Was Anyone Hoping that CD Ripping Would Be the Next Feature Enhancement?

Roon has an export feature for music files. This will also work for Roon-OS ripped CDs in the known way … select an album (or tracks) and (basic) metadata will get written to these files as tags. So if one needs ripped files outside of Roon it should work reasonably well.

I couldn’t really verify how automated identification works because the discs I’ve tried it with I had to identify manually. :roll_eyes: But yes, as long as the files are staying in the ripped folder, metadata will only reside in the database.

I imagine its using cddb or some other Look up initially to identify the contents of the cd then it can use the rest of the servers metadata sources to pull in the rest. I am sure it’s not infallible. I’ve had new releases fail to identify via cddb before now and some obscure ones are not there at all. But I imagine for 90% it will work, much like most rippers.

It’s not my intend to complain about newly added features, because I applaud at Roon for creating a more compelling and complete product. However the thing that does disappointment is that Roon implemented the cd ripping part poorly. No data tagging and no integration with the accuraterip database is a huge misser imho. Even more so when you realize it must not be that hard to implement. I reckon many users would be happy if it was implemented this way.

Luckily there are more options for cd ripping, so no loss. But Roon is/becoming a real hifi quality brand. They should pay attention to the quality of updates and/or added features imho.

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Tagging works via the Roon, not Roon OS; it doesn’t make much sense to implement it twice, I’d say. If the files stay inside the Roon world, there’s no need for file tags. For everything else there’s the export functionality.

Disclaimer: I do not really intend to use the feature, I have a well established ripping workflow already. :wink:

I don’t want to be dependent on Roon to be able to browse my music as I also make use of the Lightning DS player from Auralic. Also I want my music library to be properly tagged when stored.

I think this enhancement makes a lot of sense. The Roon appliance is more complete and easier for prospective customers to get their CD collection into Roon. To me this says Roon understand their user base … and this isn’t a feature I benefit from.

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Understood. Maybe there will be a fitting feature update when the next Roon version comes - so tags can get written to files without exporting.

Please no - I don’t want Roon to touch my files; ever.

As long as I can export my files and then, and only then, is the basic metadata (plus my custom tags) written to the exported files, then I’m satisfied that I’m not painted into a corner.

It’s probably easy to determine if the files were created by Roon OS, have no tags at all and only then offer the option to write tags to those files (or do it in the background).

I love how Roon add something to a free product that’s is not the main product and people rip it to pieces. No pun intended. There really is no pleasing some people. I am sure there a very valid reasons why metadata tags and accuarip have been left out and I imagine licensing comes into it somewhere. That and if they add it, then everyone will scream for it in the main server application to edit their files.

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That would be one way, but perhaps over-egging the pudding (i.e. more work than necessary). I expect that exporting files will just use the contents of the Roon Database for the basic metadata to be written to the exported files, as is probably done now. That content has already been built up from Roon’s online sources, or the ripped files’ own metadata.

I thought it was simply because if the album can be identified by Roon, then metadata tags are not necessary as a pre-requisite. And it sticks to Roon’s core (pun intended) philosophy: don’t modify the files - ever.

That’s what I meant … using the existing functionality (code) to write tags to ripped files. Since it’s part of Roon (not Roon OS) it may get released later.

Well, we need an experiment here. My bet is that if someone would care to rip a CD using the Roon OS feature and then export the resulting files, then we will find the basic metadata have been added to the exported files.

I did. It works.

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Ta-Da! - I rest my case.

Hi,
Does the Roon export also create appropriately named folders and files?

My 2p

We are not told how Roon Allocates developer effort, but it’s a fair bet that it’s all one pool

Effort in any specific area ‘robs’ the other areas.

With the glowering shortfalls on Classical music and other areas of the program it does hurt to see effort sidelined to a process which is extremely well covered (if not swamped) by 3rd party apps. Indeed most , if not all, of us enjoy digital music courtesy of one of these apps before Roon came along

I can’t comment on the change as I do not use ROCK. All I can think is that there is a new generation of Nucleus including CD drive and ripping en route. Good luck to Roon with prospective sales.

I feel twitchy enough that all Roon proprietary metadata disappears as soon as you stop subscribing, this seems to suck us deeper into the Roon Ecosystem , eat your heart out Apple.

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It was Album Artist / Album title. Like when you export any other album. Can’t say how it would have worked for filenames because the tracks were not IDed completely.

Hmmm. It doesn’t illustrate that to me at all. My take is that the option was addd to tick a box for Nucleus sales vs the competitors. I would not be surprised if V2 of the Nucleus had an option with a CD. They could have just made it a Nucleus OS only option.

The point of it is not to rip your CDs in a general way, but, to offer a solution for users who cannot figure out how to get their CDs into a Roon OS server. As has been mentioned, one of the comparison points vs the other “server” options on the market is lack of the ability to rip CDs into the server.

The comparison which should be made is Roon OS ripping vs what the other servers do with their rips. I don’t think this was ever expected to replace something like dpPoweramp. Roon has said many times that they did not want to be a tagging software.

How many others around remember Library Organization? @Geoff_Coupe @andybob ?