be recreated.  So if you want to save the ‘mirror’ files you will need to make an arrangement to save the ‘mirror’ files; this can be achieved through a number of options including the following.

• 1. Use the Playlist > Export mp3 option to export the all of the mp3 files to a USB device.
• 2. Use a replication/mirroring software product, such as ‘robocopy’ or similar through a NAS connection to your PC/Mac, which will replicate all of the files from the B2, including the ‘mirror’ folders.

Ray

[Eccles]

Just a thought...... Many cars these days can play flac files from a memory stick. Have you tried this to definitely establish that you need the extra MP3 files?

Apologies if you've already tried it.

[Ray Dion]

Then you can save a step and not create mp3s. My car is 2009 so I won't be testing it. MP3 could also be used in phones, smart pads, ear buds and iPod type devices, same rules would apply. Those devices probably have more storage issues since memory sticks don't typically apply.

Memory sticks are large enough to get sufficient music on the memory stick and you could have multiple memory sticks in the car so FLAC should work fine. 

MP3 has the advantage of put all of on one stick because the files are hugely smaller. My concern would be the sun and heat in the car may cause havoc with the memory sticks, smaller is cheaper and replaced with less pain. I live in Hawaii so the sun is clearly an issue here.

My personal opinion is that with all the car and traffic noise around the difference in fidelity would be hard to hear. Some ears (not mine) will probably hear it. Just have to decide what is good enough for you. When I finally get everything tagged and situated in my collection, I will probably create the mp3 library and just keep it on the computer to be managed for my portables. I do not see a need to add it to the B2 except to create a backup. I'll create it off my B2 FLAC backup. It will give me incentive to keep it current! It is completely your choice.

[Terry Beech]

Hi to all of you who have taken the time and trouble to reply to me. You have all been extremely helpful. I didn't know that the B2 could produce MP3's as well as FLAC, i thought from the documentation that I had read that it was an either/or option.

Regarding documentation, until you guys pointed me to it I had no idea that there was a .COM site, the only Brennan site that I had seen was the grey and turquoise .CO.UK site. This site has lots of documentation, but for a new user it is very confusing as there are references to several models and not all commands are the same. I'm sure there is a link to the .COM site somewhere but I didn't find it. Thank you all so much.

Just for interest, at the time of me first asking my question I had ripped and compressed around 8,700 tracks into FLAC. Once I had read all your replies I stopped ripping, turned on the FLAC+MP3 option and then just left it to start creating the MP3's. That was nearly 5 days ago and so far its created nearly 1,900 MP3's. So as you said, not very quick but at least I'm getting there thanks to you all.

Just one more query Ray, you mention backing up the MP3's via the NAS option, which I have now turned on by the way, But the MP3 files seem to be hidden when I look at the MUSIC folder on my laptop. Am I doing something wrong or have I not switched an option on do you think?

Thank you and very best regards, Terry.

[Terry Beech]

P.S. Forget the NAS question Ray, I've just answered it myself. I just didn't understand the conversion structure of the files and I've now discovered the .MIRROR folders. I couldn't find them before as there were very few but I'm understanding it more now. I'm thinking that backing up my whole library via NAS might be the better option, although maybe slower and not incremental, but I'll have a play. Many thanks.

[Ray Dion]

Glad you are making progress!! Let me make a few notes for you and we can go into more detail if you wish. They get more complicated as you go down the list. I'll try to just describe why I think it is important. It's long.

Background, I have owned the B2 for about 5 months and ripped about 900 CDs. Wife just bought 20 more so I have more to do.

Web Site: On the .com vs .uk.co websites. I had exactly the opposite problem, I found the .com website on Google and was happily going on. Then I noticed a discrepancy between what was in the forum and what I saw on the website and figured out the difference! The .co.uk website is the more updated website. Recommend you use that first. Most of the information about how-tos and answers to questions you will find on the left side of the page after you click on "Questions" at the top of the page. Those menus are under the "B2" in the .com site that I found. I posted this to the forum about a week ago!!! Very timely.

BACKUP on NAS: There is a windows program called ROBOCOPY. This will make incremental backups. It works via your NAS setup. So what I do is run the program periodically and copy from the B2 Music directory to a 2TB USB disk I have connected to my computer. You can run it every night if you wish and if no changes are made it will just end, once a week is probably sufficient unless you did a lot of work on a particular day. This is a description I found on goggle:

Robocopy is a robust file copying program built into Windows similar to UNIX rsync. It is a much better method of copying large datasets or lots of files across volumes and is a great tool for backing up data. It has the ability to resume copies if interrupted, various options and logging during copying.

MP3 Files: So on the generation of MP3 files, I am retired and play my B2 a lot. Anytime it is in use the conversion stops. I did not understand this at first and left my PC connected to the web page that actually prevented WAV >> FLAC conversions. When I finally did understand it took days to get the 4000+ files caught up to flac only. I do better now. But if MP3 was even slower than FLAC, I really did not want to go there. While my ears are made of tin and I don't truly hear details I could probably get away with using any MP3 file but I am also an engineer so I don't want to throw away my options. 

MP3 format is what they call a lossy compression, some of the information in the music is lost in the conversion process. Once lost it is gone. You still have flac files which is lossless compression so you have it. MP3 files also have different levels of loss based on your selection. What the loss may mean to you is the music becomes muddled or you lose some of the detail (cymbal crashes or other similar events). My logic is that if I am in the car or outside, there is a lot of other noised around me so the listening environment is poor and the detail may be lost anyway. It is a personal choice.

MP3 files have the great advantage of being smaller so moving them to MP3 players, pads and autos works great since many of those don't play FLAC files. It is good to have MP3 copies.

Here are some things I have considered.

MP3 Resolution: If you want  to have higher resolution MP3, convert on your computer. There are many programs out there that can do this for you. Some are free. One program that many like is called dBpoweramp. It has a 21 day free trial period. The program can generate MP3 at different resolutions much faster than the B2. It will still take a while but not weeks. I would create a pretty good sized block of files and then let it run over night. You can also configure it to create the same .mirror file structure. So I used a copy of my backup, created all of the mp3 then I can do a robocopy back to the B2! Run SCAN DISK anytime you do changes via the NAS interface. Since I create all my MP3s on the computer, I really don't have any reason to copy them back to the B2 except to create a backup. I will manage them from the computer. 

That is my preference. You can manage playlists and MP3 entirely on the B2 and create your custom MP3 libraries on the B2 if you wish.

TAGS: It seems most MP3 players use the 'TAG" features of the music files to obtain title and other information about the music. The B2 uses the file structure only. It ignores tags. This means that the MP3 files directly from the B2 may not meet your desires. I say that because the B2 only populates a few tags (Title, Artist, Album, track number, Length and Album Artist) useful but you can do better.

There are numerous databases out there that can provide additional information. The B2 uses one to fill in its data. I use MusicBrainz-Picard to add information. I like this for a couple of reasons. It can take the coverart and put it into the music files and adds additional information. The title is where I like the improvements. It drops the track number from the title (does not change the file name so B2 still works the same way). It may also provide better track names on compilations. I like to see the artist - Title format. I bought way to many compilations! MusicBrainz (free CD database) also seems to allow me to create a 'collection'. Have not figured out how to do it in bulk but if I can, a complete inventory of my CDs would be nice and smart for insurance purposes. I currently have a separate program on my iPad for this. My collection was stolen some 30 years ago and that was when my collection was small. I don't want to lose it again. Insurance won't replace the data on the B2 but they will replace my CDs! I have to be able to prove I owned them, this is that list.

Again, we can discuss further if you wish.

I am tagging all of my FLAC files, not the MP3. After I complete the tagging I will copy them back to the B2. Then I will then create the MP3s on the computer. If I ever need to, I can always recreate the MP3 without all the work. Still some hangups in my process but it is work in progress.

Ray

[Terry Beech]

Hi Ray,

That's really great and very useful to me, and explains a lot too. I've tried not to rip many more CD's until the B2 catches up creating all the MP3's. which is going to take weeks at the rate that it's going.

By the way, I too am retired and I'm an ex-engineer in the IT industry (was, it's surprising how fast technology moves along when you're retired). I am aware of ROBOCOPY  and have used it in the past. I also used to use a tool called VLC Media Player, of which I've just downloaded the latest copy - and its FREE open source. It can do just about anything you would want to do with media. I've been playing around and have converted a few FLAC files into both 192Kb & 256Kb MP3's. It works great. Just copied the FLAC files over using NAS. It's about a zillion times faster that the B2 too so I may well turn off the FLAC+MP3 option and just convert tracks / albums that I want to play in the car, which was the reason for my initial post.

Regarding TAGS, I read on the .CO.UK site that a list of the albums and tracks in a playlist could be created as a text file but I think this may refer to the B7 model. Do you know if this can be done on the B2?  

The ONE thing that's missing on the B2 is a GENRE field. My collection is really diverse and it would help me enormously to be able to divide up my music by Genre. How could this be created on the B2 apart from creating many playlists? Do you have any ideas??

Thank you and best regards, Terry.

[Terry Beech]

P.S. Sorry I forgot to mention, Yes i would also be interested in producing a master list of all my CD's, I'm not sure of the exact number yet but it's well in excess of 1000, many of which are Compilations as you. My collection spans 40 years and I've bought CD's in different countries, so many would be irreplaceable. Once I've ripped all my CD's I'm then going to start on all my vinyl, I bought a USB record deck some time ago with the initial idea of converting everything to MP3, that's before the B2 came along. I'd be very interested in talking more about tagging.

Best regards, Terry.

[Daniel Taylor]

You can get a text file listing of all your playlists by using the Save Playlists command (Playlist menu).

And a text file listing all your music (in the order it was loaded on the B2) by using the  b2db to USB C command (Maintenance menu).

[JFBUK]

Hi Terry,

tagging can be a big topic but there is a lot of knowledge available from users on this forum.

The thing to note is that the B2 does not make much active use of tags even if the ripped music file has them, this includes the Genre tag.

If you rip a CD on the B2 then if the B2 finds the CD in the Musicbrainz database then it will add the tags it finds there.

The Musicbrainz database is mainly populated by the public so uploaded info so can vary in accuracy and completeness

The B2 does not offer any visibility of the tagging information of files on the HDD so you would need a computer to view this.

There are some tag functions on the B2 but they are slow and not configurable so a computer is best to do this using 

appropriate software.

A lot of software will allow you rename tracks using the values of tags so this is something that can be exploited.

e.g.

I use dBpoweramp to rip my CDs and I configure it to add the artist name to the track name

01 Line in the Dust [Bruce Hornsby].flac

particularly useful for compilation albums when playing  on the B2 to see the artist name in the scrolling front panel.

If you have particular questions about tagging I suggest you start a new thread to post your questions so they don't get subsumed by an existing thread

John

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Terry,

You were asking about getting a master list of your CDs.  There is a function in the Brennan that produces a test file of exactly that to a USB stick in the USB C port. 

From the front panel, select 'Settings' --> ''Maintenance' --> 'List Albums'

There is another useful function 'Settings' --> ''Maintenance' --> 'b2db to USB C' which lists every artist, album and tracks.  This is a copy of the B2's internal database, so it is a good function to run if you think that there is something strange happening in the B2.

I normally would run these together, and then I use 'Notepad++' to look at the output.

Regards,

Peter.

[Terry Beech]

Thank you Daniel, John and Peter. It makes things so much easier when people explain things rather than blindly trawling through the website. Personally I don’t find the Google search facility on the site very useful. Being able to list my albums and library is very useful and exactly what I was wanting to do.

However, HELP! , I did a scan disk a couple of nights ago and then decided to rip a few more CD’s. I read earlier in this thread from someone who said that the B2 compresses all the WAV files first before it starts on the MP3’s.  Mine is compressing MP3’s but it’s showing that there are still 600 odd WAV files waiting. Have I done something wrong? Any help gratefully accepted.

I will at some point probably do as you suggest John and start a new thread about tagging.

Many thanks & regards, Terry.

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

Hi Terry,

When you rip a CD it is stored on the B2 as a WAV format file.

If you have compression turned on, then when compression starts (when Compress Now is selected or the B2 is idle), then the compression starts.

As compression proceeds, one at a time, a WAV file is taken and compressed into the format selected (with the same name but new extension). Once the compression of that file is completed the WAV version is deleted.

The B2's compression selection ONLY works on a WAV source, except for the FLAC+MP3 option which will subsequently go through all FLAC files and make a hidden (from the B2 interfaces) MP3 copy of the FLAC files without deleting the FLAC original.

Fred.

[Terry Beech]

Hi Fred,  thanks for replying.  Sorry I didn’t explain it very well. Through this thread I’ve learnt that there is a FLAC+MP3 option. I didn’t know this previously. I had ripped around 8,500 tracks to FLAC before I turned this on, at which time I hadn’t any WAV files waiting to be compressed. When I turned this on the B2 started mirroring and creating MP3’s.  I subsequently ripped some more CD’s and now have over 600 WAV files uncompressed. The B2 however now says that it’s compressing MP3’s - compressing not mirroring. The WAV files are not being compressed. What has happened?

Terry.

[Ray Dion]

How are you determining that the WAV files are not being compressed? Is the number of WAV files staying the same after you do SCAN DISK?

For the rest of this post, I am assuming that the display is correct and you are compressing files into MP3s. 

My first step would be to verify that your Compression is set to FLAC or FLAC+MP3. Just to be sure. If it is a correct reboot (press and hold the Play/Stop button till saving appears on the screen, when it is gone, turn the box off for 30 seconds and reboot.). Then see if things change.

Then I might assume the wording on the display is inaccurate. Using NAS I would look at some of the directories/albums that you have added and see if all of the files in those directories are either WAV (not converted yet), FLAC (correctly converted) or MP3 (converted from WAV to MP3). In the last case if your setting was correct (FLAC / FLAC+MP3) would be a real head scratcher. An assumption on my part if you set compression to MP3 128K or MP3 256K that no FLAC file will exist. Sounds like you added 50 or 60 CDs (10 tracks per CD for 600 WAV files) so it might take you some time to find a directory that does not have only WAV files in it. You could also create a new album and track list as above and search that.

While these checks sound like "Is it plugged in?" we all know that sometimes the simplest of things mess us up.

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

Hi Terry

The compression options are as here

As I said ALL music from a CD is initially stored as (WAV)

No compression causes it to remain as (WAV)

HOWEVER

If you select (MP3) or (FLAC) - AT ANY TIME, then all (WAV) files will be converted to the selected choice.

and the MP3 and FLAC files will appear in the B2's interfaces.

Once you have FLAC files in your collection, then if you select (FLAC+MP3), then a NEW (Hidden form the B2's interfaces) MP3 COPY of these FLAC files will be made.

I not certain that WAV files can be converted directly to (FLAC + (hidden MP3)) in one go, I THINK you have to create the FLAC version first then select the FLAC+MP3 compression.

Fred

[PMB]

Hi Terry,

When using FLAC+MP3, I think for Tracks that are already compressed to FLAC, the B2 makes a copy of the FLAC file, converts it back to WAV and then converts from WAV to MP3 (that's why it so slow). So these 'WAVs' should disappear when the mirror MP3 process is completed.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Terry Beech]

Paul, Thank you, that would seem to be what is happening. From what you've said it could be weeks before everything is compressed and mirrored, and that's without me ripping any more CD's

Ray, Just to confirm, my determination of the problem was that instead of showing on the front panel "Compressing FLAC 1 of xxxx" which is what I would have expected to see it was showing "Compressing MP3 1 of xxxx".  However there were still 628 WAV files that hadn't been converted yet. When I first turned on FLAC+MP3 there were no outstanding WAV files and so it started MIRRORING and stated so on the front panel.

After I ripped some more CD's (I was getting impatient) it started compressing MP3's.

I've done what you suggested Ray, switched off and on and rebooted. Once it was ready I pressed INFO and it said as follows:

9286 Tracks in 503 Albums 166 Artists.

628 WAV files, 8657 FLAC, 1 MP3 (which I loaded in as an MP3 from a USB stick days ago) 2234 Mirrored

I checked to make sure of the compression settings and it is definitely set to FLAC+MP3.

I then pressed Compress Now and the display changed to Compressing FLAC 1 of 7051

Within seconds the display changed to Compressing MP3 1 of 7051

I am definitely Confused.com

Regards Terry.

[Terry Beech]

Well I’ve just looked across NAS as Ray suggested and all of the CD’s that I ripped 2 nights ago are still sitting as WAV files, so to me that confirms Paul’s hypothesis.

Terry.

On Wednesday, 6 April 2022 at 15:33:13 UTC+1 Daniel Taylor wrote:

I suspect that the display message is simply old and should be updated to reflect which filetype is being generated.  My understanding is that the B2 will not resume generating the mirrored MP3 files until it has completed compressing the WAV files to FLAC.

[PMB]

Hi Terry,

FLAC+MP3 is fine if set from the start of ripping but perhaps not so good done retrospectively. You'll just need to be patient while the B2 converts the FLAC files to MP3 (via WAV).

Adding more CDs will only make the 'waiting to be compressed' queue longer.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Richard Brook]

Hi again Terry

Glad you’ve been able to make some solid progress resolving your issue. This forum is great, a veritable font of knowledge. 

As you know from my previous comments I was in exactly the same position as you last year, having ripped around 9,000 tracks to my B2 before I became aware of the MP3 function and the mirroring process. Like you, I left it as the FLAC default, and got on with ripping away! But when I exported a play list to a USB stick for use it my car, the files were unreadable. 

Late in the mirroring process I had a few glitches, as about 100 of the FLAC files seemed to be corrupted, possibly due to maybe track designation with weird characters, and the B2 kept failing to mirror them, and got stuck. Even now, I’m still not sure why this happened. After I tracked down the offending tracks and deleted them, eventually the number of FLAC files matched the number of MP3s mirrored, which is what I thought should happen when it was all finished. 

I reckon the whole process took about six weeks, so as I pointed out, it really is a slow burner. I also deliberately avoided ripping any new music to my B2 until the process was complete.

Hope that helps a bit

Best Regards

Richard 

[Terry Beech]

Hi Richard et al,

Yes absolutely, this forum has been invaluable to me and I suspect many other newbies.

Anyway, cracked the problem, I think. It's exactly as Paul says. I turned off FLAC+MP3 and went back to just FLAC. The B2 immediately started compressing the WAV  files from the new CD's that I had ripped. Turned FLAC+MP3 back on and it immediately went back to compressing MP3's. So I've now switched back to just FLAC until I've ripped my whole CD collection.  Many thanks to all of you for all your help.

Terry.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Terry,

The way that the B2 works is that when it is powered up and any mode of compression is set then the B2 will start at the physical beginning of the B2's music directory and will just work its way through the music folders looking for files to compress.

The physical order of the music folder is the order in which you loaded and ripped the CDs originally.

So, in your case, you had 'flac' compression running and ripped about 8,500 tracks.  Then you switched compression to 'flac+mp3' and continued to rip more albums.

This means that the B2 will pick up the first ripped folders and is now generating 'mirror' folders in the order that you ripped them.  It also means that the latest albums that you have ripped will be stored as 'wav' files until the B2 has 'caught up' with itself.

While the B2 is generating mp3 files from the flac files that are already there, it should run at about 18 tracks per hour or 430  tracks per day (24 hour day).

Regarding the confusion while reading the B2 messages, 

"I checked to make sure of the compression settings and it is definitely set to FLAC+MP3.

I then pressed Compress Now and the display changed to Compressing FLAC 1 of 7051

Within seconds the display changed to Compressing MP3 1 of 7051"

The B2 was behaving correctly.  With 'flac+mp3' compression enabled, the B2 picks up the 'wav' file and then generates the mp3 version.  It then creates the 'flac' version and when this is complete, the B2 selects the next 'wav' track and will repeat the above process.

So you will see alternate ''flac' and 'mp3' compression messages with this option.   The mp3 tends to take about 3 minutes per track whereas the flac track takes a bit over a minute per track.

Regards,

Peter.

On Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 11:59:33 UTC+1 rbro...@gmail.com wrote:

[Daniel Taylor]

I now understand that the B2 does NOT finish converting to FLAC before it then adds the mirrored MP3 files.  So I have deleted my earlier comment that said otherwise.

[Terry Beech]

Hi Peter,

Thank you very much for your explanation. I had more or less come to a similar conclusion but you have explained it in a much better way.

Thank you everyone for all your help. I don't sup[pose that I will be adding anything else to this thread. If I get stuck again I will start a new one.

Thank you all and best regards, Terry.