B2

[Janice Evans]

Hello, I am not a technical person at all and did not realise what I was buying when I got my B2 last November. I bought it on the advice of a techie friend who set it up for me and downloaded a bunch of songs from a hard drive. It played beautifully.

Looking at the forum I don’t understand many of the questions let alone the answers

Then I added a Sonos speaker and nothing has worked properly since.

When I attempt to play an album now it only plays the first track then stops.

Other times it plays the first track downstairs then the second track upstairs on the Sonos, then stops.

Sometimes it plays a different random tune from the hard disk which I haven’t asked for!

I have asked the Brennan to forget the Sonos but That hasn’t worked.

It’s obvious to me that this probably isn’t the correct kit for a technophobe like me but I bought the one with a lot of capacity and would like to get to grips with it somehow. Is there anyone out there that may have some idea what is going on please? I would be most grateful.

[Daniel Taylor]

It's too bad that you happened to get a B2 that has a problem.  It sounds to me like the problem is that the internal SD card, upon which is the operating software, has become corrupt - either the software or the physical card itself.  (Probably nothing to do with Sonos.)  Because you describe yourself as a technophobe, I'm guessing that you won't want to take tha back off to get at the card, much less try to reprogram the card or replace it.  Let's wait until tomorrow morning when Paul (from Brennan) checks in, and see how he want's to handle it.  Or if you prefer, we can walk you through the process of trying to fix it yourself.

[PMB]

Hi Janice,

To help us understand what's going on, please supply a little more detail.

I assume the B2 played OK pre Sonos. How was it set up i.e. do you have speakers connected to the B2, use the Line Out to an existing amplifier, Bluetooth out, etc?

How do you control what's played - front panel, remote, web UI etc?

Sonos - Are you using the B2 to play music to Sonos or are you using the Sonos app? It sounds like you are using the B2 as you mention 'Forget Sonos' which is a B2 function.

The B2 sends music to the Sonos system which adds the music to it's queuing system and then Sonos will do it's best to play everything in the queue. This can on occasions cause unexpected results and you need to clear the 'queue' using the Sonos app.

I have noticed that 'Forget Sonos', using the front control, doesn't sometimes work first time but usually clears them second try. So run it twice. That should get the B2 back to playing to it's own outputs again.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Janice Evans]

Thanks for getting back to me Paul. The Brennan is using the dongle, is wired to speakers, downstairs. I’m not sure if it was playing ok before the Sonos. That is I would get up an album I wanted to play and it would play and be shown on the left hand of my screen but on the right hand side of the page other random albums and artists would appear and I couldn’t get rid of them. Is that normal?

Almost as if something is going on in the background all the time.

I only have an iPad. When I connected the Sonos I lost the web ui on my iPad and could only find artists using the browse icon on the other page that shows when music is playing. The front of the Brennan was blank and I wasn’t connected with the IP number that comes up. I tried rescanning for the IP address and couldn’t get it.

Then (and I’m afraid this happens a lot) I did something but I can’t remember what it was..and the Brennan reconnected to the IP address and I got the WebUI page again on my iPad. However playing the music isn’t the same. I only get one or two tracks from the album playing.

However this am I twiddled the knob on the Brennan (don’t ask what I was doing) and some albums are playing all the way through now on the Sonos upstairs, after I turned it back on at the plug. Should I still do what you advised?

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

Hi Janice,

Lets see if we can help you a bit

Here is an image of my Brennan B2 Web UI (the original version) as seen in the web browser of my PC. You say you use an iPad which is fine, you would get this screen up for you B2 in your "safari" application. Type in the IP number for your B2 in the position I have highlighted in yellow. NOTE you IP number will not be exactly the same as mine, use the one that appears on the front of your B2 after it boots up (starts).

This screen looks a bit daunting but bear with me :-)

I have divided it up with yellow numbered boxes into making 5 regions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - we will call these regions 5 panes (as in window panes).

We will go into what you can do IN each of the panes later but for now just lets see what they are showing

Pane 1

this shows what the B2 is currently playing. (Artist/Album/Track)

Pane 2

We will ignore this pane for now.

Pane 3

This shows information about ALL the music you have on the B2 (currently by "Artist")

Pane 4 

Shows all the Albums (CDs) you have belonging to the particular Artist (chosen using Pane 3)

Pane 5

Shows information about the tracks belonging to the particular Album (CD) (chosen using Pane 4)

The important thing to note is that once you have got some music playing in Pane1, you can use the other Panes to select what you may wish to play next without affecting what is being played UNLESS you click on one of the little white triangles. If you do this you will switch immediately to playing that selection.

If you have been using the other Panes and want to see what is being played at any time, just click near the "Artist" in Pane 1 and the other Panes 4 and 5 will switch to the current Artist and Album.

OK, we will leave it there for the moment - tell me if what I have shown you so far is useful and you would like to go further into using the Panes of the Web UI.

Regards

Fred

[Janice Evans]

Dear Fred,

Thank you so much for going to this trouble. Please bear with me as I look this over. I’m not a complete ‘bird’ brain and was doing fine pre Sonos. I had not realised I was buying a computer so I was not treating it as such. I’ll get back to you.

[Mark Brooks]

Fred:  I also found this very helpful.  I had figured out most of these UI features by trial and error, although I would still be interested in what you were going to say about your Pane 2. . . .

Meanwhile I have experienced a couple of issues after I installed a set of Sonos speakers.   Everything still works fine with the Brennan (wired) speakers, but when I switch the system to my Sonos speakers, (1) the B2 will not play playlists FROM the track or album I select; instead it will start playing from the first album/track on the playlist and then straight through.  (2) On Sonos, the system will not play randomly, regardless of how many times I toggle the random play button.  This is true whether I am trying to play from playlists or if I select an album from the music library (your Pane 3).

As I said, the system plays both playlists and randomly as designed with the original Brennan speaker set up - just not the Sonos speakers.  Is this normal or is there something I need to fix?

BTW I don't know if this is a UI problem or if Sonos just doesn't support these two features.  I mostly use the B2 app and not the SONOS app, if that matters.

I will be grateful for any insights from anyone.

MB

[john.h...@gmail.com]

Hi 

The b2 just queues the songs to Sonos speakers and they will only play in the order sent unless you go into the Sonos app and select random play 

[Janice Evans]

Fred

OMG! I’ve had a million emails in my inbox (from the forum) and they all sound as if they are from astronauts!

Anyway…same as Markbro I had gotten to grips with the display to some extent. I don’t type in the IP address (though I have recorded the numbers on my iPad in case I lose them again) as I have the Brennan App which takes me to the Web UI. I have not tried the last bit switching the artist in pane 1 to 4 and 5. I will try that tomorrow am. I have by mistake pressed the small white arrow relating to another artist and that starts playing but I knew that was my doing and wasn’t confused just annoyed at my actions.

What I have been doing since my problem started is pressing on the small white triangle against the artist in Pane 4.

The artist/album then appears in pane 1 and starts to play. Once the first  song is finished it doesn’t play the rest of the album. Prior to my issues the whole album played.

I have to go back and play each track separately by pressing on the corresponding triangle in pane 5.

Sometimes they don’t play at all!

This morning the whole first album didn’t play all the way through to start with (on the Sonos) but I persevered and then it seemed to get what I wanted it to do and played the rest….. but I can’t control it permanently through telepathy. The next album played twice through, I read today on the forum  that the Sonos stores your requests and I possibly pressed play twice on the web ui. I do find it disconcerting that although you press for the Brennan to do something the reaction is slow and there is no indication that it is going to do what you have told it to. You can’t tell it has understood your command (do you know what I mean)?

I operate the Sonos from the Brennan App not the Sonos app.

Hope this assists in your unravelling of my probs.

[Daniel Taylor]

Hi Janice,

I don't see any connection between having started with Sonos and your current problems.  I think it was just a coincidence.  If you run the Forget Sonos command (Settings menu) and the problems still remain, I think that will rule out Sonos as being related.

My money is still on the SD card being corrupted.  As your B2 is still under warranty, if you contact Brennan and ask for a replacement SD card, I'm sure they will send it (or, if you are in the US, they'll make appropriate arrangements).  Write to thebrennanb2 @ gmail . com (no spaces).

[Mark Brooks]

Yes that makes sense and I see that now.  Shuttle play works fine if you go in through the Sonos app.

My system still won't let me start at the particular artist or album that I select when using playlists, EXCEPT if the first track I pick in the playlist happens to be a song or an album, in which case it will start there - but not if it is an artist (i.e., with numerous albums by that artist grouped there).  In that case SONOS just loads the entire playlist in the queue and plays from the beginning.  I assume that's something I could also sort out in the Sonos app, but it's too much trouble and it's a minor glitch that I can happily live with. . . .

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

Hi Janice and MB,

Well there seems to be some interest in me continuing to explain the Brennan Web UI  (Its going to be a marathon, there is a lot that the UI can do but I will break it all down into little steps)

The Next bit I want to look at is Pane 3

As you can see have have drawn boxes round areas in the window and I will explain what you can do in these in turn :-

Starting with the White box round 10cc.  If you click WITHIN the sensitive area that this box defines (sort of :-)), this will cause Pane 4 to be populated by the albums you have for that artist (10cc) - there will be no change to what the Be is or is not playing.

If you click on the little white triangle beside 10cc circled in fuchsia, this will IMMEDIATLEY cause the B2 to start playing the First track of the First 10cc album in the list. AND the B2 will continue to play all the tracks in that album THEN move on to the Next 10cc album in the list - ie all the music for that Artist.

NOTE clicking on the white triangle will NOT change or update the content of Panes 4 and 5 (like clicking in the white circled area does).

Now lets look more closely at what happens when you click on the three dots circled in light blue. Doing this open this sub window

The window tells you at the top which Artist you are going to do things to (just in case you click the wrong 3 dots) - the "Cancel" button will back you out!

The next BUTTON down marked "Delete" will take you though a process which will delete that Artist and all Albums (CDs - what you see in Pane 4) and music (Tracks - what you see in Pane 5) assigned to that artist. They will be gone forever!!

 

The BUTTON marked "Rename" will take you through the process of changing the name or spelling of the Artist.

The middle BUTTON that I have ringed in white when pressed allows you to add that Artist (and therefore of cause all the Albums related to that artist to a Playlist  (managing playlists is a function of Pane 2 - but there are several default ones given the names of colours (here the Mp3 one is a creation of mine)).

and

We will deal with Pane 2 and Playlists later.

I think this is enough for now, I will come back and deal with the other areas of Pane 3 in subsequent posts.

Fred

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

Hi markbro

Please note that at the moment when sending to Sonos, only 20 items (tracks) can be queued for random play.

[Janice Evans]

Daniel, 

I will go through the Forget Sonos command again (from the iPad not the Brennan unit or does it have to come from the unit itself.

 If the SD card is corrupt will the readout on the Brennan be not right too? Once again it may just be me but I can’t get to grips with the knob and the readout either. I did manage to set the time myself (before corruption) but since then some things seem  missing on the menu ??? Maybe Fred could walk me through the front screen too. 

Oh another thing. I inserted a cd to play. The Brennan wanted to rip it so I did but then it didn’t appear on the UI and I could not get it to just play the Cd on its own. I pressed the play button on the unit and the remote. Did I need to save it first? 

As you can tell I’m in a bad way!!!

[Janice Evans]

Fred,

Many Thanks

I need this type of breakdown for EVERYTHING to do with the Brennan I think.

I’ve just posted about the actual unit too……

I will do some homework tomorrow 

Night Boys!

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

Hi Janice

It does seem that your B2 may be in a bad way - I would be tempted to perform a Scan Disk. This can be done form the Web UI

click on the "cog"

then

If the CD ripped OK it should appear - if not the I think perhaps you need a new SD Card.

Fred

[Daniel Taylor]

Hi Janice,

Your question "If the SD card is corrupt will the readout on the Brennan be not right too?" cannot really be answered.  The SD can become corrupted in a nearly infinite number of ways.  The main symptoms can be described as anything weird and/or unexplainable.

[Mark Brooks]

Thanks again Fred.  I don't know how but when I tried for the first time to add a (very large playlist) to Sonos and then play back in random play using the Sonos app, it scrambled up all 1,000 tracks nicely.  (I had previously understood that there is a 1,000 track limit for playlists in Sonos, so it's nice also to learn what happens if you select a bigger playlist - the system just takes the first 1,000.  But otherwise all 1,000 of those tracks in the queue seem to be scrambled.)

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

OK,

To carry on with the intro to the Brennan Web UI.

I am going to pause describing what you can with Pane 3 for the moment because with what I have so far described for Pane 3 there are similarities in the functions available in Panes 4 and 5.

Lets start with Pane 4

Pane 4 shows all the Albums (CDs) associated with the Artist (in this case 10cc) in your collection.

If you click in the area of the White box for any Album, this will cause the Tracks for that Album to be displayed in Pane 5. Doing this will NOT interrupt or alter what the B2 is currently playing. 

If you click on the triangle surrounded by the fuchsia line,  then this will IMMEDIATLEY cause the B2 to start playing the First track of this Album. AND the B2 will continue to play all the tracks in that album THEN move on to the Next 10cc album in the list.

NOTE clicking on the white triangle will NOT change or update the content of Pane 5 (like clicking in the white circled area does).

Now lets look more closely at what happens when you click on the three dots circled in light blue. Doing this opens this sub window

Just like we discussed for Pane 3, the top line reminds you which album you are dealing with and the "Cancel" button will back you out.

Similarly the  "Delete" and "Rename" buttons will allow you to delete THAT Album and all tracks associated with it from your music library PERMANENTLY

The White circled "Add to Playlist" button allows you to add THAT Album to a Playlist of your choice in just the same way as described for Pane 3.

The two buttons circled in red will, if the Brennan is connected to the internet, go to the internet database sites specified by the button and look for artwork for that album.

You will be presented with a choice of what was found thus

If an image matches your CD cover art, clicking on it will add that image to your Album (or replace the image associated with your Album).

The lookups are NOT comprehensive and if your artwork is no found on one, try the other button. (You will not always find a match).

Ok That coves Pane 4.

Fred

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

Now lets look at Pane 5

Pane 5 deals with Track level operations you may need to perform.

This time there are only two active areas,

If you click on the triangle surrounded by the fuchsia line,  then this will IMMEDIATLEY cause the B2 to start playing the THIS Track  AND the B2 will then continue to play all the following tracks in the list.

Now lets look more closely at what happens when you click on the three dots circled in light blue. Doing this open this sub window

Here you are presented with a functionality that is equivalent for that provided in Pane 3.

The  "Delete" and "Rename" buttons will allow you to delete or rename  THAT Track in your music library PERMANENTLY

The White circled "Add to Playlist" button allows you to add THAT Track to a Playlist of your choice.

This completes what can be done in Panes 4 and 5 and as you can see these Panes allow you to manipulate your Brennan Music collection in finer and finer granularity.

Fred

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

Now let us go back to Pane 3

 and the other functionality it provides. I will start with the buttons highlighted in Red at the top.

Think of these as "Tabs"  which get selected when you click on them. Doing so changes the entire content of what you see in Pane 3. 

The first "Tab", the magnifying glass (this is the default Tab), allows you to perform operations on and over the Music holdings of your Brennan Unit. (we have discussed some of these operations above already. However, more broadly

your music holding may also include YouTubes.

The second "Tab" opens up you Internet Radio interface (NOTE this tuner uses a third party, internet service called "vTuner" for its information)

Clicking on a selection line (eg Africa) will dig you into the countries of Africa and then down into the internet radio stations available in those countries, from where you can select a radio station to play.

You can also set Radio Presets from here (I will describe how later).

If you know the name or a bit of it, the Search bar may allow you to find the station you are looking for faster.

The Third "Tab" take you into your YouTube functions

and displays and allows you to play any YouTubes you have previously "saved".

(there is more you can do here which I will describe later).

Finally the last "Tab" 

allows you to look at and "into" any USB storage device that may be plugged into the Rear ports of the Brennan Unit. The Button allow you to select which USB port to look at and its contents will be displayed

just like for your internal music library. 

Music can be played from the USB ports directly using this "Tab".

OK that is enough for now.

Fred

[PMB]

Hi Markbro...,

Is Sonos rearranging the Playlist in alphabetical order or is it random?

Paul

Brennan Support.

[lesliebr...@gmail.com]

Jeepers Fred. You've gone to a lot of trouble. Maybe Martin should get you to make a demo video lol. Might be a bit easier to follow. Think Martin did one himself a long time back, but the B2 is capable of so much more now that a new one might be of help to newbees. Have done my share of screenshots and editing with the Photo drawing tool for forum queries. It's fiddly to use, so I know the work and time you've put in to help people. There's a great group of contributors in this forum who go out of their way to help people with their Brennan B2 and B1s. Just like to thank them all. 

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

I am afraid that, to me, video creation is an unknown country :-)

Fred

[Janice Evans]

Fred,

I. Beginning my homework. Chose an album, it turned up in pane 1. 

It’s playing first track, I already pressed Forget Sonos…..I’ve been pressing the wrong command. The Forget button went black then reverted and Sonos has gone from pane 1. 

It only played the first track!

Grrrrrrrrrr!

On Monday, January 31, 2022 at 3:07:58 PM UTC fred.w....@gmail.com wrote:

[Janice Evans]

When the first track stopped playing the Sonos was showing in pane 1 again. I pressed scan disk. A whole bunch of numbers appeared then it went to idle. The scan disk button was still black!

On Monday, January 31, 2022 at 10:44:48 PM UTC fred.w....@gmail.com wrote:

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

Ok janice,

I will try to do Pane 1 next.

After you pressed the "Forget Sonos" button and it has finished, if you still want to use Sonos, please press the " Scan Sonos" button and after that finishes, go to the B2 and press and hold in the "Play/Stop" button until "Saving" appears on the front display. After the time comes back on the front display, reboot the B2 (power it off wait 30 seconds and power it up again). 

Now Sonos should be sorted . Try playing an Album starting it from the triangle in Pane 4 as I have described.

Tell me what happens 😊

Fred.

[Mark Brooks]

It seems to be completely random - I don't see alphabetical or any other pattern.

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

The Functions in Pane 1

Apart from showing you what is being played, the tools in Pane 1 allows you  to control what is being played and how.

The slider bars circled in Yellow allow you to set the volume and the lower "timer" slider allows you to move though the track being played to any point.

The Button circled in Red

The music notes open a graphic equalizer setting window. (In my humble opinion this feature is best left OFF - not enabled)

The crossed arrows "toggle" on and off random play IF you are playing a Playlist (as set in Pane 2).

The next 3 buttons are the rewind (back), Pause/Play toggle and skip (forward) buttons you would fin on any player.

Next let us deal with the little "Cog" ringed in fuchsia. Pressing this opens up a few of the B2 menu functions that are (completely) available form the B2's Front panel.

This is a VERY useful screen. At the top it shows you which Software Version your B2 is running, and what the size of your Music Library is.

Next down is a Button that allows you to set the Compression that you want the B2 to apply to any WAV files it has.

Next the "Segue" button allows you to 'toggle' this mode on or off (this if on allows a music track to move into the next move without interruption)

The "Scan Disk" button is very very important this builds or rebuilds the B2's index of its music holdings. Doing this frequently clears up issues with the B2.

The next two buttons relate to the B2's Sonos connections (if you have Sonos in your home) the "Forget" button makes the B2 forget any previous Sonos 

and the "Scan Sonos" will populate the B2 interface with the Sonos speaker names it finds.

The next 3 buttons down setup the "default" B2 Web UI  layout you will get when you use a browser to connect to the IP number of your B2. I find it best left in "Automatic" but feel free to experiment if you wish. The option tailors the output to the size and orientation of screen to expect.

"Guest" mode is a setting that restrict the functionality of the Web UI so that a "non owner" is prevented from doing damage when using the Interface.

The "Audio on HDMI (TV)" option will activate the B2's HDMI interface for audio output. NOTE is you select this all other modes of output are turned off.

I will pause here and start in the next post.

Fred

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

Continuing with the "cog" from Pane 1

The two rows of choices available as circled in yellow are related

I have already said the top set selects the orientation and layout of the "original" browser Web UI

but the bottom set allow you to choose from completely different UI layouts that users have requested you have to try them to see. When you go into them, somewhere there will be a "cog" or "Settings" option that will allow you to switch back.

The "Big Picture " option allows you to make the CD artwork bigger in Pane 1 thus

---------------------------

Finally going to the base of the "cog" window we get

The area marked background may show you what the B2 is doing at any time

Clicking the "Bluetooth" button will bring this up

providing you with the information you need to control and use Bluetooth (I am not using it here)

Clicking on the "Spanner" button opens the Debug screen

Which keeps a lig of the commands the B2 is performing. The "Clear" button circled in red can be used to delete the log and start afresh if you are asked to send a log.

This completes the overview of the "cog"/Settings function.

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

Now going back to the top of Pane 1, lets deal with the Sonos functionality.

The first thing you need to understand is that when using Sonos the B2 can and does generate multiple copies of the B2 Web UI interface (all 5 Panes), a default one for the Wired Speakers (present or not) and one for each Sonos Speaker the B2 knows about. EACH copy of the Web UI controls just one of the speakers and the music going to that speaker.

You can only have ONE version of the B2 Web UI up at a time and you can distinguish which one you  are using by looking at the area marked in Red,

Here the interface is controlling the "Brennan" speakers, that is all the speakers options that the Brennan can provide (Hard Wired, Line out, Optical, Bluetooth, HDMI)

While here

The interface is controlling one of the Sonos speakers called "Office"

You switch between speakers using the "Sonos" button circled in Yellow.

Clicking on it opens the another window in which you can Scan for Sonos Speakers using the Scan button and select a Sonos (or the Brennan Spearkers) by clicking in the box beside the name.

Note you can not therefore send the same SYNCHRONISED music across these speakers using the Brennan User interface. 

This Completes Pane 1

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

Now we need to go back to Pane 3 and look at some more that con be done within this Pane.

Lets look at this area

As you can see we are in the "Music Search" tab as ringed in read.

Then we have the three buttons highlighted in Yellow. Pressing these switches between them

They control what you see in the rest of Pane 3 below.

The "head" button selects a view of the B2's music holding by "Artist" (as above)

The "disk" button selects a view of the B2's music holdings by "Album" or "CD" (as seen below)

The "musical notes" button selects a view of the B2's music holdings by "Track" (as seen below)

The "down arrow a A to Z" button ringed in light blue above selects the sorting direction

for the lists presented by the first 3 buttons.

Obviously, with a large music collections the data given in Pane 3 can be very long (it will take ages to scroll through it), so a "Search"

function is provided in the white bare area (circled in red below).

Here I am looking at "Artists" (see the yellow circle) and for all instances of the string "tch" (the case is ignored)

and it has found these two results very quickly.

If you wanted to find all your (.mp3) files then search would do this for you.

As you can see the Search facility is a GREAT HELP - learn to use it!.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next let us look at the two final buttons

The "Camera" button allows you to treat your SAVED YouTube downloads like you would the rest of your music

The  A to Z Sorting function does NOT work in this view.

NOTE. From this screen you can rename, delete or even add a YouTube to a playlist using the three dots as described before.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The final functionality available in Pane 3 enables all the functions we have described for the buttons to be applied to Playlists.

The Button ringed in Fuchsia in Pane 3 above works in conjunction with the other buttons but switches the focus to a specific playlist.

Here I have selected the "Red" playlist circled in blue (in Pane 2 --  which we will describe later), which as you can see was built from individual tracks.

As you can see in Pane 3, with the Yellow ringed button selected, these tracks are the SAME as seen in the "Red"  Playlist. (as seen above)

Now if the "CD" button is selected (ringed in yellow) below,

you will see that Pane 3 now shows the "Albums" from which the "Tracks" in the "Red" Playlist were taken.

Similarly

Selecting the "Head" button in Pane 3  switches the view to showing you the "Artists" to which the "Tracks" in the "Red" playlist belong.

This completes the function in Pane 3.

Next we will look at what can be done in Pane 2 in more detail.

Fred

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

Now let us look at the Functionality that Pane 2 gives us

Along the top of the Pane there are a number of "Tabs" names Playlists, CD, Presets and Upload. Each of these if clicked on opens a function related to that "Tab" that Pane2 can perform.

We will start off with PLAYLIST management 

in this view, the central area (where the red underline is) is simply a heading telling us which of the B2 playlists we are CCURRENTLY dealing with. (in this case Blue and not this Playlist is empty.

NOTE, In the B2 world, playlists are simple text files (they can be edited by a word processor) which point to the B2 music library, they DO NOT themselves contain any music.

The B2 comes with a set of 7 Playlists named after the colours of the rainbow. these are all empty.

It is possible to rename these playlist and to create NEW playlists. The  functionality described on the Brennan website to understand how to use Playlists look here is a little out of date so I will cover it all here

It is also important to note the functionality that the "Blacklist" playlist provides this IS covered on the web page liked to above.

-----------------------------------

To select a playlist click on the triangle ringed in yellow above

When you have selected a playlist, to start it playing, click on the triangle to the left of the first entry (Red ring blow)

Clicking on a triangle for a lower entry will start playing from that point down.

NOTE And "entry" in a playlist may be an "Artist", "Album" , "Track" or "YouTube" as obtained using Pane 3.

The controls for the playlist then pass to the controls in Pane 1, just as for other music. 

NOTE to get RANDOM you need this (red ring below) button selected.

NOTE However that when playing to SONOS speakers random does not appear to work - it does to the wired speakers.

Playlists can be created, deleted, renamed by clicking on the the 3 dots to the right of the window (see below)

You can create playlists with any name that suits your purpose and assign a Playlist to a preset (which I will cover later - further down under Presets).

As you can see this allows you move and delete playlist entries.

I think that this covers Playlists 

Fred

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

OPPS Sorry no there is one more Playlist function (that is not just obvious from the button name) that needs to be covered

Combining Playlists

and

and for the location of All Music see below

fred

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

OK now lets look at Pane 2's CD Tab.

The functions provided here allow you to control the ripping of CD albums to the B2

When you shove a CD into the B2 this is what you may see

It has looked up the CD statistics in the online CD database and thinks that this CD album is "Zeit Fur Ein BiBchen Zartlichkeit" by "Various" artists.

So if I clicked on the "Rip" button to the right, it would be stored as 

Artist "Various" and Album "Zeit Fur Ein BiBchen Zartlichkei" and 12 Tracks would be ripped.

If this is not correct press the triangle to the left circled in blue and alternative choices will be shown (in this case it has found 5).

You can select any of these but in the last case the music would be stored in 

Artist "Unknown", Album "Album 2001".

If you want to know/check what the tracks are (having selected a name), click on the name bar thus

However in this case the database has not found the CD the correct CD (which is Ivan Rebroff, My Russian Homeland, with 12 Tracks)

In this instance it is better to rip it to " Unknown " and edit the name from Pane 3 afterwards.

Note, if the CD is recognised correctly (which it is most of the time) this process is much easier. But some people Rip to their PC's first using something like dBpoweramp (which searches more CD databases) , then transfer the music to the B2.

Fred

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

OK, still progressing with Pane 2, lets look at what can be done with Presets.

There are only 10 Presets available, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and you refer to a particular preset using its NUMBER
Presets a means of very quickly jumping to or starting playing music from specific points in the B2's holdings, Namely Radio stations and Playlists.

Obviously as you can assign a preset to a playlist, this is, if you are clever, a means of getting any Youtube, Radio Station, Artist, Album or a track into a preset by proxy.

The B2 comes with a whole lot of (British viewpoint) radio stations pre configured.  (I don't know for sure but I expect these may not work outside of the UK).

Below is an image where I am showing Pane 1, playing a radio station to a Sonos speaker. I selected the Radio station from the position shown in Pane 2

Yes I am currently listening to Coldplay :-))

NOTE as a side point, when you ask a Sonos speaker to play a RADIO station, it is NOT the B2 playing the music, the B2 "asks" the Sonos to play that station on its behalf.

You gat the preset to play from the playlist (as everywhere else) by clocking on the white triangle ringed in yellow.

As you may notice the only tools for setting/modifying Presets in  Pane 2 is that described above for Playlists

and from there pressing the "Assign to Preset" button (ringed in yellow above) we get

Just choose the Preset in the list you want to OVERWRITE.

When you want to change the Radio stations in the Preset list, the process is similar but available in the "Vtuner" area of Pane 3

Which, when you click on the three dots ringed in yellow gives

Again just choose the preset you want to overwrite.

OK - this covers the Preset functionality BUT before we leave, so that your Presets "stick" between B2 boots

IT IS VITAL THAT YOU CLOSE THE B2 by pressing and holding in the "Play/Stop" button on the form of the B2 until "Saving" appears on the front screen. Then wait for the clock to re appear before you power the unit off.

Fred

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

The last utility that you have in Pane 2 is the "Upload"

This allows you to "suck to the B2" music files that you may have on your PC or Laptop.

If on your PC you have music files in a directory structure arranged

Music

        Artist1

             Album 1

                           Track 1

                           Track 2 etc.

             Album 2

                           Track 1

                           Track 2 etc.

        Artist2

             Album 1

                           Track 1

                           Track 2 etc.

             Album 2

                           Track 1

                           Track 2 etc.        

        Artist3

             Album 1

                           Track 1

                           Track 2 etc.

             Album 2

                           Track 1

                           Track 2 etc.

then you can use the 'Bulk Upload' option provided above to get this music loaded onto your B2.

you will get this sort of window opening

If i select the "music" directory all in it will upload.

However if you just have some music tracks that you have purchased and want to load these onto the B2 select the lower "File Upload" option.

Enter the Artist and Album (note they are wrong way round from what you would expect form the hierarchy structure so be careful !)

Then press the Choose files button which will open

Not here the Album would be "19" and the Artist "Adele" and you need to highlight all the tracks you want to "Send to the Brennan" 

OK as far as I know that covers the functionality of the current (08/02/2022) Brennan "original" Web User Interface (the Web UI)

I hope people find this useful. 

If I have made errors please put up an illustrated correcting post, I wont be offended.

Fred