Understanding How Roon Recognizes Music in CDs

Hi Everyone: I’m running Roon Nucleus with SSD. When i copy music files from a CD into one of my Roon folders, Roon generally recognizes the music, album, artists etc.

However, when i alter the name of the folder, or move one of the music files into a different folder, Roon stops recognizing the music and it becomes and unknown file.

This prevents me from organizing my music in folders the way i want. As an example, if i create folders for Trios, Quartets, Sonatas and move the music files into the folder where it belongs, all recognition is lost. Is there some solution to this?

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Connected Audio Devices

Number of Tracks in Library

Description of Issue

I’m using mac running Sonoma OS.

Do your files had proper metadata tags? If they do, then the folders and their names should not matter. However, I believe that if there are no metadata tags for Roon to work with, then it might rely on folder names and changing them might make them unrecognizable

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This makes sense. But how can i control the metadata? All I’m doing is dragging the files from the CD to the folder.

You should be using a proper CD ripping program, which will add metadata, will typically save the tracks in FLAC format (saving space and providing other advantages), and ensure that there are no reading errors.

dBPoweramp is a popular solution:

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On macOS Yate is the best choice for tagging (IMHO).

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Thanks I heard of this app. Now if they have proper metadata will i be able to change folders and still retain the music recognition?

The OP first needs a proper ripper IMHO (and this takes care of the important tags for Roon already; not sure if the OP is interested into investing additional work with a dedicated tagger)

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You should be because Roon shouldn’t care about the folders.

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If you want a MacOS tool to rip CDs, convert audio file formats, and tag audio files (rather than just a standalone file tagger), I’ve been using XLD for years, and recommend it.

https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html

XLD is definitely another option but dBPoweramp has a Mac version as well.

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thank you! I hadn’t realised that. I’ll give it a try, and compare with XLD.

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I got started with dbpoweramp today and attempted to rip a standard classical music CD. I pointed it to one of my Roon folders to save the ripped files and tried to set all the parameters before starting.

Unfortunately, none of the saved AIFF files were saved with the metadata so they were not recognized in the Roon app. Trying to figure out what part of the process I missed.

All suggestions welcome.

I would run dbpoweramp on a computer and save the rips to a folder on that computer. Keep the original files as backups. Then, copy the files to a/the Roon watched folder.

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After tagging them :blush:

When music files on a CD are only designated as Track 1, track 2, etc with no musical description, it would appear that the CD files itself do not have proper meta data. Right?

So in these instances, how can dBpoweramp get the metadata? It seems to have it correctly in the setup but not in the ripped files in Roon folder.

So does ripping the CD files to my computer first, write the meta data to the files and insure that when they are moved to Room folder they will retain it? Seems that this is what you are saying.

Yes

From online databases like MusicBrainz and others. It’s explained on the dBPoweramp page that I linked, just scroll down to “PerfectMeta”: dBpoweramp CD Ripper: CD Converter, Securely Ripping

I am not sure what you mean. Note that the dBPoweramp CD Ripper adds the metadata when it creates a CD rip. It doesn’t do so for files you previously copied off the CD.

There are other programs that can add metadata to previously created files (or edit existing metadata) but that won’t work with files that you simply copied off a CD because those files don’t have a file format that can contain metadata.

Yes, the metadata is saved inside the files, it’s a part of them.

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in my experience Apple Music (neé iTunes) works fine for ripping/tagging, and should have more accurate data than you would find from MusicBrainz or similar services.

agree that you should rip to a local folder, then copy the files in that folder where you want them on your Roon server. Roon should then recognize them.

Hi @Howard_Sambol,
Thanks for writing in to ask about this. Do you still need help with tagging your CD rips?

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I have the ripper software working well now with CDs. I’m using local folder first then moving to Roon folders. The meta data is intact.

What if i make a modification of a recording of CD music. Is there a way to maintain the meta data encoding in the file?