Metadata tagging of wav files for use on a UServe

Before diving, have you tried making a copy of a problematic CD to see if the copy rips? If that doesn't work, I can heartily recommend Metadatics for full control of tagging on a Mac.

Jan

Hi Jan-Erik,

I assume you mean create a CD-R of the offending disc(s)?  No I haven't, and if I did what software would you suggest?

Thanks for the Metadatics recommendation.  I've already had a look at this and it does look very good. Another one that seems interesting is YATE.

FYI - Generally the problems i'm getting fall into three categories:

1) Disc won't rip at all

2) One track from the album won't rip but the rest rip perfectly

3) Copy protected CDs or discs with additional data are a pain but often if you persist the U-Serve will get it it right, but not always.

Naim's music-server series uses Windows XP embeded, so what did you expect...?

This artificial internal / exernal music store separation makes it impossible to have one consistent concept to treat all our music the same way, with the same tools.

The choice of the not "ID-3Tag" standard compatible file format WAVE made an additional internal database for the storage of the metadata for the ripped music necessary. And those irksome separate folder.jpg workarounds, too.

Too much patchwork, hassle and inconsistency for my taste. So I finally sold mine, and use "only" a Naim streamer (NDS) now. That's where I see Naims strengths: HiFi not computer.

So I ended up using my Mac to treat all of my digital music the same consistant way (never ever had an unrippable cd):

- For ripping I used XLD and hopfully swap soon to dBpoweramp on OS X (only few bugs left).

- For tagging I chose Yate. Metadatics is a good, cheaper, but less powerful alternative (e.g. scripts and automation).

- In the end it get's copied to a QNAP fanless NAS with SSDs and Asset UPnP server.

Here's a good explanation of the different music file formats (Wat & Tog answers at the end):

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...am-and-eve-it-1?nc=1

Inside both WAVE + AIFF use uncompressed, linear PCM code (as on a CD). Because of WAVE formats shortcomings in metadata handling, I would avoid that to store music in general. AIFF is the more flexible container file format, because it handles standard "ID3-Tags". So all metadata is stored inside each single container file. If you copy, backup, restore music data over different platforms (PC, Mac, Linux, NAS), you never again loose your metadata, and end up with "naked" music files.

If you want 1:1 uncompressed music files (even more so if you have a Mac), AIFF is the format of choice to achieve that. Most UPnP servers can still convert it to WAVE on-the-fly for playback - if one would want to do that. But I use it natively.

With Macs I would prefer ALAC before FLAC with lossless compression formats. Again (like with uncompressed AIFF) because of the native OS X support (Finder, iTunes, QuickTime). But here at least, both formats do support ID3-Tags.

Finally AAC before MP3 with lossy compression formats, but only because of efficiency. They are both no highend formats anyway.

On Windows your mileage may vary... You can do it the other way round, too. But it doesn't work natively out-of-the box and needs additional software.

So have just done my first rip using XLD and the first thing i noticed is that it names files using both the artist and the track name, whereas my iTunes rip simply names the files by song name and then places the tracks in the album folder which is in turn placed in the artist folder - basically the same protocol as the UnitiServe.

Perhaps it is the way I have XLD configured?  If so how do I configure it so that the end result is more in line with how the UnitiServe rips and stores albums?

Thanks

KS

Think I figured it out.  If I change the format of filename structure to %n - %t and then manually define the folder(s) I want to export to that should do it?

 Or could  %A / %T / %n - %t also work?

XLD (like EAC on Win) is not plug'n'play to configure.

Make sure, you configure your optical drive right for "accurate rip"!

http://www.digitalvertigo.co.u...&hc_location=ufi

Without the right "accurate rip" parameters, you could as well use iTunes...