I have been using Roon for a while on a Mac now and I use it like this:
I import all my music in iTunes where I can edit easily in list view and manage my library
I playback with Roon.
In iTunes I keep some things like custom genres, star ratings etc …
I am switching to a PC now and I could still use the same system. However I would like to stop using iTunes for library management and was thinking of getting Jriver instead.
So here are my questions:
I believe in iTunes the metadata isn’t stored in the files but in an xml library and Roon gets it’s info from there?
Is there any way I can mass edit metadata in Roon?
If I use Jriver, where does the metadata get stored then and will Roon be able to read it?
Is there a way to store metadata in the music files?
Thank you for reading, I hope someone can make me a little wiser about how custom metadata works.
What iTunes does depends a bit on the audio format, so if it thinks the audio format can support particular metadata it is stored in the file itself then it is stored in the file and the library. If it is a field that cannot be supported by the audio formats metadata then it is only stored in the library. The Xml file is just a way to viiew the libraries contents it is now depcrecated by Apple and no longer created by default in iTunes.
Now there are some complications there are some fields that are supported by most audio metadata formats such as Playcount, but iTunes chooses to store this only in the library anyway.
Then there are WAV files, although WAV can now properly support metadata iTunes ignores this fact and only stores WAV metadata in the library.
I would suggest you open your files in a tag editor such as mp3tag/ or jaikoz to see what data is stored in the file, then if data is missing and you are on a Mac you could use ‘dougscripts’ to get that data out, the options are more limited on Windows.
JRiver works in a similar way to iTunes, it reads metadata from files as they are loaded but then stores them in its own library.
Disclaimer, I am Jaikoz developer.
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
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Roon stopped providing for this in a prior version. Plus, there are so many good tag editors that Roon doesn’t need to develop this itself.
Yes, definitely, for most music file formats. My suggestion is you get Foobar200 – freeware – and try this. It has a default itunes feeling interface highly customizeable) but it’s quite a bit more powerful in terms of metadata management. Learn to do custom library views and you can really speed things up. There are, of course, also many apps just for tag editing. Some of those can even use scripts.
If I get it right from your and Paul’s post then Foobar, unlike Jriver keeps most metadata in the files instead of a library?
And for my needs, wouldn’t it be better to just use a tag editor instead of a player with library management? Isn’t a tag editor basically the same as a library manager? Any good ones you can recommend on Windows?
I think you have to distinguish between a database and a collection of files that individually have (tag) metadata.
Why would you use a database? Usually for performance, and also because you can derive additional ways of slicing and dicing your data that would be difficult to do down at the level of file metadata.
So most, if not all, library management systems (iTunes, JRiver, Roon, Groove, Media Monkey, etc. etc.) come with their own database. Those databases may well use file metadata to populate the database, but that’s probably only the starting point.
Personally, I give Roon a helping hand by using a tag editor on Windows (dbPoweramp) to manage file metadata. Sometimes, downloaded files contain erroneous metadata, and if I’m adding personal recordings, then Roon will use the metadata in the files to populate its database.
I’ll read up about the Roon Database and Genres, interesting!
I like the idea of giving Roon a hand by metadata editing.
I don’t think I’ll steed need a library manager then, I mainly used it for forcing Roon to use my genres anyway. Do you still use a library manager (apart from Roon)?
I checked out dbPoweramp but it seems that it’s more a CD ripper (I used XLD on the Mac). PerfectTUNES from the same developer seems to be the tag editor. Is that right? Is this a good one or are there better alternatives?
I’ll need another CD ripper as well then as XLD doesn’t exist for Winows. dbPoweramp or another one?
dbPoweramp is both a CD ripper and tag editor. The ripper also uses AccurateRip (a crowdsourced database of rip data) to minimise ripping errors. The ripper also integrates with online metadata sources to populate the metadata in your ripped files.
The tag editor integrates into the Windows Explorer shell, so that you can manage/edit metadata directly within Windows Explorer.
I’m a very satisfied user of the dbPoweramp product.
Roon’s metadata database is richer than what you can do with the embedded tags in the files, and this is what supports the advanced scenarios. In addition, for most kinds of music, Roon’s automatic identification and metadata association takes care of it (excluding classical, according to many enthusiasts here).
My habit is to just rip or download the music, letting the ripper or downloader decide on directory structure and tagging as it wants. Roon then imports the content and automatically handles things, very well. For those cases where Roon or the source don’t handle it, I add or correct the metadata in Roon. Since this is rare, for me, it is more convenient to handle the exceptions than managing all the metadata.
I like the Roon system fine but when it comes to genres I have my own ideas.
I think using Roon to manage the database and do it’s magic whith a little push from dbPoweramp for the genres like Geoff suggests should do the trick fine and allow me to implement my own genres. Turning off Roon Genres and on File Genres in the import settings lets me do just that.
So I think dbPoweramp and Roon is all I need then? No need for another library/database manager I suppose?
I think it’s also possible to let iTunes still see my music without managing it and messing with the files and folders, right? Would be a way to still aync the music with my iPod Classic I use in the car.
What about classical metadat Anders? Doesn’t Roon handle it well enough for a basic classical listener? I know classical metadata is a tough cookie for the serious classical listener but I hope Roon doies a good enough job for the occasional listener?
Also, in iTunes I used to like the 1-5 stars system fine on a per track basis. It seems that Roon uses that per album and then favorites per track. Not really the same as selecting a genre and then checking out all your 4 and 5 star songs for that genre. No way to star tracks in Roon?
This article gives some more background on the “Roon database vs file tags” approach…
Re the “is Roon good enough for basic classical listeners?” question, my answer would be yes (being a basic classical listener myself). But the best way to answer this for yourself is to try it for yourself.
Good enough for me. I’m very light on classical, did it much more forty years ago, but I lost interest, not much happening, like Mahler hasn’t done anything new in years, all we get are covers .
Thanks, will do fine as far as I have seen. Still need to import most of my classical music in though (Decca, Deutsche Grammophon collections … some good quality collections I gathered.
So, to be clear, it seems I have no need for Jriver (for what concerns music) at all, Roon does all that and more. Just dbPoweramp to force my own tags.
Yes, and dbPoweramp will handle the ripping of your classical collections, along with managing your Genre tags. Roon should be able to build on that.
My suggestion would be to have a staging area where you rip to, and perform any tag management. Then copy the folders across to your main music library folder, which will be watched by Roon.
The best folder structure is to use the form /Album Artist/Album/tracks. For multi-disc sets, follow the guidelines shown here.
Just a quick note for Classical enthusiasts, with SongKong we have been working
very hard to solve metadata management of Classical, screenshot shows some of the options to give a flavour of what can be done.
SongKong understands work and movements, soloists, conductors, choirs, ensembles and orchestra are all individually identified, it does sensible things with the composer such as not putting it into the artist field, please take a look.
By Artist what is usually meant is Artist Credit, i.e the (possibly multiple) artists credited to a release. So in the second example I would think a sensible folder name would be Robert Plant and Alison Krauss as they are of equal standing. I dont know how Roon works but I would assume it would look at the albumartist field metadata not just the folder name.
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