Aurender A10 setup - loading from CDs


Just purchased A10.  The instructions in the quick start guide for connecting to my local network worked. The A10 appears to find the Aurender app on my iPad. And the app appears to communicate with the A10.

 

My goal has been to move my CD collection to the A10.   Unfortunately, I am completely lost when comes to how to do this. What I’ve tried doesn’t appear to work. Here’s what I’ve tried.

Strategy 1:

          Following the online App Guide on the Aurender site, tried making the direct local network connection between my MacBook Pro and the A10.  The first three steps when well:

  • 1.     Locate the Finder menu bar at the top of your desktop.
  • 2.     Click GO -> CONNECT TO SERVER from the navigation bar.
  • 3.     Type in 'smb://' followed by your Aurender's IP address. (For example: smb://192.168.1.171) The IP address can be found under SETTINGS -> NAS.

 

Step 4 didn’t appear…

4.     Click Connect and a window will appear with folders labeled hdd1'and 'hdd2' Open the folder.

But the popup window for Step 5 did appear:

5.     A popup window will ask for a Username and Password. They can be found in the iPad application under SETTINGS -> NAS.

Unfortunately, when I went to SETTINGs -> NAS [Server], instead of giving me a Uusername and password, I was asked to provide a username and password.  I can’t find these anywhere, so this is a dead end for me.


Strategy 2:

The online App Guide also has a section describing how to add music to the A10 from an external USB memory device. To try this, I first dragged two album files from my iTunes music directory on the MacBook to a 4TB external HD. I then plugged in the HD to one of the A10’s USB ports.

I tried copying these albums following the instructors under the “Disk Information” tab in “Settings” on the app. I did the copy all command to music1 and the albums now appear in the playlist editor. Success, but none of the album art came over and its now clear how it could be added. Nor am I confident that this is the longterm solution.


I'm a newbie to computer audio beyond ITunes/iPod.  Any advice about how to get beyond this impasse?


yellowstone
The addition of a music sever in a system is a little more complicated but the instructions I provided below should get you started.  I suggest you do the maintenance items below on your MAC computer and then copy all your album files (including the cover art) to a hard drive.  You need the hard drive for your albums backup and this is recommended. 

After the steps below are completed, you attach your external hard drive to the Aurender and it copies everything over (and please keep reading for the details).

NOTE-1: Please note that iTunes does NOT STORE the album cover art within the song folder but "HIDES" it in another encrypted and hidden folder. This means the Aurender setup coming from iTunes requires you to run Doug Scripts to extract the album cover art in your transfer

(http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=savealbumartjpeg).

NOTE-2: If you are using iTunes, you have to download the Extract to Folder.jpg Script from Doug Scripts (cost is $1.99). The Script run process is vey easy but it takes time depending on the number of albums. This script is required since it stores the album cover art image in the correct location and includes the correct name (Folder.jpg) for handling by the Aurender. Please check the Script for any updates.

NOTE-3: Please read the "Save Album Art as folder.jpg v3.4" instructions carefully. You have to set up a new folder named Scripts (within the iTunes library) so the script can run from within iTunes.   iTunes will NOT let this script run for a large number of albums. I suggest you test with 4-8 albums at a time and see what happens (adjust as needed). The Script runs very fast.  I had problems when I selected to many albums. 

NOTE-4: You can easily connect your computer to the Aurender file structure using the Finder Go Connect to Server tab. The iPad settings menus provide the necessary information (IP address, user name & password). This is how you delete files on the Aurender and also add or correct the Folder.JPG images files.

NOTE-5: If some of your albums do NOT have cover art, you have to manually add the album metadata (other automated options may be available). You Google the album name plus “CD Image”, find the image, move it to the Desktop, change its name to Folder.jpg and move it to the Aurender song folder (be careful to place it in the right location after the last song). The Aurender iPAD app is much easier to use if your albums have cover art. This process is not hard but take some time depending on the number of albums. A good estimate is 2-4 minutes per album (my times).  The manually adding of cover art, if needed, will take time but worth it.  

NOTE-6: Unfortunately, I had to determine most of these instructions myself to compete my album transfer including the album cover art (my dealer was NOT very helpful). If you are unclear, please ask for help (if needed).  I had to delete my transferred albums on the Aurender TWICE before I got it right. My instructions above should ensure you get it right the first time.

When I finished transferring my albums to the Aurender, I immediately backed up my Aurender files to my LaCie hard drive & also to my Seagate hard drive. I spent too much time building my album database so I backed it up twice.

As a test, I ripped 5 CD’s to a USB Flash drive, ran the “Extract to Folder.JPG” Script in iTunes to extract the missing album cover art for these albums. Two of these albums were missing album cover art so I used Google search to find the album cover art as I described above. The album transfers to the Aurender worked perfectly.

Please review the above and let me know if you have any questions.  


Doug script Link correction for above is:

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

Alert:   Make sure your album cover art is saved as folder.jpg so yourcAurebddrcwill recognize it.  
Please see the "read me" file for Doug's scripts:

https://dougscripts.com/itunes/pdf/savealbumartjpeg.pdf

This link explains how to save and run it in iTunes.  The script is added to iTunes and runs in iTunes.  
Please also review the Aurender App Guide for Transferring Music link below:

http://www.aurender.com/page/appguide-transferring

My instructions above plus the Aurender App Guide link for transferring music should enable you to transfer your albums from your MAC computer to your Aurender A10 including your albums cover art.  Cheers, Howard