Metadata gets lost during transcoding...

[miguelito]

I use XLD to rip and transcode files (mac user). I normally use Yate to tag/curate my tags.

 

I have started to use Metadatics because it allows me to add two specific tags I need in Roon - specifically the tags WORK and PART to indicate to Roon how to group multi-track works (it usually knows but sometimes not with obscure stuff).

 

I add these WORK and PART tags in my main library which is mainly AIFF (AIFF and DSF files except for MQA albums which stay in FLAC).

 

But I keep a parallel library where all AIFF is transcoded to FLAC (for size). I use XLD for the transcoding and herein lies the problem: the WORK and PART tags get lost.

 

Any solutions to this?

 

Thx.

[AudioDoctor]

Following for a possible answer, and thank you for letting me know about Metadatics.

[stefano_mbp]

I managed a similar issue using JRiver, it offers a powerful transcoding tool and in my case all tags were moved from ALAC to FLAC.

Btw .... I’m using Yate too and it can manage Work and Movement tags (I suppose Part is equal to Movement) and let you define custom tags too

[miguelito]

4 hours ago, stefano_mbp said:

I managed a similar issue using JRiver, it offers a powerful transcoding tool and in my case all tags were moved from ALAC to FLAC.

Btw .... I’m using Yate too and it can manage Work and Movement tags (I suppose Part is equal to Movement) and let you define custom tags too

How do i define custom tags? I tried but Roon did not understand, Honestly, as much as I like Yate, that was very cryptic.

 

Did you manage to use Yate to tag work/movement in a way Roon understands?

[stefano_mbp]

7 hours ago, miguelito said:

Did you manage to use Yate to tag work/movement in a way Roon understands?

I don't use Roon but I could find these instructions

https://2manyrobots.com/YateResources/docs/RoonWorkPart.html

about Roon mappings in Yate.

I'm using Audirvana and the corresponding Audirvana mappings in Yate works fine

[MetalNuts]

I suspect it is more of the Roon's problem.  Roon is very good for those who do not have its way to deal with its library.  It can provide you everything, from track title, track artists, artwork, release year.  However, if you want to manage the library in your own style or preference, you will have a lot to modify it in Roon. 

 

I don't like paying for a player to mess up with my tags and every time I add an album, I may need to edit the tag again.

[MetalNuts]

Just now, MetalNuts said:

I suspect it is more of the Roon's problem.  Roon is very good for those who do not have its way to deal with its library.  It can provide you everything, from track title, track artists, artwork, release year.  However, if you want to manage the library in your own style or preference, you will have a lot to do and modify it in Roon. 

 

I don't like paying for a player to mess up with my tags and every time I add an album, I may need to edit the tag again.

 

[stefano_mbp]

@miguelito .... to create a custom tag in Yate go to Yate/Preferences/General then click on Custom Fields 

[miguelito]

6 hours ago, MetalNuts said:

I suspect it is more of the Roon's problem.  Roon is very good for those who do not have its way to deal with its library.  It can provide you everything, from track title, track artists, artwork, release year.  However, if you want to manage the library in your own style or preference, you will have a lot to modify it in Roon. 

 

I don't like paying for a player to mess up with my tags and every time I add an album, I may need to edit the tag again.

well, Roon does offer many features to manage this, some that are quite unique. And adding the WORK/PART tags always works.

[miguelito]

2 hours ago, stefano_mbp said:

@miguelito .... to create a custom tag in Yate go to Yate/Preferences/General then click on Custom Fields 

Thanks, figured it out. I did find Yate instructions rather cryptic, but for the record, this is what I did:

 

1- Preferences > Audio > Common - At the bottom there's an "Application presets" - Choose Roon. This will define the custom fields Roon likes

 

2- Right-click on the editing panel, got to "Edit Custom Panels" and create a custom panel which you can call "Roon", and add the Roon tags by right-clicking on "Unused" buttons on the left of the edit screen. Save it and now you can bring that custom panel into the edit panel.

 

FYI, the WORK and PART tags I added in Metadatics are showing properly here now. And it has the advantage that those tags are always there now (as opposed to have to add them every time in Metadatics).

[miguelito]

Having said all this, the original question: 

 

Can I make XLD pass-through all tags so that the Roon tags I curated in the AIFF do not get lost when I transcode?

 

PS: There is a "Preserve unknown metadata if possible" checkbox in the Metadata section in XLD preferences, but this is not preserving WORK and PART.

[stefano_mbp]

AFAIK XLD cannot preserve all tags, that’s why I choose JRiver to transcode my file from alac to flac

[miguelito]

11 hours ago, stefano_mbp said:

AFAIK XLD cannot preserve all tags, that’s why I choose JRiver to transcode my file from alac to flac

I actually own a license to JRiver v21. But it's such a mammoth tool for such a simple job... Having said that, I used to use it specifically to transcode AIFF and DSF to ALAC with some logic (like anything above 96 transcode to 88 or 96 depending on the family). But that library is long gone... 

 

Thx, I think I will try JRiver.

[miguelito]

Hello @stefano_mbp - quick question:

 

I have made JRiver MC21 transcode files to a different location. However, is it possible for it to copy EVERYTHING in that directory to the new location? The reason is that I can have image and pdf files (and sometimes text files) in that directory.

[stefano_mbp]

Hello @miguelito,

If I understand your question well, you would like to copy to the new location the converted flac files and pdf, text ecc...
I don’t think this is possible with JRiver but you could do in this way:

duplicate all your music folders (with aiff files) on a new hdd (or location), use this duplicate to start your transcoding with JRiver and configure it to remove the original files (aiff) at the end of transcoding. You will end with a new archive containing flac files and all associated pdf, image ecc ... did I understood well?

[miguelito]

25 minutes ago, stefano_mbp said:

Hello @miguelito,

If I understand your question well, you would like to copy to the new location the converted flac files and pdf, text ecc...
I don’t think this is possible with JRiver but you could do in this way:

duplicate all your music folders (with aiff files) on a new hdd (or location), use this duplicate to start your transcoding with JRiver and configure it to remove the original files (aiff) at the end of transcoding. You will end with a new archive containing flac files and all associated pdf, image ecc ... did I understood well?

Yes, you understood perfectly. This is exactly what I have been doing with XLD - use finder to copy the directory holding the new album (which copies everything of course) and then use XLD with "delete source files" to transcode AIFF to FLAC.

 

I was hoping I could streamline it a bit more with MC.

 

Thx.

[miguelito]

On 5/27/2020 at 9:10 AM, stefano_mbp said:

AFAIK XLD cannot preserve all tags, that’s why I choose JRiver to transcode my file from alac to flac

Well, that has not worked for me so far...

 

I loaded my FLAC library onto MC21. My process is to manually copy the new album's directory from the AIFF library to the FLAC library (so that all files including image and pdf files get copied). Then I created an MC21 view that will only show me AIF/AIFF files in that library so I can easily identify and run AIFF-->FLAC "Convert Format".

 

This all works except the WORK and PART tags are lost, and I have found no way to tell MC21 to preserve all tags.

 

PS: The setting "Update Tags When File Info Changes" is selected.

 

PS2: Figured it out: Need to define the new tags in MC21 and set them to be saved in file.

[stefano_mbp]

3 minutes ago, miguelito said:

have found no way to tell MC21 to preserve all tags.

Can you find the two tags in JRiver? Maybe JRiver cannot import those custom fields as you should create them in the JRiver db before importing files

At the bottom of the linked page (Tag Import Options) you can find how

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Fields

 

 

[miguelito]

@stefano_mbp:

 

MC21 is doing something very odd with the semicolon separated fields:

 

 

The original AIFF files have only one semicolon, MC21 likes 3??

[miguelito]

8 minutes ago, stefano_mbp said:

Can you find the two tags in JRiver? Maybe JRiver cannot import those custom fields as you should create them in the JRiver db before importing files

At the bottom of the linked page (Tag Import Options) you can find how

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Fields

Yes figured that out (see my PS2) above

[stefano_mbp]

9 minutes ago, miguelito said:

The original AIFF files have only one semicolon, MC21 likes 3??

... Artist tag is a multi item tag and the “three semicolon” is the Yate way to represent and separate the items
In this way the items will be shown one for each row

i.e. 
artist-a

artist-b

....

instead of

artist-a; artist-b; ....

[stefano_mbp]

@miguelito .... JRiver use (and show) just one semicolon for the same purpose, what matters is that the items are anyway managed as part of a multi item tag

.... hope I can explain myself ...

[miguelito]

2 hours ago, stefano_mbp said:

... Artist tag is a multi item tag and the “three semicolon” is the Yate way to represent and separate the items
In this way the items will be shown one for each row

Ok, understood. Is there a way to keep JRiver from separating the artists and instead preserve the semicolons?

 

BTW... Your knowledge of these matters is impressive!

[stefano_mbp]

@miguelito .... I have a mix of flac, alac and dsd and I had to understand why alac files were so different from the others ... (alac don’t manage multi item tags ...)

If you use the “Panes” view (should be a standard view in JRiver) you’ll be able to explore the library by columns, the Artist column should show you all the Artists one for each line.

If you don’t see the Artist column right click on the columns header then click on customize view and you’ll be able to add the Artist column ... or any other column

[stefano_mbp]

@miguelito you can see in the attached screenshot that the artists for the selected album (Verdi, Aida, Abbado) are shown in the columns one for each line/row and in the bottom section, the tracks list, in a single row separated by semicolon.

This means the Artist tag is actually managed as multi item