Embedded file artwork not showing in Roon

Hi – I am a Roonewbie (2 days of experience) and have followed this advice, My catalog is arranged by album title, and I set the global preference to use the file instead of the Roon database. This works, but the global settings do not work for the artwork. The artwork that doesn’t show are covers that I embedded in the .wav files using JRiver. I know they are there correctly, because I was using minimserver and bubbleupnp prior to Roon, and the artwork showed up properly in bubbleupnp. I should also note that the artwork doesn’t change either if I try to edit individual albums, rather than globally.

I have tried re-scanning the albums after saving the global changes, but this does not have any effect. Any ideas? thanks – David

This KB page implies that embedded art can be used.
Let’s drop a flag for @mike and see if that extends to wav.

Hello @David_Zigas,

I don’t think that .WAV file itself can contain any metadata including Artwork, are you sure that they were not saved in the database of the app you used before for browsing your music library?

Though, you can store a separate image (album cover) into the folder where files are located and Roon will pick it up.

Thanks.

Vova – Thanks. I’m quite certain wav files themselves (as of 2013) can contain metadata. My old pre-Roon server was minimserver, and used in conjunction with Bubbleupnp, all the embedded artwork was displayed. In fact, 98% of the artwork is displaying in Roon. About 2% of my files are hi-rez vinyl rips I made myself. I created metadata for those wav files in JRiver, which allows you to update the wav files with the newly created metadata, in addition to the database JRiver also maintains (I’ve often wondered why they designed it with this dual function).

Having said all that, I do have the jpg cover files in a separate folder. Do I need to pick out the jpgs I need, or can I put them in the music folder with the wav files Roon uses? Thanks. – David

Andybob – Thanks. Does your comment do the flag-dropping for Mike, or do I need to do that? (if so, please tell me how). Also, fyi, your KB link results in an empty page and an error message about the topic not being written yet. – David

Hi @David_Zigas,

As you can see the @ syntax drops a flag for that user. Vova has picked up the thread so all good. I’ve redone the link, may not add much to the debate though.

Roon will automatically use cover art stored in an album folder and named cover.jpg or folder.jpg. You may need to select album/Edit/Rescan Album after moving pictures into such a folder. You can rescan a group or after each album as you prefer.

@andybob Thanks. Just thinking out loud here… My albums are no longer grouped by folders. They are one long list of 15,000 or so files. Players like Roon, Jriver, etc., don’t seem to have a problem with this because they recognize the album metadata i have tagged them with. Ditto for artwork… except for the minority 2% I described. Without albums as groups of files in Windows folders it doesn’t sound like Roon will know which artwork goes with which album – but maybe I’m missing something. thanks for your help. – David

What kind of .wav file are you using ? I always considered that standard .wav didn’t have metadata tags.

@ncpl they are standard wav files. it is a common misconception that they can’t hold metadata. The proof is that Roon is reading 98% of them – I don’t have separate jpgs with the wav files. There is an issue with 2% of them (see earlier posts). Thanks. – David

@ncpl @andybob I thought I’d poke this thread after checking my library files just to verify what I mentioned earlier – it’s a bit of a head scratcher. Roon definitely reads metadata for the vast majority of my wav files. As a test, I downloaded a 24/96 Strauss symphony I had my eye on. As I moved the wav files in Windows Explorer to get them in my library folder the icon for the cover art pops up in WE, at the left of the files. And Roon could “see” it as well, and it showed after I hit the preference for “use file art.”

It’s a different story for my vinyl rips. I create the metadata for these in JRiver, which updates the wav files (at my command), so the metatagging isn’t “captive” to the JRiver player. I know this artwork is in the wav files because it shows up in the Bubbleupnp/minimserver DLNA arrangement. But for some reason, Roon doesn’t “see” this artwork – it’s not available to select in the Editing box. To add to the puzzle, Roon does see the the other metadata in the wav files for my vinyl rips, like album name, artist, etc. If you guys have any hunches about this discrepancy, I’m all ears. The only fix I can think of is to drag over jpgs into the Edit dialog box. I works, but is laborious and inelegant ;<] Thanks! – David

Try converting one of the WAV files to another format that permits embedded art and then back again, using an up to date program like mp3tag. That might clear out any inconsistencies in format. If it works for one file then do the rest as a batch.

This is definitely worth a try. I have nearly all WAV files and Roon finds the artwork fine. These were mostly created from AIFF files converted to WAV with Dbpoweramp. This is one of the problems with WAV metadata in that there is not a fully established format.

Super, thanks for the suggestion.

Cool thanks.