I seem to have some folders that were not properly ripped

Roon Software Discussion
1

So while I have the attention of the forum, may I ask a stupid question (I’m a newbie…)?

I seem to have some folders that were not properly ripped. The artist and album may be there, but the track names are "track 1 - track 2 - etc. What’s the easiest way to identify the track names?

2

From a commercial CD? Which one? Ripped with dbPoweramp? Did it not list the track metadata before ripping? If it can’t find any, you can enter it directly in dbP before ripping.

You can also use separate software that helps with tagging and renaming files such as mp3tag or Musicbrainz Picard or many others

3

Hi @Suedkiez -

These are mostly decades-old rips done prior to the likes of dbPoweramp. I wanted to know if Roon had any automated method of naming tracks? If not, then I have mp3tag and can use that.

4

I see. No, Roon promises to never change the files in your library. So you’ll need something else.

However, if you can convince Roon to identify the album, adding track names, etc., you can then export the album from Roon again, which should add tags two them and maybe proper file names, I’m not sure.

5

If artist and album are present and you can help Roon identify the album and the metadata is present in Roon’s source databases, the track names should appear…

You could optionally add them in using Roon’s edit function, but as per @Suedkiez probably better to use (eg) mp3tag so the edit is portable.

Success depends on how obscure they are! :wink:

6

You could try a demo of SongKong , it calculates an AcousticID by some tricky maths . As long as the albums are “real albums” and not a random collections of tracks SK often works miracles. I have had it ID an album just like yours . Its good with Pop , Rock as long as the album is in MusicBrainz or Discogs

If you try it its actually quite cheap and the developer is an active member of this forum

7

Mp3tag is the way to go. Hopefully, you’ll be able to use Mp3tag’s freedb integration to populate track names. I also recommend embedding album art directly into each file. Decades ago, we used to optimize around file size and biased towards an album art file in each directory. These days, the size of art in each file is inconsequential and I think it’s a best practice to go that route. Others might disagree.

8

Word of warning - when needing to edit / modify existing metadata on the actual ripped files as well as changing the folder structure (moving existing album to a newly created folder or renaming existing folder structure), make sure to turn off the core service on whatever platform you are using BEFORE performing any mods.

You can potentially create a big mess without doing so. Alternatively, you could copy the folder(s) from the core server containing the music in question to another computer (to perform edits) then execute a delete in roon (deletes the actual file).

After the mods are completed, copy music back to core server (would lose previous ratings, play counts etc…)

1 Like
9

Actually, I want to add one additional comment.

If the tracks in question are low-resolution rips of tracks that you are likely to find on the streaming service(s) you use, you might want to consider either throwing them out or, at least, moving them out of Roon’s view. This is assuming you don’t have CD masters that you can re-rip into lossless FLAC.

There are scenarios in which Roon will choose and play a local library track in preference to an identical higher-resolution track available through an online service. Roon Radio is an example. This means that a low-resolution track from your library will play rather than a higher resolution equivalent track from Qobuz or Tidal.

There are ways around this but they require you to do work to identify the online versions as preferable to your local versions and you have to do that album by album (or track by track).

I had files like this sitting around and I decided that there just weren’t cases where I would want to listen to one of my old MP3 low-resolution rips in preference to streaming the file from some online service. Most of my collection is FLAC and I have CD masters but I had old, old stuff sitting around, too. Of course if your files are unique or interesting in some other way, this won’t apply.