Best practice for ripping entire CD collection

[MSwiss (Matt)]

Hi All,

New to Roon but jumped in with both feet after my free trail as absolutely loved it.

I’ve bought a NUC to run rock and I would like to rip all my CD collection and store it on a dedicated SSD in the NUC and have a copy SSD for disaster recovery.

To do this are the general thoughts still to use dBpoweramp or is Roon Rock a good way to go?

If I use dBpoweramp I presume I copy the file to an external SSD and then connect it to NUC and copy to the internal SSD?

If I use Rock can it be copied from the NUC to an external SSD for a backup?

Thanks in advance.

[Martin_Webster]

Welcome to the Roon community, @MSwiss.

My preference is to rip CDs on a PC or laptop—dBpoweramp is a good choice—and keep the master copies off of ROCK, so any metadata tweaks are easily achieved.

Then copy the master music library to your NUC using something like Rsync (or a GUI app that uses this.) Once the heavy lifting is done, changes and additions take very little time to send over to ROCK.

[EvilGnome6]

My process involves:

1. Ripping with XLD (Mac only - dBpoweramp is a good second choice if you only have Windows)
2. Storing the ripped FLAC files on my NAS.
3. Backing up my NAS to the cloud
4. Using Rsync to clone from my NAS to my ROCK

I also incorporate many other steps like these:
Scan all the artwork and create a PDF (Roon can pick those up, it’s very cool).
Use MusicBrainz to tag all the metadata.

[MSwiss (Matt)]

Thanks Martin,

I’m no computer wizard so it’s a steep learning curve for me lol.

I guess dBpoweramp and perfecTunes is the best package to buy. I would then use a GUI as I don’t feel my tech skills are up to a non GUI version

All the kit should arrive tomorrow so prepare for more questions from a newbie!

[Mike_LC (Mike)]

@MSwiss

If I use dBpoweramp I presume I copy the file to an external SSD and then connect it to NUC and copy to the internal SSD?

Like others with a windows PC or Laptop I used dbpoweramp to rip my CD collection. Thats one copy on my Laptop SSD, then another copy on an attached USB SSD and finally one copy on a USB SSD that I keep in safe. Nothing automatic or offsite.

I use windows File Explorer and copy/paste the files to the NUC over the Network.

[bearFNF]

If you have not seen it yet:

ROCK Install Guide

Also a good video guide (a little old but still worth a watch):

Roon ROCK - Roon Core for the Intel NUC - part 1

[MSwiss (Matt)]

Thanks all, really appreciate the responses.

Looks simple enough, just time demanding I guess

[dpstjp]

It is time demanding but you’ll get in a flow.

XLD and bBPoweramp are excellent choices. MP3Tag is excellent for tagging (the OSX version is by far the best tagger for that platform I find).

Do correct metadata before you expose it to Roon.

Only other thing is do you have any SACDs?

It’s worth keeping a copy offsite somewhere to protect yourself against fire. For a big collection that’s a lot of time investment.

[Geoff_Coupe]

@MSwiss

I guess dBpoweramp and perfecTunes is the best package to buy.

TBH, I think dBpoweramp is sufficient for all your ripping and metadata needs. And dBpoweramp has a GUI, and it integrates into Windows File Explorer for metadata editing as well, if that’s what you want…

[Tim_Rhodes]

@MSwiss

If I use Rock can it be copied from the NUC to an external SSD for a backup?

A word to the wise, make backups of your backups. And then back them up.

[Geoff_Coupe]

@MSwiss

If I use Rock can it be copied from the NUC to an external SSD for a backup?

There’s no backup function for music files in Roon OS (at the moment - can’t speak for the future). You will need to use a backup or copy application running on a PC/Mac/NAS to do this - and it would be better to have the external SSD/HDD on the PC/Mac or NAS to halve the network data traffic and thus the elapsed time.

[David_Gibson]

You might want to take a look at ViceVersaPro. You can use it to keep multiple copies of your ripped files in sync.

[DanielAvasilichioaei]

This is not best practice, is just my experience.
For folders and files:

• Try to use names as short as possible.
• Avoid using special characters (any other than English letters and standard numbers).

Possible optimization of Roon database (for local files)

I have a local library of a little over 25,000 tracks, with files organized like this: artist folder / album folder / tracks. I used this convention for the name of the track files: DD-NN track_name. DD is the disc number (if applicable) and NN is the track number. I saw that the path and file name are stored in the Roon database, so I wanted to see the impact of reducing the length of the file name. I removed track_name from the file name and left only DD-NN. After that, the duration of the …

[Andrew_Stoneman (AJS)]

I did about 3000 CDs over ten years ago using EAC

I had two main PCs with two drives each and a laptop with one drive - I felt like a plate spinner

As disc space was relatively expensive I used FLAC for my faves, and MP3 320 for everything (for portable use)

When discs became cheaper I switched to AIFF, and that how I’ve downloaded from Bandcamp - the point being that AIFF is essentially WAV, but with metadata

[bearFNF]

I used EAC a lonnngg time ago. It was very slow but did a good job. I also had multiple drives running to rip my CDs back then. Was very happy when I found dBpoweramp as it is much faster.

@Anthony_B yep, that works, until the service gets rid of or drops the album or the internet (or power) goes down for an extended period. Then you will need to go back to local player and files if you want that album or to play music until the internet is back up.

[PixelPopper]

My 5 cents (Or two penneth)…rip to whichever device you wish then use freefilesynch to backup and synchronise to your various locations……

FreeFileSync

The software has a simple and effective GUI, you can use for free and make a donation if you feel that’s appropriate…

[garym]

Another fan of

1. dbpoweramp for ripping (I rip to FLAC)
2. mp3tag for tag editing

[SandsOfArrakis (The Spice Must Flow)]

I’ve re-ripped my whole CD collection over a period of several weeks early this year. They were still stored as 320 kbit AAC, now they are uncompressed FLAC.

I’ve used dbPoweramp for ripping. And XLD for the handful of albums that dbPoweramp failed to rip on my MacBook Pro.

Tagging I’ve done with PerfectTunes. The companion app to dbPoweramp.

Created a backup of the whole collection to both an external hard drive and stored it online in my Vox Cloud account.

Copied the collection over to my Roon Core (Lenovo laptop running on Linux) and had Roon import the music collection.

PerfectTunes picked up most artwork automatically. I only had to google a few and add them manually. Tags were generally ok here as well. Did have to do some editing here and there.

Of course, having a bunch of bootleg albums, meant having to do several albums completely myself.

I’m streaming next to my local collection. Actually streaming all the time, even the albums that I’m owning myself. But if an album disappears from either Tidal or Qobuz, then I can still use my local copy to listen to it.

[TuliaNonTroppo]

DBPA and Perfect Tunes is a good way to go.

How many CDs are in your collection?