Media manager for OSX

Hey folks,

So I love Roon and I’m happily using it at home.

As a workaround (until remote playback lands) I’m using RSYNC to mirror my music collection onto my work machine.

I was wondering if anyone can recommend some software that I can use - rather than just browsing using VLC) - which will allow me to browse and play these files.

Requirements:

  • MUST HANDLE FLAC!
  • Free/Open source (ideally)
  • Doesn’t ‘touch’ the music files. I’m surprised how many insist on writing the ID3 tags to the file rather than storing it in it’s own database, like Roon does, but this usually breaks when the syncing process overwrites the files
  • Doesn’t need files named in a certain way (again, I don’t want to mess with the original files)
  • Can handle compilations gracefully (i.e. not listing every artist on it’s own)
  • Supports scobbling to LastFM (not essential, but would be nice)

Can anyone recommend anything that can do all of the above?

Thanks :slight_smile:

It’s not very clear what your use case is.
A good start would be to describe it that.

Oh, well that’s kind of it really. I just want to be able to listen my the music at work but not have to browse it in Finder (which doesn’t use the meta-data, so the albums aren’t grouped properly) and drop it into VLC every time.

How about Roon? :slight_smile:

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I’m using Roon at home, my Roon Core is on my media server. But I obviously can’t access that from my work machine and I don’t really want to buy another licence to access it at work…

I can switch between two Roon Cores , although I’ve only done that in my home network.
It’s easy enough to try if it also works when on different networks, quick test from your work computer should answer that.

I don’t want two Roon cores as that would mean that I would need to pay for two licences.

The options are either a) I find a way to connect to my home core, remotely (which is possible via VPN but complex to setup)

OR

I just keep the files in sync and then just use another player at work to play the audio files. That’s what I’m asking about.

Just my opinion, but I think you’re first (a) option (if it works and is stable) sounds pretty good. I work at home, in a comfortable chair, in front of my stereo ( :slight_smile: ) but if I had an office I’d like to have something like that.

Try Swinsian…

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Thanks - I’ve been trying it out this morning. It’s not bad, though it seems to struggle with compilations :frowning:

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My point is that you may not need to pay license for two cores,
you only need to pay for two if you want them to run at the same time.
It’s easy enough to test, isn’t it?

If you install Roon (with Core) on another machine, you can unauthorise your primary core.
It would look something like this:

That would allow you to run another core but would obviously not be a solution if you need your primary core running simultaneously.

Slightly off topic, but I’ve always held that “Finder” is an abbreviation for “Making it needlessly challenging to Finder” (language only gets more blue from there when I describe how I really feel!) … I’m always interested in suggestions for more functional alternatives - I’ve been using Commander One most recently.

Fair play @qdtjni, I’ve been doing this for the last couple of weeks and it’s actually a pretty good solution. Obviously I can’t share :heart: between work and home but it’s still miles better than my previous setup.

Thanks again :slight_smile:

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