Tagging High Res Downloads

You can edit the tags of those hi res .flac files the same as any other .flac files.  There are several programs for Windows or OS X; which do you use -- Mac or PC?  For the Mac, there is a free program called "Tag" that I particularly like. 

My recommendation is to do the tagging on the computer and then move the tagged files over to your uServe. (I assume you have the 2tb model that allows you do store files in the Downloads folder. Please confirm.)  I see that you say your music has been "computer free;" I think you'll need to do this on a computer.  nServe allows one to edit tags of music the uServe rips, but not downloaded files such as this I'm pretty sure.

The artwork should be saved on the uServe in the same folder as the music files, as a file named folder.jpg 

Bart thanks - just for clarity these are WAV files and not FLAC. I use a PC and have a UServe SSD into NAS

You are correct that NServe is not an option for downloaded files. I'm happy to use my PC to edit the downloaded files but have no clue what the process is or what software to use. I understand that WAV and metadata is not always an easy fix. The album art is not an issue 

Ahh.  I've not had to deal with .wav files in this way.  The only .wav files I have are those ripped by the uServe.

You can try "tagging" the files with Media Monkey and/or Foobar and see if the uServe sees the info correctly. (My advice about album art still stands in any event.)

I get my hi res files as .flac.  If all else fails, convert the .wav to .flac and proceed

The download was only available in WAV and i have already tried using Mediamonkey but the Userve does not seem to be able to see the tags. Maybe I'm not doing something right - any other advice / ideas anyone?

Convert them to flac and try again?

I have never had a problem tagging wav files with Media Monkey although, of course, you can only tag a limited amount of info - album, artist and track name, track number, album art.  Your Userve should see the tags with no trouble but you may need to re-scan your NAS share after applying the tags. 

OK here goes.

First up, you'll have downloaded your album from the Smashing Pumpkins website to somewhere on your PC or NAS.  The logical place is the same NAS share that you use for the rest of your downloaded music, so if it's not there already you should move it there.

NB you should have a separate share for the music you've ripped on the UServe and the music you've downloaded or obtained by other means.  The UServe has its own way of tagging music when you rip a CD and will send it to a designated "Music Store" on your NAS.  You shouldn't fiddle with this Music Store except via Naim Desktop Client or the n-Serve app, and you shouldn't add music to the Music Store except by ripping via the UServe.

When you've got the album where it should be, have a quick look inside the album folder and identify the album art.  This should be a .jpg or, occasionally, a .png file, and whatever the ending happens to be it should simply be called folder, as in folder.jpg or folder.png.  A .jpg is best as it's the most flexible and can be seen by other systems such as Sonos but .png will be fine for your UServe it that's all you've got.  If the first part of the file name is anything other than folder you'll have to change it. 

If your album art file is something completely different, or if you haven't go any album art at all, you can google the album, find an image of the cover and save it as folder.jpg in the album folder.  (There's free software you can use to change artwork from different kinds of format to .jpg but I won't bore you with that and hope you will never need it).  

When you've done the above, open Media Monkey and, under File, select Add / Rescan Files...  Then go to the appropriate share on your NAS, select the album you want and OK.  Media Monkey will then pull the album into its main window.  

Select all the album tracks in the Media Monkey window and, if your album art is OK, it will appear in the bottom right window.  If it doesn't appear automatically, you can right click the space where the art should be, then left click "add image" which will take you back to the folder on your NAS, from which you can then selct the art file.

With all the tracks selected, right click them, then select Properties.  At this stage you're only adding the information that applies to the whole album - artist name, genre and album name (you can't tag stuff like date for .wav files so there's no point entering more than the basics) so don't touch Title which refers only to individual tracks.  Media Monkey gives you slightly different windows for classical and popular music but the same basic rule applies as regards the limited info that can be tagged to a .wav file. 

Still with all the album tracks selected, right click them, then select Auto tag from file name.  This won't do anything except identify any discrepancies between each track's file name on your NAS and the correct title that you want to see displayed when you're playing the track.  (There are other options such as Auto tag from the web but I find they're more trouble than they're worth).  If you're OK with the change the program is going to make, OK it, but otherwise cancel it.  You can fiddle around with the file name and/or display name of individual tracks, correct spelling errors, add question marks and the like to the display name (you can't have question marks and the like in the file name) by right clicking individual tracks and selecting properties.

You'll need to make sure that the tracks appear in the right order.  In the main window you can left click the top of the track column and the tracks should appear in the correct order with the correct track number beside them.  If there's a problem, you can correct each track individually: change the file name should begin 01 - [name], 02 - [name], etc, and make sure that in the Media Monkey Properties box for the track you have the correct number under Track #.  (You don't need the 01 -, 02 - etc in the display name and one thing that Autotag from file name will do is conveniently remove it while leaving it in the file name.  You don't always need 01 - etc in the file name either but you won't go wrong if you do).

Once you've done all the above, or while you're doing it in the case of individual tracks, you'll see a little bar at the bottom telling you that Media Monkey is tagging the tracks.  When it's finished, you can select all the tracks, right click and select Remove.  Make sure you only choose remove from library (not remove from library and computer, which will delete everything), and you'll be left with correctly-tagged files on your NAS and a clear Media Monkey library ready to tag the next album.

When you've finished with Media Monkey, you need to use Naim Desktop client on your PC to get the UServe to rescan your NAS.  To do this, open Desktop Client, the select Tools, followed by Music Repositories, follwed by Scanable Network Shares.  Select the share where the album resides, then go to the right hand side of the screen and select Rescan.  The process will take a few minutes but, at the end of it, if you've done everything correctly, the album should appear in your list with all the correct tags and artwork. 

For everything to display correctly in n-Serve on your Ipod, you may also have to refresh the cache (select this under settings in the n-Serve app).

I hope this does the trick.  

Endlessnessism - wow man wasn't expecting that level of detail!  I'll give it another try tomorrow and let you know how I get on.

Thanks mate for taking the time to reply 

Yeeeeaaahhh baby it worked! Endlessnessism you are a legend and sum up everything that is great about this forum - thanks again man I really appreciate your help.

just a couple of minor questions and then you can take a well deserved rest! 

1. I followed your guidance and everything worked a treat apart from the UServe picking up the album art - I added this manually via the desktop client via properties / upload album art, so no issue but wondered if you had any thoughts about why this was the case ? 

2. Assume your guidance also applies to any other download format (I.e. FLAC etc) ? 

3. I'm keeping all my downloads on the same NAS as the UServe music store - all UServe rips stored in NaimServerStore (H drive)  and all downloads in the shared music folder in Public (K drive) Like you say I won't mess with the server store but is this approach ok?

Once again thanks in advance mate

Prubast you have the uServe ssd version?

Yes -- let the uServe rip cd's to its store, and save your other music in what's called a share -- simply a different directory that the uServe sees.

And what are you doing for backup?

Hi Bart - understood and that's what I'm doing. More simply put, is it ok for the store and share to reside on the same NAS, but in separate folders? 

As for back up i'm using RAID 1 and yes I know it's not sufficient! - better purchase an external drive at the weekend or i will probably live to regret it.........not to mention that i'm sure you will also say I told you so 

Absolutely they can reside on the same NAS.  No reason not to.  On the uServe with an internal hdd, they reside on the same drive as well.

As to not backing up . . .   My NAS backup is so easy -- an external usb drive is connected.