As I understand it a backup will register things like tags, playlists, ratings on albums, any corrections we have edited as a result of identification by Roon.
However I’m not clear on just how far registrations of the editing is captured by the Roon backups.
I have made changes in track listings which have been “corrected” (meaning put into a form I like) but I’m unclear whether those changes are actually captured in a Roon backup or whether they are only registered in the music files on HDD. I have devised new covers with some albums or modifying the usual ones to make detection of album contents more easily observed from the thumbnail and suspect these are not registed in a Roon backup - but of course I could be wrong and that is why I’m asking.
I suspect that if there was a catastrophic crash of the HDD holding the Roon music files, a lot of the editing described above would be lost if the music files on an HDD backup is not up to date. Obviously it is important to keep a backup of these basic music files on another HDD but guess it is also important to keep those files up to date. Correct or not?
I figured a slight clarification couldn’t hurt: @JOHN_COULSON, all of your editing changes are saved in your Roon database backup(s). None of your editing changes are saved in your backup(s) of your music files.
(Apologies if I’m restating the obvious. It’s my specialty.)
Perhaps I should clarify what is causing my confusion.
For years I had been editing/grooming the library on Sooloos. Part of that was modifying/changing the display covers using MS Publisher. To my delight Roon displayed those modifications so I interpreted that as meaning the changed covers were registered in the FLAC/WAV files on the HDD. Other editing via Sooloos of album titles, artist names (eliminating Beethoven, Haydn etc as artists which seems a common error) and the insertion of composer names in tracks of albums with more than one composer’s work, … all seemed ported through and displayed in Roon. My interpretation of all that was that this editing, and similar later editing done while using Roon, was recorded in the FLAC etc files on the HDD. So you are telling me this is not the case?
If I export an album using Roon and import that FLAC file onto a portable player then the display of data re music on the album will not be the same as its display when playing with Roon?
I was never a Sooloos user, so I can’t speak to what Sooloos did (but you could find out by inspecting the embedded track data, either in Roon or in a third-party tag editor). As for metadata changes you make in Roon, no, those are not embedded in the track metadata — instead, they’re saved in the Roon database. So if you’re a Roon user, a good backup strategy involves backups of both the Roon database and your music files.
That’s really a separate question, and a good one. The Knowledge Base says that the Roon metadata is included when you export files…
…but you might want to test it to make sure that all your editing changes are included, or maybe someone from the Roon team can speak specifically to this.