Exactly.
10 chars.
This sounds a little bit tin foil hat to me frankly. If you really need to tag your files there are plenty of ways to do it. If you are ripping direct to what is intended to be an appliance, like Nucleus, presumably you don’t care that much so long as it works once it’s done?
If and when you extract your files from the Nucleus they have basic tags applied which can be enriched once outside of the device in a tool of your choice.
4 Likes
Personally I really can’t understand peoples reactions.
I don’t give a hoot about classical box sets or modifying Roons internet radio, but if updates happen in these areas or any other part I don’t use, I won’t moan about it because I did not get what I wanted in the update. All new features are welcome in my view. Not all are likely that simple either.
4 Likes
You’re the lucky one.
Not wishing to be rude, find a big classical set on Tidal and try to maneuver your way around it.
Then think of the poor souls who have this as their primary music source, you will see why we moan a bit.
Alfred Brendel 114 CDs completely un-indexed 
Unfortunately I’m not at home to suggest an example.
1 Like
How can you compare it to Tidal. It’s a streaming service that someones done that manual hardwork already or the studio provides the metatdata. It’s like looking at someone else’s curated library. Does any other music software handle it any better for CD box sets? I know people using Naims Uniti Core have the same issues. I don’t think this is a Roon only problem is it? Correct me if I am wrong but it sounds like classical causes problems across the board.
Yes sorry forgot the real name.
If you don’t care about a function, that is fine with me. But if I care, it’s no transgression to state my case. Roon is a great piece of software that adds a lot to enjoying music.
But, Roon seems almost deliberately non- compliant with pre-existing curating schemes, whether embedded custom metatags or organization by folders. It feels like a lock you in strategy, and I’m not for that.
Ripping without metadata reinforces that perception.
I don’t mind that Roon spent the resources to do it. I just think it’s tone deaf to roll out yet another way that your effort is locked only into Roon. Export or not. You have to have Roon to export too.
I know all the self-appointed defenders will come out and say then just don’t use it. But I’m a paying customer and it is perfectly fair to comment on the product’s closed silo design philosophy.
Ah OK, cue the self-appointed defender, i.e. me, to roll out the alternative viewpoint. And that is, yes Roon has a silo - its object-based model is far richer than anything else out there at the moment. The ID3 metadata model is two-dimensional in comparison with what Roon offers.
And yes, if you use Roon for your collection and listening experience, you will get something that other products don’t match. It’s not for everyone, that’s clear. But if Roon goes down in flames, or I ever tire of it and want to go back to a two-dimensional music player, I know I can do that. I’m not painted into a corner that I can’t get out of.
If you have invested in a Nucleus your pretty much invested in Roon for the foreseeable future it’s a bespoke peice of hardware after all.
It would be nice to have the tagging done, but I can live without it and do it with MP3 tag as I do use my library via UPnP currently for outside of home.
A
See, if you could not export it with data then I’d agree. But, you can. So it is not closed, imho. Closed to me means you can’t get it out or get it out without a lot of difficulty.
In fact, if you think about the option, it is not made for users who can move things around via the file system. The non-technical users will naturally use Export to move the music to another location. What I would expect is for the Export function to become a bit more robust, especially because of mobile.
For example, in discussing potential mobile Roon, the discussion seems to focus on Roon doing the copying/syncing to the new location, ie Export. Most forum posts I’ve seen don’t suggest that users want to have to move the files themselves via the file system.
1 Like
Ok I’ll bite… This functionality is for Nucleus. If you own Nucleus you have ‘bought in to Roon’ in a fairly substantial way.
You can however export from Nucleus, with tags.
Your comment about having to have Roon in order to export doesn’t make sense, since if you don’t have Roon you don’t have a Nucleus storing your music files anyway so presumably have tagged them some other way. If you do have Roon and a Nucleus you have a way to obtain you properly tagged files.
So I don’t get the silo design argument at all, it is illogical. If anything this reduces any proprietary functionality in Nucleus because now you can rip CDs and get at tagged files. Something you could not do at all before if you music server was Nucleus.
1 Like
I think this post puts it well:
What frustrates me is the duplication of work. Ideally Roon would easily import organizational and curation work more deeply/ broadly than it does, and then export any organizing/curation work done within it.
This ripping feature is just a representation of how Roon doesn’t do that. A user might spend weeks to years ripping CDs then move on from Roon, then have a huge amount of metadata-less media, if I understand correctly.
It is merely symbolic to me, but a reminder of that frustration.
And that concern is legitimate so I don’t appreciate the tin hat comment.
I dont understand why they would have that?
If you have spent years ripping CDs you would have certainly tagged them yourself. Unless you are using Nucleus (or similar appliance) to rip them in which case you dont actually care about that, until the point you want to extract your files from the appliance. At which point they are tagged. So what is missing?
2 Likes
You are expressing some sort of paranoia/conspiracy that Roon are trying to lock you in. Which they arent since you have full access to your files at any time, pristine and untouched by Roon at all if you so wish.
1 Like
To clear up one possible misconception, when Roon exports an album, only certain primary fields are included by Roon. It will not, for example, export recording location and dates, production credits, mood, tempo, or lyrics (unless you tagged that data yourself). Composers are hit and miss. I’m not sure about embedded art. One should not assume you get everything exported that Roon internally displays about the music.
If Roon’s ripper had an ability to access and download MB data, it would at least be on par with most every other ripper out there.
One last thing: Roon creates organized folders when it exports. Not a poor organization by any means, just a different organization than the one you invented when you gave it to the Roon app.
1 Like
Give me a break. It’s frustration that the product doesn’t inter operate well. No need to project some sort of mood disorder.
1 Like
The following data should be allowed for embedding into ID3 tags on export:
For my test album art for a Roon ripped and Roon ID’d album was embedded, too.
I have not tested how Roon export behaves when the metadata source was musicbrainz (only) - it would not be restricted by the rovi licensing terms but my guess is Roon doesn’t discriminate between metadata sources when exporting.
You will, of course, get all the tags that you entered outside of Roon. You may get the result of edits you make within Roon, but I am not convinced that works all of the time.
You won’t get all of the data Roon displays when you export. And you won’t get the same folder structure.
There could be quite a rude shock between what you think you have and what gets exported should you move away from Roon. The only way to avoid that potential shock is to robustly tag your music before handing it to Roon. Or, do as u_gee did and test what comes out to see if you can live with it.
It would be great if Roon would let me import more metadata and open up its custom fields external taggers.
To be honest: I can’t see Roon to ever evolve into a curation friendly tool. Its approach to do everything automatically is a cool idea and it seems for the vast majority of Roon users this works just fine. Personally, I think it’s far from perfect for a few (a very notable few) of my use cases and if nothing significantly changes regarding metadata quality I’m not hopeful that my experience will improve. And somehow I doubt rovi will adjust to my wishes …
My advice to everybody who wants to curate would be: do it outside of Roon but do it with metadata - not with folders. 
One other point: Roon customers do actually pay for the “lock-in” - the metadata service Roon provides is an essential part of the product. If I remember it right, it’s not even the software but the metadata service one subscribes to (yearly or for life). Why should we be able to take that with us should we move on? Even so I wouldn’t mind. 
1 Like