Core Metadata Issues and other teething trouble

Streaming Audio
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I’ve just got a Core and I’m starting the long task on ripping all my CDs. After a few goes I’ve noticed some issues

  1. One disk has ripping errors. If I rip it again will it just overwrite the old version or do I have to delete and then rip again?

  2. Another album had three discs. These appear as three separate albums once ripped. Is there a way of merging them together like you used to be able to do in iTunes etc. ie Marking them as disc 1 of x?

  3. I have a box set of CD singles. When I rip them I have 27 individual albums all called “Album_serial number” and Unknown artist. Editing the metadata it just says “No online metadata” under Rovi. Is there a way to actually search the Rovi database? Does it not hold info on CD singles? If I change the Artist Name to the correct name it doesn’t then show me a list of albums to choose from.

Hopefully there are some obvious answers to these questions. If it’s “You need to start again” that’s fine as I’ve only done a few.

Any helpful suggestions appreciated.

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@davidhendon is the man you need to answer your questions.

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Thank you to @CliveB for the vote of confidence!

The answers are:

  1. If you re-rip a disc, it always overwrites what is already there. You don’t need to delete your earlier rip.

2.No there isn’t a way of merging three discs into one. If it really matters to you then you could copy them to the Downloads folder, delete the copies in the Music folder, merge them yourself using a metadata editor. You can’t just move the files into one folder because the Core uses the embedded metadata not the folder structure to organise things.

  1. You can’t search Rovi except using the search again in metadata editing. I don’t know whether Rovi contains metadata for singles, but it may be that the Naim licence doesn’t cover singles. So you either have to edit the rips using the edit metadata function in the Naim app or you have to do what I suggested in 2 above.

If you look in the FAQ section of this forum, there is supplementary help on the Core which @Richard.Dane has added and that includes a very comprehensive posting from @Lownote who is the real expert on Core metadata issues, although I don’t think he would disagree with what I wrote above.

Hope the ripping goes well.

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Thanks for the detailed reply.

I’m not too bothered about merging triple albums apart from a neatness point of view. I would like the 29 singles in one album though. Is there a particular metadata editor that is recommended? I’m using a Mac.

I’ll give the FAQs as read as well

Thanks for your help

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Metadatics is a great metadata editor for Mac. There’s also MP3tag or DBpoweramp.

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Metadata is available for a surprising number of CD singles, but as you’ve found metadata on the Core is very poor.

MusicBrainz Picard (which we use to tag all rips) handled SWMBO’s CD singles no issue.

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As a small update, I ripped another CD single and Rovi found it with no issues. So the other box set is clearly an anomaly

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Interesting. Thanks.

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Hi David…question for you…have just ripped a number of cd’s with no issues at all! Including correct album art etc…tried to rip the Rolling Sones Goathead Soup …new cd no marks …looks ok…plays perfectly on the Accuphase , the Core accepts the cd but never starts spinning to rip , I have tried everything I can think of but to no avail.
Any ideas ?
Steve

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The only thing I can suggest is that you do a power off restart of the Core. Leave the power off for half a minute or so - it doesn’t need to be longer.

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Will give that a try…other discs have ripped successfully after this one !
Do cd’s ever have some form of copy protection that would prevent ripping ?
Steve

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If you can still rip other CDs then there is no point in trying the restart.

Yes some do, particularly from about the time the original CD would have been manufactured. The CD is probably non-conformant to the Red Book standard. You may be able to rip it in a PC and then add it to the Core’s download folder.

And if you Google the title of the album and the words copy protection, you may get some further clues as to what is going on.

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Thanks !
Steve

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There are various different ways of applying copy protection to a CD, and different rippers can have varying abilities to circumvent them.
If my Unitiserve can’t rip a CD my first alternative is iTunes/Apple Music, which I find is usually able to rip them.
Some rippers have settings that can help. For example, DBpoweramp has various settings that can help, depending on what sort of protection you are trying to circumvent. Naim rippers don’t have any such options as far as I’m aware.

If all else fails, ask for a refund! Only once was I unable to rip a protected CD at all. Technically a CD is not a CD if it doesn’t conform to the ‘Red Book’ standard, which a protected CD won’t. When I pointed this out to the seller, Music Magpie, they were quite happy to refund me the princely sum of £1.39 which I used to buy a different version of the CD from them, that ripped with no problems.

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You put all the tracks from the three albums into a playlist. I also do this (with a Uniti Serve) with compilation albums.

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Yes , but that’s simply circumventing around the fact that the Core is very poor with metadata.

Ripping same CD set with another commercial product would result in the CDs appearing 1/2/3 of a set as expected.

The Core is great hardware but terrible software. For the price it’s a terrible value proposition.

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Yes that occurred to me for the triple albums etc. I think I’ll have to do something more aggressive for the boxset of 27 singles