I am on the verge of abandoning Melco cos I find it stressful to deal with. A Naim core would be much easier to live with but given that I am aiming for an S1 pre maybe I shouldn’t give up so easily!
So in words of one syllable (please), how do I get so that I can edit metadata fixed on my Melco? Some of the artists it has picked to assign to albums are utter garbage, the assigned genres are sometimes utter nonsense, there is some album art missing, and finding stuff can be a nightmare. Much easier on a core
I have macs not pcs if that makes any difference. If I try to access the Melco on the network from a mac it refuses - maybe I need software to enable that. This evening I can’t even “see” it on my Mac network in the finder pages
The Melco app on my phone has never connected with the n1z
I look at melco’s website and it talks about songkong and minim server and I am lost
I hate technology. But I do recognise that my n1z Melco does sound better than a core. Albeit replacing the core’s wonderful ease of use with a nightmarishly clunky bit of tech that I am not trained to deal with
At least the Melco is better behaved than it used to be - the first year I had it, it failed to display any album art around 90% of the time, and refused around 25% of attempted rips (using Melco ripper). Various firmware updates have improved it but why was it so awful to start with?
And I have always and only ripped using the Melco ripper
My current feeling is that I would rather rip all my cds to a core from scratch than learn about songkong etc but perhaps it is worth persevering with
(This is an entirely different question - but is the Innuos ecosytem easier to use?)
I have a N1Z with the EX-options installed. Sorry if what I write here is what you have already tried.
On the panel (or via Melco Remote) select Settings and make sure you have SMB File Sharing enabled. SMB is the Windows file sharing protocol but no problem with a mac.
Next note the IP-number on the Melco display. Mine is 192.168.1.95. In the Finder you have a menu called Go or similar (sorry, I have the Swedish version of macOS). At the bottom of the menu you have an alternative ”Connect to server” or something similar, select and enter smb://192.168.1.95 (should be your IP-number). When asked for user/password enter ”nobody” on both.
Now you should see the melco disk in the Finder and you can edit the metadata with any standard metadata-editor.
If you want to optimize sound quality SMB should normally be switched off.
A Melco is electronically relatively quiet. Same goes for the Naim Core I believe. Personally I kind of like the idea of a dedicated musical server function optimized for sound quality with my local collection. As a complement to what streamers from Naim, Linn … already provide.
Roon is big, loud and tries to run the world. It require more powerful and noisy Intel chips. I even bought a Roon lifetime license a while ago believing I could filter out by throwing more technology at the problem. Failed.
The Melco MIML software comes ready to install/use and is based on two products from independent software developers. Minim by Simon Nash and SongKong by Paul Taylor. Runs on the server and you access it via a web-browser. No need to enable SMB.
MIML software seems intended for music collectors that to some degree actively curate their collection(s) with powerful commands. And, yes, it has a learning curve but worth it.
I like the ability to not only work with tracks and albums but also with works for classical music.
For an overview use Google and search for: SongKong for Melco
I’m one of the lucky one’s who cannot hear noisy intel computer chips (isolated from these chips by an Auralic Aries G2 and Chord TT2 admittedly) but that’s Roon’s key point, big bulky Roon server wanting to rule the world and neat minimal coded endpoint (that can even run on a low spec Rpi) to bring the music to life.
Yes the Innuos system is a doddle…….but the Melco sounded much better than the Zenith, and the Statement too expensive. I like you find the Melco tiresome software wise, but put up with the albums without covers.
The last SW update to Melco Twonky server solved that problem for me too.
I also like the Melco Ripper - especially the end-results which for unknown reasons sound better than other means I have tried.
This is what I did - the user/pw credentials can block you unless you happen to know that - I was annoyed for a bit trying to connect until I recalled my Dealer telling me this info.
The Songkong worked well - mine expired after a coupleof years but that was my fault for not purchasing it after the trial version expired.
It comes up as a web page on your browser and you can easy navigate to music and change anything in Metadata you like. I changed a few Album covers to be the correct ones - and even on some albums had different album artworks for each track from the photo-shoot the original were selected from.
There are other metadata editors you can use - but getting access to the Melco drive is the first thing to get solved. It can be done - mine is mapped as an external drive on my PC now and is easy to access and manage exactly like any external HD.
I will try and give a proper detailed reply tomorrow but the Melco is very easy to use imo. I can curate my music database in any way I want and for me that was a mandatory requirement. I use Macs as well and have used both server options. If you want the Melco to do it all for you then you must put up with more generic meta data as this comes from a central database. The songkong software is not for me. Getting Minim to work as you may want it requires a full licence and some tech knowledge as the manuals are not very specific and assume some level of knowledge.
…Anyway it can do everything, you can make it easier and the server I use sounds fantastic.
I used to have exactly this - and it was all fixed when I let the Melco - mine is an old N1Zh-2 (6TB) - do the SW update on the Twonky Server version to the latest it will support a few months ago after a friend told me he did that on his and it fixed all the Artwork display problems - and it did the same for me!
I’d put up with that problem for a few years so it was nice to get an easy fix - and the latest SW for some reason cave a SQ improvement that was worthwhile.
Make sure you have the latest SW.
This is with the Twonky server - I do not use (or particularly like) the Minim Server.
Many thanks for all the replies. Sorry for not giving a proper response now or sooner - have been working too many hours this month (my busiest work month in four years) and was in Birmingham yesterday for a board meeting all day - so been very low on energy today and not quite able to absorb the comments which I want to attempt when I am alert
Agree with Jan that the first step is to connect to the server using Mac finder as suggested.
I bought an ex demo N1A EX from a dealer a few weeks ago to replace the western digital my cloud I have been using since I bought my UQ2 and started my Naim journey several years ago.
Im still assessing whether I see any sound benefit however would offer a few thoughts on my experience.
I couldn’t get the Melco HD software to connect to see my Denafrips dac connected directly via USB Denafrips isn’t listed in the supported dacs so maybe not unreasonable. I could see it on my local network on my Mac and could import my music library. And I could get other control apps such as Kazoo and Lumin to work but sadly not the Melco App itself.
Dealer was very helpful but couldn’t solve at a distance.
Connected via ethernet into my ND5 XS it worked fine. But, I couldn’t help feeling the marketing around the EX upgrade which includes built in Minim Server and SongKong was overblown. I’m familiar with Twonky from the Western Digital and prefer it to Minim Sever and my attempts to use Song Kong were frustrating. Song Kong took over an hour to scan 33 CDs of the Integrale Louis Armstrong series which has messy meta data and then couldn’t identify about a third of the tracks. Eventually I reloaded my original versions and made no further attempt to use Song Kong. Again this could be my user inexperience. But seems a long way from the marketing blurb about Melco coming about because the Japanese had no PC experience and needed something foolproof. I found it rally rather clunky and made my Western Digital set up seem like a breeze.
Back to the OPs question like many others here I rip using DP Poweramp and consider that to be a great piece of software. Where I need to edit the meta data after ripping I tend to use Metadactics - Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band seem to be particularly vulnerable to different quote marks and ampersands putting the albums Into different folders when in artist view.
I have no experience of Innuos but the general user feedback and that on the new sense app sounds a lot better than my Melco experience and I might have gone that way if I could have found an ex demo unit with more than 1TB for sale
Sorry tim, but i completely forgot about you and only just popped back, but i see you have been busy as well, but you have lots of great advice and hope you sort it.
did not read the whole thread… but is CIFS enabled? if not it does not work.
with CIFS enabled you should be able to login and start to fix your metadata through jaikoz or something else…