Unitiserve- missing cd rips

I have been given a large quantity of classical CDs and thought I would give my recalcitrant Unitiserve another go. I have found that many of the ripped CDs do not appear under any of the categories , composer , genre , etc but if I search for tracks under symphony or concerto the tracks are there. Any idea what has gone wrong? I really do not want to rip them again…

Found some Mozart under ’ the symphonies ’ :unamused::roll_eyes:
A load are unknown with a reference number. Can those be used to find the original CD?
is it possible to re arrange the artists by surname? It’s not great…

CD rippers depend on various online lookup services to provide metadata. Sometimes it can be either completely or partially missing, or incorrect. It’s pretty easy to add or correct this on the N-Serve app, or to amend it to suit your own preferences.

A key question is what firmware does your US have? You can see it in N-Serve.

The current version is 1.7c and it’s a critical one because from 1.7b backwards the US used the AMG metadata lookup and that went offline a few years ago now and US lookups often failed. The server can also get clogged up with lookup jobs that can never be satisfied. 1.7c sorts all that out.

Seeing works listed as “The Symphonies” or even the totally useless “The Greats volume 37” or “Mozart’s legacy Disc 135” is normal experience for classical music metadata and so it is important to check the metadata after each rip, keeping a record of what you have ripped and in which order. (This is a publisher’s failure, not Naim’s.) Otherwise you are going to need to listen and identify each unknown rip or work things out by a process of elimination. The US even had the habit of using metadata from a random CD that happened to have the same number of tracks. So things that appear with metadata may not be what they say they are.

Best

David

Thanks for the reply David. I’m on 1.7B so that will explain a lot of the problems. I have got in to the editing side more so that has helped but none of the Mozart albums for instance , appear under composer. I would love to list by second name not first but that does not seem possible. I always wondered why people banged on about metadata? Now I know :roll_eyes::roll_eyes:. I was not and am not as organised as I need to be , not noticing how the rips were being stored as I went through the piles of CDs. I will learn.
There is a fair percentage of CDs that will not rip at all…

It’s certainly worth updating to 1.7c, although all it really does is eliminate the minute or so that the US takes to attempt to connect to the now defunct AMG lookup service before it moves on and tries others. Sure, it may give up sometimes, but I’m suspicious that something else it amiss if you’re getting failed rips too.

You will need to ask Naim support or your dealer for the 1.7c update disc as Naim haven’t published it on their website. It is available though as a download from the German Naim distributor Musicline. You have to burn a CD from the image, so if you don’t have that technology anymore (!) getting it from Naim or your dealer is probably best.

CDs not ripping at all is surprising though. That could be a fault with the CD drive on the Unitiserve, but it could be that the CDs are very dirty or damaged. I would try washing them carefully and thoroughly with fairy liquid and water and then drying them carefully. If that doesn’t work and if you can’t see scratches or whatever, then cleaning carefully with isopropyl alcohol is as far as you can sensibly go. If the CD plays on a CD player then it should be rippable and if it doesn’t play on a CD player you may be wasting your time. But you might be able to rip those CDs in a PC and then add them as downloads to your US (assuming it’s got the 2TB hard drive and downloads folder).

Best

David

I did not use the term recalcitrant without good reason lol. . I have not been happy with it and had given up on it until the CDs landed on my lap. I will look in to an update. Perhaps it should go to a dealer for a proper look. Thanks for your input. Tim

A dealer will probably just say it needs a service at Naim, which is a fixed price. I’m not certain what the price is now, but if you assumed £350 including return courier, you wouldn’t be far out.

Best

David

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