Best approach to starting "fresh" with retagged files?

[Pacoinmass]

I’ve been using Roon now for about two years and love it. I have a mix of uncompressed .mp4, FLAC, and DSF files and decided to clean up my library by reripping CDs to FLAC so I will only have FLAC and DSF file formats moving forward. I will also clean up my tags (current files reflect inconsistent tagging practices over the years).

To start “clean” I’ve ripped my CDs to a new folder (“FLAC” for now) that is not watched by Roon. My current Roon folder is “Music”.

My approach is to clean up tags for the files in the “FLAC” folder, change the current “Music” folder’s name to “Old Music” using my NAS’s file browser (QNAP…File Station), and rename the FLAC folder to “Music”. [I would delete the “Old Music” folder after I’m comfortable that the switch worked.]

I had a couple of questions because it’s hard to follow the articles in the knowledge base and would like to make sure that the import process goes smoothly.

1. Is this the best way to start “fresh” with the retagged files?

2. Before changing the current “Music” folder’s name, should I “Remove” the path in the Storage menu or simply “Disable” it?

3. Will this approach delete the few edits I’ve made to Roon tags…which is what I want to make sure happens…don’t want any “leftover” edits when I start clean…in other words, have Roon use the settings as set in the “Import Settings”.

4. Will this approach let me keep my history, playlists, radio stations?

5. I assume that my DSP settings, extensions would not be affected, correct?

6a. If the answers to the above are yes, do I simply force a rescan of the new “Music” folder once I’ve deleted the old one and renamed the “FLAC” folder to “Music”?

6b. Is that in essence a “new” import in this case so that the “Import Settings” will be applied?

6c. Or do I have to somehow delete the current library and start fresh (and lose my history, playlists)?

7. Is there another approach that woudl work better, be simpler?

Thx in advance for help…reading the Knowledge Base articles to determine the best approach has my head spinning!

[geoB]

my understaning is Roon is monitoring and watching your Music folder, so what you should do is disable it and then do the renames and re-enable, at that point it will re-scan everything and should be OK.

But what I would do is add a 2nd folder to Roon, not your new Flac one but say FlacMusic, leave it empty, then before going wild and doing all your music, you could copy in one CD and see how it reacts. If you pick a target CD to practice with you could copy it out of the music folder to save it, then delete it from Music, then copy it into FlacMusic and see how it works.

[Mike_O_Neill]

First BACK UP …and again

It’s a brave move

Wait until you get a consensus on the process , I may have missed something

My suggestion is …

Then disable the existing drive , no need to delete It yet

Then Settings > Library > Clean up library > Library Maintenance and clean up files

That should empty the dB, otherwise you may pick up stray links to similarly named albums . This will mean a Clean Import with new metadata lookup

Then add the new folder to the watched list , brew coffee …

Not sure about playlists etc , need further advice there

Good luck

[Pacoinmass]

geoB and Mike,

Thank you.

Mike,

I regularly back up both my music files and the Roon database however thx for the reminder.

I hadn’t thought of cleaning up the library because I’m not sure what the “Library” does relative to the Roon “database”.

I’ll wait for others to provide input as you’ve suggested…particularly around playlists and history.

Mike,