Uniti core ripping

I just bought a uniti core to store my music. I currently have all my cd’s ripped to an external hard drive with many in flac but others in Apple lossless and other is lesser quality. My intention is to replace the Apple rips with flac from my cd collection. I’m wondering if I copy my entire library to the ssd in the uniti core can I write over/replace the existing files using the uniti core or will it create a duplicate file? I estimate about 30% of my collection will be ripped again I’m just trying to save time sorting through all the rips and picking and choosing those to transfer. It will be much simpler just to copy the full library and replace the lesser quality rips a bit at a time.

If anyone has experience writing over an existing file with the uniti core would appreciate hearing from them.

Cheers

Hi, I have a Uniti Core as well…

In your case it looks like the external drive you mentioned may not be formatted to the Core’s proprietary (Unity Serve) way of making backups and imports. I wouldn’t reformat this drive because it involves erasing whatever is on the drive!

Rather, I would most likely plug this drive into a laptop and in a network where the Core’s internal HD can be seen as well. Then, I would send to the Core HD a few files of both varieties that you mentioned and see if all the music and artwork shows up.

I believe the correct placement of these files is called ‘downloads’ as opposed to ‘music’ where your future Core rips will reside.

Then hopefully when you view your music on an iPad through the Naim app everything will be visible.

At some point you’ll have to decide what method of backing up your music as you add more.

Hope this helps

Thanks quad57! This is good to know. I’m setting it up this week so hopefully all goes smoothly. I didn’t realize downloads and rips to the unit reside in two different folders so that is helpful. I’m guessing I will have to manually erase files from downloads as I rip them to the Uniti Core music folder. Assuming the downloads work to begin. Cheers.

Your welcome.

Naim’s website gives some useful information on setup, ripping, etc. The Core allows the user to choose FLAC or WAVE when ripping a cd.

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I’ll check that out before I start thanks!

Just adding to the above, the Core rips to a folder called Music/MQ which is created by the format process on whichever disc you define as the Music Store. Normally this would be the internal HDD or SSD but it doesn’t have to be. The format also creates a downloads folder in the same music store, so alongside the Music folder.

You must only add music yourself to the downloads folder. The Core will index it automatically. If you add files into the Music folder yourself, you risk breaking the Core’s indexing and also the music may not be indexed there. You can add music to the downloads folder in a couple of ways. One way is to use a PC to add files over the network. Normally within the downloads folder you have artist folders and then within that a folder named for the work or album and within that folder you put the music files for that album. The cover art should be in a jpg file called cover.jpg or folder.jpg.

Another way to transfer the music is by importing it using the Naim app. Unless the music was ripped using a Naim server, the Core will put it in the downloads folder automatically.

You can edit the metadata of files in the downloads folder with a PC, but not with the Naim app. With music ripped by the Core you should only edit metadata using the function in the Naim app. If you do it with a PC you risk breaking the indexing again.

If you import your music into the Core as described above and then rip the same CD using the Core, you will get a duplicate entry in the album list. You can leave it like that if you want, but more likely you will want to delete the copy in the downloads folder and you have to do that with a PC (or a Mac).

I hope this helps. It’s worth reading the instructions on the Naim website because not everything about the Core is obvious. Any problems, post them here and somebody will try to help.

Best
David

Thank you David this is very helpful! I’m new to the forum and finding it a great place to hang out. Very knowledgeable members who are happy to share their wisdom. Thanks for sharing some of yours with me!

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Hi David

I posted earlier re an issue with the Uniti Core and based on your reply hoping you might have some suggestions for me as you seem to be very apt with streaming. My original post is copied below. If you have any suggestions I would appreciate you thoughts! Cheers, Dave

I’m setting up a Uniti Core to serve music to my NDX. I had all my music on a usb drive previously but some rips were poor so my plan is to copy my library to the downloads folder then as I rip my cd’s to the music folder delete them from downloads so I don’t have duplicates. I have the Uniti Core set up and transferred all my music to an internal SSD and I’ve ripped a couple of cd’s just to make sure all is working well. Everything works as it should except my Macbook won’t recognize the Uniti Core on my network. I’ve found the IP for the Uniti Core however whenever I try to connect it I get the following error:

"There was a problem connecting to the server “192…etc”. Check teh server name or IP address and then try again.

Oddly I can see the name of my music room (the internal SSD on Uniti Core) on my network but whenever I try to connect to it I get a failed connection message.

I’m using a Macbook Air with Catalina.

If anyone has advice on settings on the Naim app or my computer I appreciate any advice you can offer.

Thanks!

Dave

any chance your vpn has kicked in?

The story got picked up and solved in another thread. It was ultimately an errant special character in the room name, we think.

Best

David

Icedragon05, David is correct. The issue of the missing drive was resolved by fully shutting down and removing power from all devices in the chain and then restarting with the router. The problem of accessing the drive after it could be seen so I could access the downloads/music folders was resolved by taking the apostrophe out of the room name. As an aside I’ve been ripping my cd’s and every now and then I “ripping errors” show up on some tracks. Oddly the tracks play in full but show them on my IOS device. Will search to see if anyone has come across this before. I’m sure they have I haven’t had a question yet that this outstanding forum hasn’t been able to resolve.

Ripping errors mean that the Core has not been able to get a rip without errors. You often find that you can’t hear the errors on the affected tracks. If you very carefully clean the CD and rip it again then you can often reduce or remove the errors. If there are too many errors on one track then the Core abandons that track. If you can’t hear the errors then you can just forget about it.

Best

David

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Thanks David you’re incredibly helpful! That’s exactly what I’m experiencing. Most with errors are only 3 or 4 in specific tracks and they play back fine. So far only one CD that I have abandoned and it’s very old from back in my university days when I wasn’t as careful with my music as I should have been so it’s not so great shape. Cheers.

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