Newbie Questions

[happymedium27]

First off…

I've had my b2 for about a week now and I'm loving it. I do have a couple of basic questions that I couldn't find obvious answers for on the Brennan website though. But since the Brennan community has been so helpful thus far, I decided to reach out again.

First, is it fair to assume that I should leave my dedicated 2TB backup drive disconnected from the b2 unless I'm actually backing up music files? The interface seems less confusing and cluttered without the double copies of everything...

Is it fair to assume that if I want artists/bands to appear in the main list in alphabetical order, I need to enter them "last name, first name" and bands like "The Church" should be entered "Church, The" otherwise I'd need to wade through countless bands whose names begin with "The"?

Does the b2 only sort alphabetically? That seems fine in the main "browser" but its kind of annoying when I click on a band and all the albums are sorted alphabetically vs. by the year they were released. Is there any way to do that?

Are there any plans afoot to allow users to add other useful info about an album - like the year it was released or maybe the producer's name?

Is there a limit to how many playlists you can create?

What is the significance of the 7-color color scheme?

I have a usb cd drive that I've tested with the b2 and it seems to work fine. My question is it all just 1's and 0's or does the quality of the drive the b2 rips from matter? Is the b2's drive any better or worse than the Logitech USB drive I have?

Lastly, does anyone have any good recommendations for radio stations? I'm partial to new British/Irish/Scottish bands, 70's, 80's and Prog rock.

Thanks everybody! It's been fantastic getting to know you AND my awesome new gear.

Cheers,

John

[John Alexander]

John

I'm another newbie but from you say I think your suggested naming convention makes sense. The additional info you want to add. IMHO. is best handled by MP3 Tags. The B2 only deals with a small subset of the possible tags that can be added to a single track. I and and others have requested that this piece of functionality is improved so please add your voice to this request. On the subject of MP3 Tags there is an application called MP3TAG which is free so you may want to use it to organise your collection on you PC/Mac and then reload it to the B2.

On the subject of radio stations, have a look at  Exclusive Radio | News Free, Commercial Free, Listen Free you should find something you like there. Radio Caroline Flashback might also be of interest.

Good luck!

John

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

HI john,

I can sort of help with some of your questions.

First, is it fair to assume that I should leave my dedicated 2TB backup drive disconnected from the b2 unless I'm actually backing up music files? The interface seems less confusing and cluttered without the double copies of everything...

I don't think most of us would keep our backup drive connected except when we needed it to do something. It is a drain on the B2's power resources and not good (long term) for the 2TB drive.

Is it fair to assume that if I want artists/bands to appear in the main list in alphabetical order, I need to enter them "last name, first name" and bands like "The Church" should be entered "Church, The" otherwise I'd need to wade through countless bands whose names begin with "The"?

Yes, But do not overlook the B2's search function which is super quick at finding stuff -its only human that need ordered lists!

Does the b2 only sort alphabetically? That seems fine in the main "browser" but its kind of annoying when I click on a band and all the albums are sorted alphabetically vs. by the year they were released. Is there any way to do that?

Yes - but again if you have the date as part of the file name text the search function will find it.

Are there any plans afoot to allow users to add other useful info about an album - like the year it was released or maybe the producer's name?

I don't know what may be added in the future, this sort of metadata information is held in tags, at the moment the B2 does nothing with tags.

Is there a limit to how many playlists you can create?

I do recall something about this but I cant recall, someone else will be able to help.

What is the significance of the 7-color color scheme?

If you mean the playlists, this is historical - at one point one could not generate playlists ones self (ie your named playlists) and these were the "fixed" ones provided..... I believe they are kept (and generated by the B2) for legacy reasons. 

I have a usb cd drive that I've tested with the b2 and it seems to work fine. My question is it all just 1's and 0's or does the quality of the drive the b2 rips from matter? Is the b2's drive any better or worse than the Logitech USB drive I have?

The CD drive in the B2 is nothing special, it is just a standard home computer unit under the 'hood". A CD is just 1's and 0's and the quality of the music on it is determined by the CD's sampling bitrate. Any functioning CD reader should be fine.

The B2 makes a faithful digital copy of whats on the CD.

Lastly, does anyone have any good recommendations for radio stations? I'm partial to new British/Irish/Scottish bands, 70's, 80's and Prog rock.

Not my area of knowledge

Fred

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

Hi John,

Regarding analysis of your music - look at this thread

lookhttps://groups.google.com/g/brennanb2/c/a28Ywr2OtN0

 Fred

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Hi John, if you put the year of release in front of the Album title when you select an artist, the albums will be shown in chronological order in the top right hand Artist window using the original UI. You can edit the Album name in the UI by double-clicking the album in that window. A rename box will open up. Morow Prog Radio might interest you.

[PMB]

Hi John,

To echo what's already been said -

The backup drive only needs to be connected to do a backup.

'The Church' will be listed under 'T', so best to edit it to 'Church, The'

You can turn alpha sorting off (Settings menu).

You can add the date to the Album name as Leslie shows. BTW he uses the - 01 - Track naming convention so the Track number is shown in the Now Playing panel (top left hand corner).

It appears the max number of playlists is 60 (if this has changed I'm sure someone will tell us) with 5,000 items per playlist

The 7 colour buttons are for the first seven Playlists and allow them to be easily selected from the remote controller. You can rename them but not delete them - you can clear them but the name then reverts back to the original colour.

The external CD Drive, providing it works with the B2, will not affect the audio quality. It may rip faster though.

Paul

Brennan Support.