Importing Albums purchased from Bandcamp

Roon Software Discussion
1

Most of my listening is done via streaming via Qobuz and Tidal. Occasionally however I’ll come across and album of interest which is not on either streaming platforms but are available direct from the record label or artists websites. All works fine except some album imports from some sources such as Bandcamp appear as a group of files in the local library with no metadata ie Artist, Album Title etc whereas albums from other sites ie record label Sound Liaison have their metadata intact and visible. So I’m assuming this might be a tagging issue? Just wondering to those more experienced in purchasing albums and installing on their local library…what’s the trick to having Bandcamp albums present the same way with the metadata intact?

2

As an artist you upload a single (ideally hi resolution) file to bandcamp - and bandcamp then cross-encode to the format the downloader wants. At this stage I think they also embed tags covering the the metadata the artist provided.

So it might depend on which file format you download. Metadata is harder to embed in .wav files - so you may have more luck with flac or alac.

BTW Bandcamp limit alac to 48k for compatibility with some apple devices. I check relative files sizes before I decide which format to download. If the alac is much smaller than the flac - I download the .wav,

Most bandcamp artist are independent so they sometimes don’t also upload their meta data to the other providers that roon use. So this also causes issues for roon.

I’m still using Apple Music / iTunes to manage music on my portable devices - so I usually check / add tags so that the music works there. Of course these also show up in roon.

So a good solution might be to use a tagger to fix any files you download,

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3

In my experience - 300 BandCamp releases always in flac - BandCamp does not include genre metadata. Not genre metadata that Roon cannot read, but no genre metadata that any program can read. In my experience BandCamp downloads always have album title and artist/album artist metadata but not much else. BandCamp downloads a zip file but the tracks files in that zip are not in a folder so unless you do something to put them in an album-specific folder they will .just be files scattered in the folder you unzip to. I use Media Monkey and its auto-organize function to fix things. My actual steps are:

  1. Unzip to pre-processer folder (used only for this purpose and not read by Roon)
  2. Edit metadata in Media Monkey
  3. Use Media Monkey auto-organise to move the files to a folder in a master folder that Roon reads (MM also moves cover art and pdf liner notes files when it does this).
  4. Step 3 will empty the pre-processor folder, making it ready for the next album. My experience is that doing just one release at a time avoids a mess.

This has worked flawlessly for me for several years using Roon and for longer using Media Monkey itself. I haven’t used iTunes since I discovered MM long ago, especially since there is a version for my Android devices…

Added: The whole editing process in MM takes no more than 2 or 3 minutes an album.

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I’m the same as @Stan_Jones except I use MusicBrainz Picard to ensure file names, folder structure and metadata are updated.

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Thanks so much for the feedback and comments. Looks like I have more work to do to arrive a solution I can use. I’m definitely on the early part of the learning curve with this one and your input is much appreciated.

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I buy albums on a weekly basis from Bandcamp and have never had an issue with them being seen in Roon.

I do this next part on the desktop where Roon is not watching the files. For new artists, I make an Artist folder, then under that, I make a folder with the album name, then under that is where I move the unzipped files to. After that is done I move the whole Artist folder to the area where Roon is watching.

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Unzipped presumably?

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Yes, sorry if that wasn’t clear. I’ll amend.

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9

I get mine in AIFF (ie WAV with metadata) for SSD and MP3 for the phone/car

10

Does anyone else get a short amount of crackle at the start of music from Bandcamp?

I’ve got a few that do it in AIFF format

I asked them about it, but they hadn’t experienced it

11

Last time I got distorted tracks from Bandcamp, they turned out to be bootlegs. They removed them and refunded me.

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These are legitimate (British) Sea Power* for example, and a couple of others

I’ve reloaded and unzipped on different machines, plus I can hear on my Nucleus, PC and AK380 so it’s in the files

*(B)SP very recently had a scam account that was taken down

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You could share one of them so others can try and confirm it’s in the file.

14

Maybe it’s another type of tinnitus :grinning:

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15

I had the same problem. According to the faq in Bandcamp, you have to select the zip folder in file manager and right click to unzip with the extract all to a folder; works like a charm! I was using 7zip before and kept getting an error message after extraction.

16

Thanks, I’ll try that :+1:

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I unzip directly to my watched folder on my NUC. Never had a problem and Roon has always identified the album even for new releases. I have to add genre but I’ve never used Roon’s genres anyway.