Is there any likelihood of ROCK (or rather a ‘ROCK based machine’ if we’re being picky) being able to rip CDs via a USB attached CD drive in the future? Even if it were a 3rd party solution. I assume not but just though I’d ask.
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More generally, CD ripping with Roon Core and its rich metadata would be a big improvement over external ripping with limited metadata sources, especially for old or exotic CDs, and then laborious manual metadata editing to make it digestible by Roon. I realize this may be a rather unusual use case and so it will likely be a low priority for Roon Labs, unfortunately.
I think Roon have specifically ruled out doing it themselves. (I’d also love it if they did).
But I’m wondering would there be any mechanism. To expand on my question, I have a cd rom on my Mac mini, auto-ripping to a Roon watched folder with XLD.
I started getting the urge to add a NUC to experiment with ROCK and compare, but I realised I’d then need two computers to rip CDs and host Roon, which isn’t where I’d want to end up.
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I used to do something like that (more specifically, rip from my Mac with XLD dumping the results onto the Roon watched folder on my NAS) but I discovered that’s a bad idea because the metadata found by XLD for old CDs, small labels, and boxsets is often very messed up and will pollute the Roon library to the extend that the only way to fix the problem is to move the folder with the offending CD(s) out from the watched folder, clean the library, correct the metadata with a metadata editor (I use Metadatics) to match Allmusic.com naming (which is based on what Roon uses), and finally move back the cleaned up folders and reimport into Roon.
Instead, what I do now is to rip into a staging folder, ensure that metadata is clean, and then move to the watched folder. YMMV, of course.
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Exactly. I think it’s the best approach as well.
I do that too, it saves time in the long run.
It might well be the best approach for some. But I don’t want to do that. I’m too lazy and I want others to be able to automatically add CDs to Roon just by shoving a disc in a slot - without having to f about.
So my question is more about whether or not ROCK might have the ability to do it in the future, if it ends up with sandboxing type environment (which I don’t know much about).
IMO there’s a misconception from ‘power users’ about how much interest some of us have in this sort of stuff, let alone other people in the household! If I said to my wife or most of our friends if they wanted to add a CD to Roon they’d have to rip it on their laptops, run another application to sort out metadata, then once it was all checked copy it to Roon they’d all laugh and make me go out and buy a CD player again (or stick to CD). But that’s another conversation…
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Nope, no misconception. I agree with you. However, I’m the librarian in our household, and the staging approach is the one for me.
Me too, and use a similar approach, rip (dbpa), fiddle with metadata/naming if need be, then move to permanent library.
p.s. If asking at my house about ripping a CD and all the steps, they wouldn’t be laughing and going out to buy a CD player…Instead they’d be laughing and and saying ‘CD, who needs CD, it’s 2017, listen to spotify’.
I hear you, it’s a big PITA, but unfortunately there’s little alternative for us classical and jazz lovers with collections that include original releases from the early days of CDs. If we don’t do what I described, everything gets messed up in our libraries and we can’t find what we want. Even for recent releases from smaller labels, bought digitally (I’m looking at you in particular, eClassical and Bandcamp, …), metadata is often totally messed up and Roon can’t identify them.
I’d love to see this functionality added. While I recognize the struggles that make staging everywhere from highly desirable to an outright “must”, couldn’t that be addressed by requiring a user manualy approval of each rip before it gets added to it’s final destination? Anything that needs tweaking to be shunted off into a temporary location for manual override(s).
For me the important part is that it would be playable straight away as a recent import. If the metadata was screwed up that’s one thing but you’ll know what you just added so the rest can be sorted later.
But this is all beyond the scope of the question, which is simply ‘will it be possible’.
FWIW, I’ve seen Roon correctly identify many entirely untagged rips.
Possible yes, however you asked if it was likely … I’d suggest no.
Though in any event, and sorry if you feel I’m splitting hairs but it is quite important, it would not be ROCK as that’s small foot print operating system not an application.
Well, a little bit. :).
Perhaps a ‘ROCK based machine’ then?
[subject and OP adjusted]
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I can’t see Roon expanding ROCk to support this. You would have to add a lot of stuff to it. However there are Linux based boxes that do rip CDs such as this one.
I don’t anticipate having any interest at all in having a Roon server box involved in CD ripping.
CD ripping is something for which there already exists specialized, best-in-class software: the dBpoweramp CD Ripper.
The dBpoweramp CD Ripper pulls metadata from four different sources (for well-known CDs), usually choosing the best info from among them but giving you the opportunity to make your own selection or override. It compares your track checksums with the collective AccurateRip™ database to help you figure out if you got an error-free rip; if there isn’t AccurateRip™ data, dBpoweramp uses other strategies to try to ensure the bits are correct.
dBpoweramp used to be available for Windows only, and is so good that I kept a Windows virtual machine set up on my Mac specifically so I could rip CDs with dBpoweramp; but now the software is available for Macs as well as Windows machines.
Rip (with as much confidence as possible you’re doing it bit-perfect, with well-preened metadata, and with a nice cover image), then sync the result into your archival music storage watched by Roon only when you know the CD is completely ripped and as good as you’ll be able to get it.
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Wish I’d never asked! I’ll stick with my Mac mini I think.
I came to that same conclusion too (sticking with the Mac Mini). However, if Apple decides to kill it - current Mini is nearly 4 years old and no replacement is yet announced - we might have to go the NUC way.
Btw, I am using iTunes to rip CDs (set on AIFF). Less than ideal, but I rarely have metadata issues, including on downloads. Sure, I get the occasional hiccup (wrong info, wrong or no image etc…) but these are easily identified and corrected within Roon.
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Who knows what may come after nucleus… A cd ripping /core machine would be very cool. Bluesound makes one as well for their eco system. Unfortunatly the vault can not be used as a core for roon but can be used as storrage