[Housteau]

I am running a Mac Mini using Amarra and several other players.  I use a USB connection to my DAC and Firewire to my Iomega external HD, which is the default for my copied music into iTunes.  It works perfectly.  I recently acquired a Bryston BDP-1 file player, which also works flawlessly. 

Is there a way where both the Mini (connected by Firewire) and the Bryston (using USB) can share access to the Iomega HD files, assuming only one is turned on and running at a time?  I have tried connecting the Bryston to the Iomega with the Mini off, but it doesn't recognize any files being there.

[skunark]

Move this to the Bryston Circle and you will probably get a lot of responses. 

I've made my response a while ago on how I deal with the BDP and synchronizing the files, so here's link to it:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=102438.msg1038459#msg1038459

Jim

[Housteau]

Thank you.

[Housteau]

I see now what I need to do to have my iTunes library available to the BDP-1.  Your method for this is straightforward and I like the mirror duplication updating.  I guess what I need to do first is be sure that my library is ready for that.  With a straight transfer I look to loose a lot of metadata due to how iTunes imbeds that data.  I found some good info on The Computer Audiophile about all of this and solutions around it.  I am going to need to develop a strategy for myself that will address the album art before I go any further. 

[sruffle]

Excellent information here.  I am new to this forum - it looks like a very good resource.  Thanks for posting this as I had a similar question. 

[Crimson]

Excellent information here.  I am new to this forum - it looks like a very good resource.  Thanks for posting this as I had a similar question.

Welcome to AC!

[Housteau]

I have been a bit lazy with organizing my music library.  But honestly, iTunes does a pretty decent job that hasn't given me any real issues and besides I have just been enjoying the music.  I like the interface and used with Amarra I have not had any major complaints.  But, now that I am considering different sorts of music player options outside of the Mac operating system, I see that I need to change the ways I have been doing things.  My two new priorities are for the files to be properly read elsewhere and for the album art to transfer over intact.

The tutorial linked above takes care of the files being able to be read elsewhere and how to duplicate them.  But, for me my first order of business is to work within iTunes with my albums and convert my .wav files over to AIFF and manually add in the cover art I want for them.  Second, I need to go through all of my AIFF files created as I ripped CDs.  The artwork for these files will not transfer as is and will need to be manipulated so it will.  There are different ways to do this from special scripts to manually making the changes for each album, and I am working on the best method for me.   

[skunark]

You can use this script to convert your WAV files to AIFF by creating a smart playlist of type "WAV".    Do make sure you have a backup of you music

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=quickconvert

As for cover art, this really depends on the how you plan to playback the files.  If you use mPod/mPad iOS app, the app will download form the web, it's mostly correct.    There are other apps like MusicBrainz, to help you download the artwork and also update the tags, however don't allow it to move or rename files otherwise iTunes will get confused.  Also if you edit an entire album and paste the artwork into the window, this does save the image to the file.   

BTW, the BDP uses a application called Music Player Daemon (mpd), it will ignore the embedded image in the music files.  Typically you need to have another file called "cover.jpg" in the directory that contains the artwork with the client configured to bryston-bdp-1.local.   MusicBrainz can be configured to download the artwork to the same directory with the music.   

Also, i've noticed an issue with AIFF tags created by iTunes, so MusicBrainz or another Tag edit might be required to fix a very minor bug in iTunes.  (appears Apple is ignoring the even chunk count when adding tags, you can spot this with an odd byte size file too.. lol)

Jim

[Housteau]

BTW, the BDP uses a application called Music Player Daemon (mpd), it will ignore the embedded image in the music files.  Typically you need to have another file called "cover.jpg" in the directory that contains the artwork with the client configured to bryston-bdp-1.local.   MusicBrainz can be configured to download the artwork to the same directory with the music.   

Can dBpoweramp do the same thing for the cover art?

I suppose my end goal is to retain my iTunes library for use on my Mac Mini / Amarra system, while having that mirror library available to my BDP and other non-Mac based players if needed.  From what you are saying it looks like I will need to both embed the art as well as have a dedicated art file within each album to be safe.

[Housteau]

I see that Dougscript has a script that can add that file named folder.jpg to the folder which contains each Album.  So, it looks like I can use that script and have my iTunes library mirrored so the art can be seen in the BDP immediately.  Then, I can go through my library in iTunes and manually embed that art, which will also mirror over during updates, for possible future use being read by another server.  Is that correct?

[skunark]

Yeah, that should work.  (Might check out MusicBrainz to help embed the artwork) You might ask this album art question in the Bryston forum targeting Chris from Bryston.  He's doing a revamp of the album art for the next major firmware release and might have alternate tips.

--Jim

[Housteau]

I see that Dougscript has a script that can add that file named folder.jpg to the folder which contains each Album.  So, it looks like I can use that script and have my iTunes library mirrored so the art can be eseen in the BDP immediately.  Then, I can go through my library in iTunes and manually embed that art, which will also mirror over during updates, for possible future use being read by another server.

I wanted to give a short update here on my progress.  So far everything has worked out really well.  I now have a mirrored HD that holds my entire computer music collection working flawlessly through the Bryston and showing all the album art.