Wonderful recommendations. Thank you. I have a question. I’d like to rip my complete Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto CD collection obtained in the past into a specific folder. Is this possible using Roon? I rip the CD’s as wav files on an Innuos Zenith SE, where they are stored. Perhaps this question is better directed to Innuos? Thank you for considering and/or redirecting to another Roon Blog.
Most people use a 3rd party ripper , dBPowerAmp seems to get the most votes . That way you can sort out the metadata before you add to Roon.
I used JRiver when I did my “big rip” as it was my player at that stage . The same comment get the metadata right outside of Roon.
I have never used it but I believe Roon’s ripping software doesn’t name files as you would expect (like 01 - Piano Concerto No.1 etc) it generates a “code” name that Roon understands but no other player will . Most users do not recommend Roon as a ripper
@bill_perkins - I’ve split your post out from the Classical discussion into a topic of its own…
Just to expand on Mike’s reply a bit - Roon stores all its metadata in its database. If you use the CD-Ripper function that is bundled with the Nucleus and ROCK, the ripped tracks do not contain any metadata as a result, and they end up in a structure like this:
However, if you want to use the ripped files with another player, you can use Roon’s Export function to export these folders to a target location. Roon will then use the basic metadata to construct album and track titles and insert basic metadata into the files.
As @Mike_O_Neill says, most of us use a 3rd party CD-ripper rather than Roon’s ripper. I do too, and the main reason for that is that Roon’s ripper does not understand boxsets at all and makes a dog’s dinner when ripping them.
PS Roon wants boxsets to have a particular folder structure. See:
Hello. I wanted to rip my collection (around 1500 CDs) too some years ago. the best way for that with minimal expense was the following:
- buy an old Mac mini with integrated superdrive (until 2010, will cost less than 100€).
- connect it no your network (LAN/WLAN)
- use iTunes for ripping
- activate automatic ripping and automatic ejection if ready.
- configure the output device and drawer (perhaps the media drawer of your roon server)
- Place a stack of CDs you want to rip right next to it.
- insert the first CD. iTunes will rip it automatic to the selected drawer und eject it if it is ready
- take the CD out and insert the next and on and on and on…
Advantage: The Mac Mini is very robust and sits securely on the surface; unlike an external CD-ROM drive, it doesn’t constantly slide around when you insert or eject CDs, making it very easy to handle - even with just one hand. It hardly gets any faster or more convenient than that. 
Does that process using iTunes produce the correct folder structure for boxsets that Roon wants to see?
Thank you @Geoff_Coupe and @Mike_O_Neill. I use the Innuos-provided InnuOS Sense ripper. The Innuos Zenith SE is the ripper, player and storage system. I use InnuOS Sense system settings to Roon and everything I rip this way appears in Roon. Was hoping to place the entire Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto recordings I have in the old jewel box CD format into a single file to minimize “clutter”. I’m starting to have difficulty re-finding classical recordings, as I enjoy listening to new releases as well as doing deeper dives into specific elements of the repertoire. Was (am) also an avid classical CD collector. Ran into the same thing as a researcher trying to re-find references in a bibliographic reference database containing > 5000 references. Vicissitudes of the compulsive in an almost paralyzing information rich environment 
. Roon helps tremendously with this. Just wondering if there were other options available to help with collection organizing and re-finding.
No. I purchased these years ago as they came out. Big pile of CD’s in jewel boxes.
Well, I know that using dbPoweramp I could rip each CD to its own folder, and dbPoweramp would insert the metadata (if known) from its metadata sources into the files. Then I would create a folder representing the boxset called something like “The Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto Edition” and put this JPG file into the folder:
The next step would be to rename the ripped CD folders into CD1, CD2, CD3, etc. and move them into the boxset folder.
That should give you a single entry for the boxset in Roon’s album browser, and on the Album page you would get the complete listing of all the discs with the option to filter it down to any one disc. The Focus function gives you more control of slicing and dicing though as shown in this example of my 18CD Delius boxset…
Since I’m a Mac user, I used XLD for ripping my CD collection directly to my NAS. It’s free and gave me good results including covers and metadata. I used a MAC Mini with external super drive.
Thank you @Geoff_Coupe and @safesurfer for the helpful information. I’ll see whether I can treat the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto series as a multi-CD set using InnuOS sense. I have no difficulty ripping individual or multi-CD sets from InnuOS Sense into Roon. BTW, I find the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto Series a bit uneven, as one might expect. Some are superbly recorded and executed. Others not among my favorites of the given pieces. Getting them was a pet project, as was getting the complete Telarc series (another uneven series). Have yet to rip them all as I’m enjoying the old and new mind-boggling releases made available from Qobuz. Only have 4 TB on the Innuos Zenith SE.
Yes you can configure that. Normally iTunes uses the folder structure (Music drawer) > Artist > Album > Titles
You can also use Tune Instructor as “Extension” for iTunes as Tag-Editor what makes this duo to one of the most powerful tag-editors ever!
Thank you @Otto_K_Domma. This is compatible with Roon?
What exactly do you mean?
iTunes rips normally MP3/AAC/ALAC files which of course are compatible with roon. The ID3-tags setter by iTunes too.
If you use your roon music drawer as iTunes output directory the ripped CDs will soon be imported in roon.
I have been unclear in my thinking and writing. I never meant to create the impression of being interested in using Roon to rip CDs. I rip CDs using my player/storage system/Roon core Innuos Zenith SE. My question was whether one can re-organize CD’s ripped on another device that then populate the Roon Album Library.
The work flow is Rip CD on Innuos Zenith SE → Roon Album Library (using Innuos Sense settings to do so). These are singleton albums, unless Innuos recognizes a multi-CD set. The latter often arrive in Roon Album Library as a single entry with multiple discs. My question was whether a set, such as the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto collection, which consists of multiple single albums could be re-organized within the Roon Album Library as a single entry with multiple recordings stored within it.
You suggest that something like this might be possible using iTunes/Apple Music and a meta-data modifying software and that such a single file could be then be changed into a single file with multiple CD’s in it.
Wanting Roon to be a hierarchical file system ala Apple’s modified UNIX system with folders within folders is unrealistic on my part. Yet I wish it were possible for increased ease of refinding particular recordings. Search terms sometimes work, but not always, particularly when one’s recollection of the piece is sketchy. The refinding issue becomes progressively more challenging as one’s collection grows, as I discovered as a researcher with a large bibliographic reference database and associated .pdf attachments.
I do not subscribe to iTunes/Apple Music. It’s probably true that it will be around long after other and unambiguously higher resolution services, such as my beloved Qobuz, are no longer on the scene. I’m still not altogether clear that Apple Music has all of its classical music content in at least RBCD or higher resolution. mp3 is a resolution I no longer listen to on any device and that is, for bandwidth reasons, where Apple has consistently/default landed in the past/?present.
I don’t know what a Roon music drawer is. I’m assuming this is an Apple Music designation?
Thank you your thoughtful suggestions.
It would seem that MusicBrainz has them as single releases
https://musicbrainz.org/series/6fc8a10e-5e8d-4a4c-b22d-9c0a38dacb13
So how about a tag,
Create a Folder “Hyperion Romantic Piano Music” in your file system (Windows?)
leave the album name as something distinct like to match the MusicBrainz entry
Use Volume 01 ..09 so they sort properly
set the subfolder name to the same value maybe just “Volume 01”
Set Disc # =1
Set ROONALBUMTAG as “Hyperion Romantic Piano Concertos”
Import
The text sub folder name will cause Roon to see them as individual discs, the ROONALBUMTAG will create a Tag and put all the albums in it
it should work, if not just move them out of the Watched folder and try something else !!
I know this starteed as a ripping thread (I use db poweramp, but use Media Monkey to finese the metadata before moving to a roon-watched folder) but I have a box set comment to add. If I were to add the Romantic Piano Concerto box to roon (I only have a few of them) I would treat each disc as its own album as it originally was and then create a tag that indicates it came from the Romantic Piano box set. You surely don’t want one massive multi-disc album with each cd a disc in that album; you’d never find what you want to listen to. Using the tag will display all the albums in the box set. This what I have done, for example among a number of others, with the Lahti Symphony recordings of Tchaikovsky which I downloaded as a “box set”.
That’s what Focus is for, surely? Works for me.
Thank you again @Mike_O_Neill . I was thinking that it would be nice to have a folder containing each of the individual CDs as separate documents/files, much like when one stores multiple .pdfs in a single file on a given subject. I’m limiting myself to ripping using the Innuos Zenith SE for now. I’ve mistaken Roon as a hierarchical file system, akin to the MacOS. It is not. Wondered if Roon had features that allowed knocking on the door of a hierarchical file system.
Thank you @Stan_Jones . I need to learn about Roon-watched folders, although given that I do not use other ripping software than that available on the Innuos Zenith SE (Innuos Sense), it may not be applicable. You are correct. I do not want a single file containing all the CD’s as one >100 CD recording.
Thank you @Geoff_Coupe . On the few occasions I’ve used focus to try to refind recordings, I’ve been disappointed. I expect I don’t understand it well enough. Could you provide me an example of how Roon Focus helped you find a specific recording by, say Bach or some other heavily recorded composer? I’d like to be able to use Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto’s as a focus and then refind the recording I’m looking for. Some of the composers in this series are unfamiliar to me and difficult to recall on spur of the moment. Thank you.