Audirvana Studio

[Musicophile]

38 minutes ago, Jas0_0 said:

Tidal users: has anyone found where Studio keeps user-generated playlists?

There’s a little playlist icon on top near the filters. 

[Musicophile]

41 minutes ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

 

 

Doe anyone know if there's a way to turn off the Audio Analysis? If there isn't, I think there should be.

Agree, I'd love to have a bit more transparency on what it actually does, and have an opt-out possibility. 

[Musicophile]

Just did my first quick A/B with 3.5, and must admit I like what I hear. I'll probably pony up the subscription money. 

[Musicophile]

41 minutes ago, Saffuria said:

Setting screen it's crammed on my 13" laptop. Very small lettering.

 

I wish I had a 27"🙂

 

Agree. I'm currently using it off my external 27 inch screen where it works really well. It's a different story on the 13'' Macbook itself. 

[Musicophile]

12 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Anyone else see this behavior? Studio will say it's analyzing my library, and based on CPU and network utilization it looks like it truly is analyzing the music. However, after 30 minutes or so, all the CPU and network activity will stop, but Studio still says Analyzing audio files. 

 

Didn't notice yet, will keep an eye out.

 

I'm really not a big fan o this entire "analyzing" business. I have really no clue what it is good for, what data it is sharing, how long it will take, and there's no way to get out of it. Not how software should be designed, and communicated about. 

[Musicophile]

47 minutes ago, Jud said:

Damien on the Audirvana forums about what the analysis does:

 

"No data is shared, all we do is analyzing your track to have the Accoustic ID of the track and then with Musicbrainz we are displaying the missing metadata in Audirvana (we are not adding them in your track)."

Saw Damien's response. That seems like something I'd really like to opt out of. Let's see if they implement that feature.

[Musicophile]

I just noticed that Studio, without any notification, has been systematically been modifying my audio files, presumably updating them with the result of the "analysis" process that's going on in the background. This is a total no-go for me. It's fine for me to capture information in the A+ library, but actively modifying audio files is an absolute no go. 
 

I won't be using Studio any more until there's a clear opt out possibility for this. I recommend everybody to do the same.

[Musicophile]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Can you give us an example of what it does?

Don't know yet, just had a look at my music drive sorting them by "last modified".

[Musicophile]

2 minutes ago, pl_svn said:

@Musicophile Audirvana has always written ReplayGain data to files: should still be all it does 😬

But only to albums where I choose to do so.

[Musicophile]

2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

Can that be turned off?

I wouldn't know how.

[Musicophile]

Here's what somebody else found (from the Audirvana community forum):

 

"I ran a diff on the backup of my library against the copy Audirvana Studio was running against. This found it had, so far, updated just over 5,000 files (in about 20 hours). And on inspecting and of those changed files directly, and with a non-Audirvana metadata editors, clearly shows the addition of the MUSICBRAINZ_TRACKID tag."

[Musicophile]

1 minute ago, Jas0_0 said:

This is clever, but sadly it doesn't really work for me on my 15" MacBook as the pop-out window covers other information.  

Yes, Studio seems to be optimized for large 4K screens, not for laptop use.

[Musicophile]

8 minutes ago, Jud said:

The result of the analysis is to append a MusicBrainz ID to the file so additional metadata MusicBrainz has can be shown when you look at the album - *without* overwriting any of your own metadata or other file information.

 

I can easily understand @Musicophile's reluctance to have additional information cluttering the carefully curated metadata for his 100k+ tracks, a good chunk of them classical.

 

For my own part, I would like to see whether this would be recognized as a difference by my backup program and result in new uploads of those files. I haven't tested yet. (If so, I wonder if there's a way to tell various backup apps to ignore these changes?)

I agree the metadata changes are probably mostly harmless, but a) it will create days if not weeks of unnecessary CPU usage b) as others have said it will trigger a re-backup and c) it really doesn't provide any added value. This has to be an opt-in function, not a default.

[Musicophile]

29 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Would you happen to know if there are ways to ignore this particular change in rclone and Chronosync, the two backup apps I use most often? Otherwise I can ask on forums or customer support.

I'm just running my regular backup with CCC. And every single file that Studio modified is being backed up.

[Musicophile]

4 minutes ago, jimdukey said:

 

Is it changing the original files?

Unfortunately yes. And there's currently no way to stop it. 

[Musicophile]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Because I don't have the number of files you do, I'm not concerned about local backup. If a TB of my files are backed up to the cloud, that means an extra charge from my ISP, unless I hold off to the end of a month so about half goes in one month and about half in the next.

I don't even have a cloud backup of my music library. With my internet speed, it would take months.

[Musicophile]

1 hour ago, MemoryPlayer said:

 

BTW, while you installed Studio, did it ask permission for change, update or save your files?

 

No it never did.
 

And Audirvana in all their communication never talked about it. This was discovered by the users yesterday. Totally unacceptable. 

[Musicophile]

1 hour ago, stefano_mbp said:

Audirvana has always, at least since version 3.2, changed the metadata of the files.
This happens to insert the Replay Gain data, moreover, if you use the Audirvana metadata editor, it also arbitrarily returns the data present in Soloists, Conductor, Orchestra in the Artist tag.
I asked Damien the reason for these arbitrary changes and he replied that those too were artists ...
I have since stopped using Audirvana's internal editor.
I agree that the arbitrary updating of the metadata of your files is absolutely unacceptable

I’m totally happy with Audirvana changing tags when I change or edit information, and adding the soloists etc to artist makes sense to me. 
 

What I’m not happy with when Audirvana accesses all of my files en masse without asking me first.

[Musicophile]

5 hours ago, jimdukey said:

I think people are Obsessed with Meta Data.

When I'm listening, I turn off the Screen.

It's not for listening, it's for finding. I have 17 versions of Beethoven's 1st for example. Good luck managing that without proper metadata.

[Musicophile]

I'm also on 1.2.0 now with the write option off, and the analysis went very fast, with no discernible changes to my original music files any more.

 

Finally, I can start evaluating the software. Oh wait, but where's the remote again? 🙄

 

I feel somewhat sorry for Damien and team, but this is not how you want to launch your new paid subscription model.

[Musicophile]

Damien would have been smarter had he called this a public beta test or something around these lines instead of calling it a launch. 

[Musicophile]

Any news on the remote app anywhere?

[Musicophile]

54 minutes ago, bobbmd said:

@RunHomeSlow and others : "what a stupid I am"(Roberto DeVicenzo at '68 Masters when he signed his scorecard incorrectly)

ALL my Qobuz and TIDAL playlist transferred in that same EDITOR/NAVIGATOR box that RHS showed above ALL one has to do is double click the playlist you want and it plays !!

Sorry for wasting you time-I guess that why there is a 30 day trial so you figure out every little detail on STUDIO.

BTY I really like it and I personally think the SQ is far superior to old A+3.5.46 and TIDAL/Qobuz alone and ROON-- all music on my Schiit Yggdrasil GS says 48x 4 never did that on old A+3.5.46 Qobuz/TIDAL/ROON except with rare exceptions

Don't feel to bad about it. There are many elements of the UI of Studio which are far from intuitive, and there's to my knowledge no good manual or tutorials yet. 

 

For example, why one would replace the universally understandable stop button that's been around since at least the 1970s by a "lock" symbol, which on top of everything else is located in a completely different location, escapes me. 

[Musicophile]

11 hours ago, audiojerry said:

I have been trying out AS for a couple of weeks. Sounds great, but user interface is disappointing, and has too many bugs to list.

 

What is most disappointing is the lack apparent lack of concern from the company. There seems to be no interest by the company to respond to or address any issues currently being raised by users.  They make a big show around the launch of an "exciting new product", offer a 30 day trial, and then they disappear. 

 

It feels like a desperate attempt to generate income with no long term planning for support or to even be around in the near future. Has Audirvana appointed no one to monitor this forum or Audirvana'a own forum to respond to all the many concerns?    

The problem remains that Audirvana is a very small company, while not a one man show any more with Damien, I think they basically only have a very small handful of people working on these releases. I had some reactions by Damien, the owner, directly on their Community forum. 

 

I expect the trial to be given some extension time given that the remote isn't out there yet. 

[Musicophile]

My trial was running out tomorrow so I took the plunge and purchased the discounted 1st year subscription. 

 

I still would have preferred to test the remote app, but as a desktop version 1.4 it is actually quite stable on my Macbook now, so I give Damien the benefit of doubt in spite of the initial Musicbrainz analysis disaster.