Enjoy @Stevesky! I hope the weather improves for you. If you PM me when you are back, I can explain further.
Best
David
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Hope you are not running around catching raindrops…have a good time👍
I might be mistaken but, as far as I understand, with the Naim app one can only edit the metadata of files that are in the “music folder”. These are WAV files, not FLAC files. Perhaps @davidhendon can confirm or confute.
If my assumption is correct and you have edited the metadata of your files with the Naim app, then these files are in the WAV format and hence you have the problem described by @ChrisSU. This would also be consistent with what you have been told by the Naim helpdesk.
Hi No-Quarter, XRCD is normal CD only, it can rip by Core.
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That is almost right! You can rip to FLAC or WAV with the Core and the rips will go into the music folder. You can only edit those rips with the Naim app, but you can edit them whether they are WAV or FLAC rips. I’m not sure where the Core puts edits to FLAC files, but I rather suspect it puts them in the same place as WAV edits, which doesn’t help the OP.
But anyway I agree with what Naim support is saying. As the Core doesn’t support transcoding, neither within its database nor on the fly, the options for copying your Core WAV rips and turning them into FLACs are limited and will involve using third party software on a PC or Mac. If someone still has the CDs then ripping them all over again in FLAC instead of WAV might be the way to go.
The Core isn’t intended as a device to prepare rips for non-Naim players sadly. So it’s one of those “you shouldn’t start from here situations”.
Best
David
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I was just about to start a new thread on this topic (with the Eagles new double CD) when I saw this one.
I purchased the CD’s yesterday, the 20th, & had exactly the same issue with the Core. No metadata at all, Album title, Tracks & Album cover. I use WAV with the Core. I added the Album cover & Album/Artist details manually but could not be bothered to add the individual tracks. At 65 I don’t know how much time I have left!
I then made FLAC rips with software I have used since 2004, EZ CD Audio Converter, & within 2/3 seconds or so all the metadata (including the Album cover) was correctly added for both discs. I then downloaded to the Core & everything is working perfectly with the Core showing full album details.
Following this I have just made WAV rips using the same software & will download these to the Core tomorrow & see what happens. All the metadata showed correctly whilst doing the rips but, unlike the FLAC folder & tracks, no Cover image appeared on the folder icon or the individual track icons so it will be interesting to see if they appear following download to my Core.
Was very surprised that the Core couldn’t find metadata for the Eagles album. They are hardly obscure artists!
Also worth noting that this happened about 10% of the time when I first ripped my CD collection to the Core 18 months ago. The Core never added or updated the metadata at a later date, as I believe it is supposed to, & I eventually had to do each album myself.
It all depends whether the music publisher has sent the metadata to Rovi. It doesn’t matter how well known or obscure an artist is, the CD identity number has to align with a metadata record on Rovi or you get no results.
If you go back about 18 months, then there was a bug on the Core firmware that caused most Rovi lookups to return no results. So ripping was in practice mostly looking at MusicBrainz, which is less comprehensive than Rovi. Subsequent automatic lookups by Core never found the data so discs remained as unknown.
Eventually Naim did fix that, but it was a long time coming. So I too had edited all of my unknown discs. I found that the new firmware could now find metadata on many CDs that failed before but it doesn’t overwrite metadata for discs that have user edits and you have to forget user edits for that CD. Then you can use the now-found metadata.
I reported this in the beta group at the time and I was told that this undesirable behaviour had been passed to the developers, but Naim haven’t addressed this particular issue in an update yet (at least, not so far as I know).
Best
David
Thanks. All the rips were in FLAC. So it looks like edits are stored elsewhere. Does it follow that I will not be able to edit the ripped CDs on the Uniti Core so that I can read them on my network with these edits in? If so am I best to edit the (Uniti Core) copied files and then download them to the Uniti Core. If so should I then delete the original RIP or best to leave it there? Thanks again.
I am not sure. So the best thing would be to try it with one edited FLAC and see whether the edits are still there when viewed elsewhere, for example on a USB stick in your car or whatever.
Or you could ask Naim support the question.
If the edits are stored by the Core in the same way whether the files are WAV or FLAC, then doing what you suggest is probably best. You would need to copy the edited files to the downloads folder and you might as well delete the original rips if you do that. But you have to delete them using the Naim app of course.
Best
David
Thanks David. I bought the Uniti Core with the dealer knowing this is what I wanted to do so was surprised when I ran into this problem. It looks like this issue is not well known and I can’t be the only one who wants to copy to an SD card for the car!!! Let’s hope Naim fix it, I have asked them.
I would just rip anything like that with a computer and dbpoweramp or EAC. You could also use iTunes if you wished.
I have a Core but I keep all the rips it makes to WAV as just for use with the Core. I also rip everything to FLAC with dbpoweramp for use in portable DAPs, SD cards etc…, and then I sometimes do a 3rd rip on a MacBook Pro into iTunes for use with one of a number of iPods, iPads or even just for playing straight off one of the MBPs.
Thanks for your reply David.
The joys (& tribulations) of all things streaming were completely new to me 18 months ago & I was unaware of the Naim/Rovi lookup issue but also experienced no success at all with the other Naim metadata providers.
The EZ CD Audio Converter I use found the Eagles metadata in a couple of seconds using its’ default WMP/Gracenote. The other metadata lookups available are MusicBrainz, Discogs & Freedb &, as far as I could tell, also found the metadata quickly. If they could do it shouldn’t the Core have tried them as well automatically? I tried manually but the Core still advised that there was no metadata available.
I did as I said I would & placed my WAV rip, created from EZ CD, into the Core’s downloads folder & it works perfectly, showing all metadata including the cover art.
I now have two copies of the Eagles CD’s in my downloads folder, one WAV & one FLAC. I wish to delete the FLAC copies but, entering the downloads folder from my Windows 10 PC, there is no delete option shown & none appearing when I right click the folder.
I am sure that I have deleted unwanted folders before & there was a simple delete command but I just can’t find one & can’t find any properties that allow me to turn on a delete option.
I can view my Core’s music content by clicking on the Core in my network devices list but this only shows all the albums on it & does not split them between music store & download folder. I can only find my Core’s download folder by entering its’ IP address in my browser & adding ‘\downloads’ on the end. Is there another way of finding the downloads folder? If there is it may be how I have deleted folders from it in the past but I just can’t remember it now!
Hoping you, or someone else, can offer me further assistance here.
@Canaryfan the Core checks Rovi, then MusicBrainz, then FreeDB in that order. If none of them admit to knowing the identity of the CD, then you get unknown album. My own experience, almost entirely with classical music, is that if Rovi doesn’t have it, then MusicBrainz rarely does and FreeDB is a lottery. Checking back later, even if Rovi still doesn’t recognise it, one of the other two may do. And rarely Rovi will recognise it some days or weeks later.
To delete folders in the downloads folder, you have to navigate to it using explorer in a PC or finder in a Mac and then you can delete the folder in the normal way. You can’t delete downloads with the Naim app.
If you follow the advice on the Naim website, they tell you to use the IP address to get to the Naim product and you can select the music or downloads folder. The music folder should be locked but the downloads folder isn’t. The simplest way to make finding the downloads folder easier is to “map” the drive, which is easily done in Windows.
Best
David
I wish Naim will fix the problem but I would not count on them doing so. The Core’s software is a rather lousy port of the old software of the UnitiServe. The software support for the Core has been from the beginning very unsteady and not particularly user friendly. My guess is that they have given up on the Core but never say never! @Stevesky seems to be aware of the problem and has become active in the forum! This is very good news. I believe that if @davidhendon and @Richard.Dane hadn’t helped through the years, many Core users would have gone postal and many Core units through the windows.
Typical. After complaining about the lack of metadata yesterday & downloading my own rip to the downloads folder, the metadata for the Core ripped discs appeared today!
I now have the Core rips with metadata & have deleted my rips from the downloads folder. I finally did this after following your advice to map the drive, which I had never done before. It turned out to be quite simple but I would have really struggled without your help.
If I ever get the same issues again I will know what to do.
Many thanks.
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Very good! I’m happy it all worked out for you.
Best
David
Thanks Richard. I like that as an approach and I do have rips in FLAC using PC and XLD so I can combine files relatively easily.
I’ve had this problem with my Core - I’ve raised it with Naim as a defect with the way that the Core works. As you note, the changes that you make to the song names/artists etc are only reflected in metadata, not in the file structure itself.
This is a change from the UnitiServe, which used to reflect the changes that you made in file structure as well (so an album that the UnitiServe couldn’t find metadata for would (once you had edited it) be shifted into the correct location in the file structure, rather than staying as a folder/file that might as well be gibberish.
My “fix” for this shortcoming in the Core is to delete the rips where the Core doesn’t get the correct metadata to begin with, and re-rip the album using my PC (DB PowerAmp in my case)
Just ripped the new Bruce Springsteen, Letter To You.
The artist comes up as EPTEND (a rapper), via Rovi, the album as Letter To You and none of the tracks are recognised bar Letter to You.
An update. I have copied the Uniti Core ripped files to my external hard disc, used Sonkong and some edits and then saved in downloads, deleting the version in music. I was somewhat surprised to find Meddle in the unknown albums category but then remembered that I had edited, in my view, to a better piece of artwork - it appears that this edit was sufficient to class the album as unknown. I ripped again and am living with the Uniti Core chosen artwork this time round. Thanks to all for their help. Knowing what I know now I would have bought a different ripper/server.