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I finally upgraded my NAS to something more substantial, and now I will test various music server software.
I already tried Twonky and am using now MinimServer 2.2, and I already see many advantages. It has more detailed and customizable tag management. Unlike Twonky, it supports multiple values for tags (e.g., multiple artists or genres for a single track, which is something I always wanted). It is also very configurable and seems to be especially useful for classical music, which is of course something that is vital to me.
Also really nice: easy image configuration. I can easily assign images to Album Artists or Genres, which makes browsing my collection quite nice. So if I’d be stuck with MinimServer, it would already be okay, as it does all I want.
I have also on my list to try:
Roon (seems a bit expensive, not sure I really need it, but I will try it out.)
Asset UPnP DLNA
Plex (seems to cater more to movies etc. though)
Kodi (seems to cater more to movie etc.. also, not sure this is really UPnP/DLNA conform)
UPnP/DLNA conformity is quite imperative I guess, because my main listening environment is my home stereo system (which so far found all the Music Servers I tested and is Roon Ready certified).
I also use Hi-Fi cast (on my Android Mobile).
And if any of you have more suggestions for music server software, I’d be happy to try them out, as long as I can configure and install them on my NAS (QNAP).
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I transferred these posts (slightly edited) from the "Main Side" of the board to this side of the board.
It's a continuation of a discussion that started here:
https://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=138780&forumID=1&archive=0&pageID=3&r=462#bottom
But maybe it belongs better to this side of the board to not keep this thread up at the film music side of the board.
Anyway, here is the rundown. I got a Black Friday three month trial for Roon and try it out now. I always thought one week isn't enough to try out Roon, which is why I never bothered with the setup, but three months seems really fair. When I started the setup, Roon started to import my files. First impression: nice inviting clean interface.
I suppose it will take a while to have the database in place, it’s importing “B” now… Bill Conti...
Okay… ah, first worry: ah, yes… I notice some inconsistencies during import… the “main artist” (Album Artist) for all these albums here is “Johannes Brahms”, with the conductor/orchestra in the “Artist” tag… here are some the first inconsistencies… as can be seen Roon choses sometimes the “Johannes Brahms”, sometimes the orchestra… not sure how this will turn out in the end when I actually start using it. We will see where it is going. :-)
I originally wondered why "Bill Conti" was under "B" and Johannes Brahms was also under "B"... that didn't make much sense to me. Turns out, there is a setting in Roon that sorts classical composers by "last name" and artists by "first name". These settings can be toggled, so in the end, you can have it any way you want. But it was my first head scratcher moment. :-) No biggie.
We music enthusiasts all have different needs and preferences. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach to how music software should work or present content. We may share a passion for music—particularly film music, as evidenced by this board—but we differ greatly in how we want to organize and access our collections. So before diving into my experience with Roon, I thought I’d briefly explain how and why I organize my music files the way I do. Different needs, after all, call for different approaches.
For legacy reasons (I started with iTunes), all my music files are in ALAC format. It’s essentially the same as FLAC but integrates better with Apple devices and iTunes. Ironically, I'm on Windows and could easily use FLAC, but that's another story, and I'm hesitant to convert thousands of ALACs to FLAC. Either format is just as fine anyway.
Since classical music is a major focus of my collection—and iTunes was clearly designed with pop music in mind—I had to develop a system that worked for me.
Most casual listeners are satisfied with basic tags like “artist,” “title,” and sometimes “album.” For example, “Winter Wonderland” (Title) by “Robbie Williams” (Artist) from the album “The Christmas Present”. Very few people bother to include the composer (Felix Bernard, in this case—I looked it up because my tags are meticulous ??). While I think composer information is valuable, even for pop music, many listeners are content with just “artist” and “title.” But as collections grow in complexity, spanning multiple genres, the limitations of this minimal tagging approach become evident.
I still use iTunes to curate my collection because if I can make it work there, it usually works everywhere else too. Programs like MusicBee allow for far more specific tagging, but many other platforms don’t fully support those additional tags. For instance, iTunes now lets you tag classical music with “work,” which looks great in iTunes but might not display correctly on a car stereo.
My Tagging Requirements:
Cross-Platform Compatibility: Tags must work seamlessly across devices—iTunes, my home stereo app, Android music players, my car stereo, and so on.
Clear Identification: For pop music, “Englishman in New York” by “Sting” might be sufficient, but for classical music, “Allegro” by “Haydn” definitely isn’t.
Consistency: Tags must be uniform (e.g., always “Ludwig van Beethoven” rather than a mix of “Beethoven, L. van,” “LvB,” or “F.J. Haydn (1732–1809)”).
Classical music collectors often face the challenge of managing multiple recordings of the same piece. Consistent tagging helps keep everything organized. For instance, I own three complete Beethoven symphony cycles conducted by Herbert von Karajan, each tagged to distinguish them:
Album: Beethoven: Symphonies / Karajan (1977) (or 1963, or 1984, depending on the cycle). This helps differentiate one cycle from another.
Album Artist: Ludwig van Beethoven. Since iTunes uses “Album Artist” for folder structure, I use this tag for composers in classical music. I prefer “Ludwig van Beethoven” without inversion (e.g., not “Beethoven, Ludwig van”), as it looks cleaner, and I use sorting tags to ensure it’s filed under “B.”
Artist: Herbert von Karajan: Berliner Philharmoniker. Ideally, there would be fields for multiple performers, like soloists, conductor, and orchestra, but most programs don’t handle that well.
Genre: Classical. Unfortunately, not all programs support multiple genres.
Year: 1977 (the recording or release year).
Title: Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21 I. Adagio molto - Allegro con brio. For generic titles like “Symphony No. 1,” I preface the composer’s name for clarity.
Unlike MusicMad, I prefer to keep boxed sets intact. For example, my Karajan Beethoven cycles are tagged as single albums (e.g., Disc 1, Disc 2, etc.), rather than splitting them into individual discs or compositions. I then often still give the individual discs individual cover images. This reduces clutter and makes browsing easier for me, though I understand why others might prefer a different approach.
The way it looks in my iTunes: Boxed Set Covers:
The way it looks in my iTunes: individual Covers for the various discs:
I typically don’t split discs into separate albums, even when they contain multiple works. This is partly practical: tools like PerfectTunes help me periodically verify disc integrity (e.g., ensuring bit-perfect rips), but only if the disc is complete. Also, my iTunes library contains a bit perfect copy of my CD collection this way.
Finally, My First Impressions of Roon:
I’m still exploring it, so I don’t have much to report yet. However, I noticed something strange right away—where is Jerry Goldsmith? When I searched under “composers,” he didn’t show up. That’s odd because I expected him to be listed there. It turns out there’s a setting for “show only classical composers,” which seems to exclude Jerry Goldsmith. So far, all issues could be resolved with a bit of the right settings.
Nice clean UI. The setup was very easy. I installed it on my QNAP NAS, set the directory for the database (on an M.2 drive) and directed it to the folder of my music. It started to create the database and it did find my main streaming unit right away and works.... Easy basic configuration! So now I can do some testing.
Some albums show up double currently, perhaps because I have them on my NAS but also marked as favorite in Qobuz?
Some things I noticed right away:
1. Qobuz changed some of the covers I have. (Qobuz did NOT change the files, just displayed its own covers... don't know yet if that is configurable, there are a lot of settings.)
2. Inconcistency:
The Nic Raine recording for HOURS OF THE GUN gets the year 1967... so that's the year of the original film.
The Karajan Beethoven recording gets the year 1993... which is the recording date for that particular remastering of a recording from 1984.
But hey, I'm just starting and trying it out.
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