B2 Operating Guide 9th May 2015 This online document will be updated as new features are added to B2. If there is anything that is wrong or needs clarification please let me know using the feedback form on brennan.co.uk. This guide assumes you have read the B2 quick start guide and have experimented with the menu system at least a little. I ll work on the styling of this guide once the B2 features have have settled and I m happy that the guide works for you. Martin Brennan Menu Structure A menu item looks like this
The B2 user interface has been designed so you can do most things either from the remote control or from the front panel. You start the menu system by pushing the knob and turning to see choices. Or on the remote control - press OK and press the up and down triangles. Generally up, down and OK on the remote control are equivalent to turning and pushing the knob. The OLED display shows the title of the menu or submenu, some help text describing what buttons you can press and what they do and the current menu item - usually an action like play track or a submenu like track menu. Pressing back usually takes you back to the previous menu. Holding back exits the menu system.
By the way if you press and hold the stop button that stops everything - playback, ripping, backup, etc, etc - so you can think of it as a useful kind of panic or reset button. Text entry is different. On the remote control you text like on an old mobile phone - so press key 2 once for A, twice for B and so on. On the front panel rotate the knob to pick a letter then push to choose that letter. As time goes by we will support more functions through the web interface so the web may be better for some functions but for day to day use - I use the front panel. The overall menu structure is like this Main Browse Artists Artist Menu Browse Albums Search Album Menu Artist Menu Album Menu Track Menu Current Track Track Menu Rip CD Settings Wifi Setup USB Speed QR Code Compression Random Play Segue Delete Music Scan Disk Web Upgrade Maintenance Playlists Playlist Off
Play Playlist Clear Playlist Internet Radio Play Aux Play Bluetooth USB Functions Backup to C Restore from C Import from C Playlist to C Playlist from C Load Database Artist Menu Album Menu Pick Album Pick Track Play Album Add to Playlist Delete Album Track Menu Goto Album Goto Artist Play Track Add to Playlist Delete Track Maintenance Format HDD SW Upgrade Description of Menu functions
Browse Artists - scroll through the artists on the hard disk - OK when you have only a few dozen albums - use Search when you have lots. Artist Menu - scroll through the Albums by that artist. Browse Albums - scroll through the albums on the hard disk - OK when you have only a few dozen albums - use Search when you have lots. Album Menu - functions to do with chosen album - Play, Add to Playlist, Delete, Pick Track, Artist Track Menu - functions to do with chosen track - Play, Add to Playlist, Delete, Album, Artist Search - the principal way of finding artists, albums and tracks. Enter some letters from the name you are looking for - they don t have to be at the start. The display shows the number of matches found. Press next to see the matches and back to enter more letters. Enter letters by turning the main knob and push to select. Or on the IR remote control use the old fashioned texting convention - press key a once for a twice for b etc. The cursor blinks faster then slows down to let you know when you can start again with that key. The matches are identified as Artist Album or Track. Pushing the knob or OK takes you to the corresponding Artist, Album or Track Menu. Or you can simply press play and B2 will play the album or track or the first album by that artist. Current Track - this takes you to the Track Menu for the currently playing track Rip CD - normally you are given the opportunity to rip a CD when a CD is inserted - this lets you start the rip later - if say - you listened to a bit first. Settings Menu - system setup and other non music related functions Setup Wifi - Described in the quick start guide. USB Speed - This function lets you change the USB speed. Between high speed (480) and low speed (12). High speed is normal but because of a limitation in the Raspberry Pi - the Aux in may crackle at this setting. If you intend to use Aux in - set the speed to low. Low speed will slow ripping and backup and other activities so you may elect to change the speed as your needs dictate. QR Code - this function displays the B2 IP address as a QR code. There are free QR code reader Apps for phones and tablets - allowing you to point the phone camera at the B2 and bring up the web interface on the phone/tablet. (The phone/tablet must be on the same Wifi network - its not enough for it to be on the internet). Compression - by default B2 compresses all music using FLAC - this compresses the music to about 60% - so you get more on the hard disk - but the music is identical to what is on the original CD. This function allows you to choose MP3 compression instead. MP3 allows you to squeeze about 5 times as much music on the hard disk with very little - usually imperceptible loss of quality. Music is compressed only once after it is loaded. The compression technique used is what prevails at the time of compression. Random Play - selects shuffled or as recorded. Segue - Segue is a five or six second overlap between one track and the next - mostly this is nice but not so good for live albums and classical recordings where the music was continuous across the track boundary on the CD. Turn segue on and off here. Delete Music - as dangerous as it sounds - you will be asked to confirm - this deletes all the music and all playlists from the hard disk - letting you start again.
Scan Disk - B2 maintains a database of all the music on the hard disk. This function rebuilds that database - you shouldn t need it but if I ve made a mistake somewhere and the database is out of sync with the disk - this function will fix it. It will take a while. Maintenance - takes you to functions you should never need - mainly for our technicians. Web Upgrade - this function loads and installs the latest version of the B2 software from the www.brennan.co.uk. Check the website for the date of the latest version and a description of improvements. Playlist Menu - you can play playlists directly from the remote control. This menu lets you play them from the front panel and other playlist related functions. Playlist Off - goes back to normal play - doesn t stop playing music just exits the playlist. Play Playlist - pick a playlist and start playing Clear Playlist - pick a playlist and delete everything in it. Internet Radio - lets you scroll through a list of internet radio stations - push knob or press OK to play. At launch B2 knows about a few key British stations and some example international stations - this is an area under active development. Let me know your thoughts and any stations you want - (I ll need a URL of a playlist file - something with.m3u or similar on the end) Play Aux - Starts playing from the Aux-In input. Press stop to stop. Play Bluetooth - not strictly necessary - Bluetooth playback can be initiated from your phone or tablet. But say you were playing Bluetooth then wanted to listen to Internet Radio for a bit then switch back to Bluetooth. USB Functions - this menu contains functions relating to transfer to and from USB storage devices. The menu will only contain entries if there is a USB storage device (USB hard drive, memory stick etc) plugged into USB A or USB C. The letter in the menu item will reflect whats connected. Backup to C (or A) - this function creates a backup of all the music on the B2 on the hard disk attached to the specified USB port. B2 uses the same format as JB7 backups so backup disks are interchangeable. Backup can take a long time but it is interruptible and incremental - which means you can stop it by holding the stop button and when you restart - it will skip any files already backed up - so you don t start from square one. Restore from C (or A) - this function loads music from a B2/JB7 backup disk. Again restore is interruptible and incremental. Import from C (or A) - The import function loads music from a disk which is not a B2/JB7 backup disk. The import function copies any music file of type wav, flac, mp3 or m4a. The music files should be organised in folders like this../artist Name/Album Name/Track Name.mp3. This is the organisation used by itunes so its fairly easy to import your itunes music into B2. Import will still work if the files are not organised that way. The album and artist for each track is taken from the parent and grandparent folder and will be set to unknown if there is no folder. Playlist to C (or A) - this function saves a playlist to the specified drive. A playlist is just a text file. This allows you to edit or even create a playlist externally. Take a look at an existing playlist. Each line is either a track or album. You can rearrange or delete lines. But the names must match an album/track on the B2. If there is a mismatch the line is ignored. Playlist from C (or A) - this function loads a playlist from the specified drive - see above.
Load Database - B2 can rip CDs without an internet connection by using a local album database. This is a massive file that contains the names of tracks, albums and artists of over 3 million CDs. The file is updated every month. To update your B2 offline database download the latest file following instructions at www.brennan.co.uk - save it to a USB memory stick or disk - then use this function. The remote control Rec Prev play stop Next Pressing this key will start or stop recording from Aux In to the hard disk. Use this function for recording from vinyl or cassette for instance. Starts playing the previous track which depends on Random mode. Jumps to previous radio station if Radio is selected. Moves the cursor to the left during text entry. Starts or stops music playback - any source. If B2 is already playing this will start playing the next track. If B2 is not playing then this key starts playing music from the hard disk at random. Jumps to next station if Radio is selected. Moves the cursor to the right during text entry.
Info Find Rand Vol+ red - violet Pressing this key displays some useful statistics about your B2. You can find disk capacity and usage and also the software version here. Starts the music search function - searches through artists, album and track names for the snippet of text you enter. Displays and changes the Random mode. First press displays the current setting. Second press changes it. Increases volume by one step When HDD is selected these numeric keys correspond to playlists. The first press of the key displays the playlist and how many items it contains. The second press starts playing that playlist. Holding the key adds adds the current track to the playlist. 0-9 When text entry is called for these keys can be used to text letters of the alphabet like on an old mobile phone. Keep pressing to see capital letters. There are some punctuation marks on the 1 key. When Radio is selected these keys will pick the first ten radio stations. When CD is selected pressing two digits will jump to that track - so 03 will jump to track 3 and 15 will jump to track 15. Vol- Up OK Del Back Down CD HDD Radio Menu Decreases volume by one step The up triangle is used scroll through choices and is equivalent to turning the knob clockwise Selects the current choice Deletes the character to the left of the cursor during text entry. Goes back to the previous menu. The down triangle is used to scroll through choices and is equivalent to turning the knob anticlockwise. Selects the CD as music source. If there is a CD inserted it will start playing from the first track. Selects the internal hard disk as music source. If a playlist is currently playing - pressing this key switches to normal play - ie the next track will not be from the playlist. Selects Internet Radio as music source. Pressing this button will start playing the last selected internet radio station. Starts the menu system
Bluetooth Aux X & Y This key selects Bluetooth as the music source. In fact you don t need to press this. If B2 has a Bluetooth dongle inserted then it is always visible and pairable so you can just connect and play from your phone or tablet. Once playing from Bluetooth you want to listen to internet radio for a bit and then switch back to Bluetooth with this key. This key selects the Aux In as music source. These keys do nothing - reserved for future use. Music organisation B2 organises music hierarchically by artist -> album -> track. Each track belongs to one album and each album belongs to one artist. Compilation albums tend to use the convention of describing the artist as various and start each track name with the artist. Compression B2 can play wav, flac, mp3 and aac (or m4a) files. When B2 rips a CD - it is ripped to an uncompressed wav file - so that ripping is less time consuming. Later when the B2 is idle and is about to go into standby it compresses any wav files into either an exact flac encoded file or a an mp3 file. Playlists B2 has seven playlists named after colours of the rainbow. A playlist is made up of albums and tracks. You can add an album to a playlist from the Album menu (you have to select an album first using Browse Albums for instance). You can add a track to a playlist either from the Track menu or by pressing and holding the corresponding colour key on the remote control. Start playing a playlist by pressing the colour key on the remote twice. USB Ports B2 has three USB ports but USB B is only usable on models without internal hard disks. If your B2 has a hard disk do not use USB B it won t work.
I recommend you use USB A for the WIFI dongle and USB C for backup disks or the Bluetooth dongle. The Wifi dongle is a pretty powerful radio transmitter and can interfere with low level audio signals - USB C has been placed away from the sensitive audio for that reason. You can hotplug USB mass storage devices - that means USB disk drives and memory sticks can be plugged in and out while B2 is turned on but other devices like the Bluetooth and Wifi dongles must only be plugged and unplugged while the unit is turned off. Standby When you haven t used B2 for five minutes it goes into standby mode - but before it does it checks the hard disk for any uncompressed WAV files and then compresses them either to lossless (perfect copies) FLAC files or lossy (but much smaller) MP3 files. This is a slow process so thats why it is done in standby. The compression mode is set in the Settings Menu. You can wake it up from standby or interrupt compression by pressing any button or key. If you want to stop compression so you can turn off B2 - then press and hold the stop button. Standby isn t a very low power standby mode - so you should turn off B2 at the mains unless you are using it - to conserve energy. Recording and Aux In B2 can record audio on Aux In to a file on disk. You could use it to transfer music on vinyl or cassette for instance. Music is recorded to files track01, track02 and so on - in an album called Recordings. You can rename the album later and new recordings will create a fresh Recordings album starting at track01. You can monitor the Aux In input by pressing the Aux button on the remote. Start and Stop recordings by pressing the Rec button. When recording you can stop recording one track and start the next by pressing Rec twice quickly. One final note about Aux In. Due to limitations on the Raspberry Pi - Aux In may crackle if the USB is operating at hi-speed. Therefore we suggest that you lower the speed of the USB while
using Aux In and then return it to high speed when you need would benefit from high speed USB - basically that means ripping CDs (because the CD player and internal hard disk are on the USB) and backup and restore to external disk drives. You can change the USB speed in Settings. Bluetooth You need the optional Bluetooth dongle to use Bluetooth. B2 has been designed to make Bluetooth as simple as possible. Some Bluetooth products require buttons to be pressed at either end to initiate pairing. Some require long forgotten passcodes to be typed in. This can make Bluetooth a pain to set up. With B2 you don t do anything its all controlled by your phone or tablet. Generally this is the sequence B2 should be turned on and the scrolling status line will include Bluetooth Ready Go to Settings then Bluetooth on your phone/tablet Turn on Bluetooth (if its already on it can help to turn it off and on) BrennanB2 should appear in the list of available devices. Tap this entry to pair and connect (you sometimes need to do this twice when first introduced) The B2 display will change to indicate Bluetooth has been selected as the source. Navigate to your music playing App on your phone/tablet - say Spotify - and start playing something - the music will come out of the B2 speakers. If you run into difficulty two tricks can be useful On your phone/tablet Bluetooth dialog - there is usually an option to forget this pairing - try that. Turn Bluetooth off and on on your phone/tablet Navigating Your Music Its not immediately apparent from a dry presentation of menus that you can wander about through your music collection.
Say you select Current Track from the Main Menu. That takes you to the Track Menu for the currently playing track. From the Track Menu you can select Goto Album or Goto Artist these take you to the Album Menu or the Artist Menu for that track s album or artist. From the Album Menu you can go up to the artist or down to the individual tracks with Pick Track From the Artist Menu you can pick other albums by that artist. Browse Albums is a simple way to find albums - but it gets inefficient when there are many hundreds of albums. Search is the fastest way of finding what you are looking for - but it throws up matching artists, albums and tracks - so when you combine search with Goto Album, Goto Artist, Pick Track and the Artist Menu - it can be nice a way to make serendipitous musical finds. Web UI B2 has a web user interface - that means - you can see what s happening and control your B2 from a web browser. All you need to do is type the IP address of the B2 (it s displayed on the scrolling status line) into the URL of your browser. On the picture below I typed 192.168.0.4 into my mobile phone browser.
At the time of writing the Web UI is quite rudimentary - allowing you to do the basics of music play and search. Over time I will extend this functionality. Let me know what you need most on the feedback form at brennan.co.uk. Ethernet The Raspberry Pi inside B2 has an ethernet connector that allows you to make a wired network connection. You might choose to do this for more reliable network connections when your Wifi environment is congested. It has the advantage that you don t need the Wifi dongle so you get an extra USB port. Its pretty fiddly - but here s how you do it. In order to access the ethernet connector on the Pi - you need to unscrew and slide out the electronics from the case. Remove the power and SD card first. The two screws on the back panel are marked with arrowheads. The rear panel is snug so you may need to prise it open using a small screwdriver to lever between the large ethernet slot and the top of the case. You risk scratching the case - so use something soft between the case and the screwdriver. Do not try and pull out the electronics very far - there is a small cable on the underside that will limit how far you can pull it out. Its very snug - but there is space to plug an Ethernet cable into the Pi - coil it around and feed it out through one of the slots in the rear panel. If you can find some flat ethernet cable you will find it is less cramped. To reassemble - reverse the above sequence - taking care not to pinch any cables. To remove the ethernet cable from the Pi - is also a bit fiddly because you need to lever up the the strain relief catch on the ethernet cable and its on the wrong side - I use a small flat bladed screwdriver. The B2 software will work automatically with an ethernet connection - no Wifi password. Its a Pi B2 contains a Raspberry Pi. If you are interested and know what you are doing you can program and experiment with the Pi. Skip this section if it doesn t apply to you.
You can login to the Pi using the IP address displayed on the B2 OLED user root password brennan. If you do login you should be aware that you can corrupt the SD card and hard disk and render the B2 inoperable at your own risk. If you know what you are doing you already know this. I suggest backing up the SD card with something like Win32DiskImager so you can get back to square one if needed. If you need/would like to know more about the B2 hardware and operating system for a project use the feedback form on brennan.co.uk. Troubleshooting Apart from Turn it off an and on again there is just one function you might want to know about. B2 keeps a database of where everything is on the disk. If this database gets out of sync with what s on the disk - say because of a software bug or the power being turned off at the wrong moment - then B2 could get confused. Use the Scan Disk function in Settings to rebuild the database.