Naim MUSIC SERVER DATABASE DATASHEET

The Naim Hard Disk Player and Music Server Database

Alan Ainslie
Naim Audio

Southampton Road, Salisbury, SP1 2LN, England

[e-mail]

Abstract

Music Servers have traditionally stored music in
association with a database to allow retrieval of music at
an Album level. While this is in accordance with the
great majority of commercially available databases it is
certainly not the manner in which a normal user selects
music from conventional storage.

Music Servers, therefore, generally fall far short of the
requirements of serious listeners of Classical Music,
Jazz, and Compilation albums.

A better solution had to be developed before Music
Servers and Hard Disk players attain ubiquity in the
market alongside conventional sources such as CD
players.

This paper demonstrates how information at Track level
with Naim Extended Metadata can give a user
experience beyond the convenience of conventionally
selecting a CD from the shelf. Powerful database
processing and search mechanisms deliver an intuitive
user interface for both the casual user as well as the
dedicated musicologist, whether playing music from the
Hard Disc or simply playing a CD album in real-time.

1. Background

Traditionally, physical vinyl record and CD collections
have been stored on shelves with spines visible. The
content of the spines reflects the marketing endeavours
of the record company on the one hand and also serves
to indicate contents of the single disc or album for
selection by the user. Selection of an album quickly
offers additional information as soon as the album is
removed from the shelf, as track information is readily
visible along with other information relating to artists and
the specific recording.

In order for a Music Server or Hard Disk Player to match
or surpass the convenience of selecting discs from a
collection on a shelf, a database internal to the Server
has to be constructed to match the ripped disc.

The only unique identification for the disc relates to the
properties of the data on the disc: number of tracks,
track lengths, total play time etc. Information contained
on the CD sleeve is not known to the Server.

The combination of tracks, track times etc. is possibly
unique, but not always guaranteed to be so. At the time
of ripping the Server will interrogate one or several on­line databases in order to match the disc being ripped
with a managed and maintained database. The relevant
database entry is downloaded, and together with Cover

Art is used to give the user a local database within which
music can be selected for play.

2. Current Situation

The shortcomings of the current state of the art of
cataloguing ripped CDs fall into several categories.

Virtual music collections where the data representing the
music is stored, but where there is no physical carrier
create a new problem for cataloguing. Initially the
industry responded with several commercial databases
offering cataloguing at an ALBUM level:

ARTIST (SINGLE ARTIST FOR THE ALBUM)
ALBUM
GENRE

And within the selected album simply:

SONG

will identify any individual track.

This is the situation, supported additionally with Cover
Art that has been used by the various free or subscribed
databases for a number of years.

ALBUM LEVEL TRACK LEVEL
Searchable Searchable
Artist Y Song Y
Album Y
Genre Y
Cover Art

While this situation will work for simple Albums where
the Album title is unambiguous and the Artist is the same
for all tracks, the system immediately fails for
compilations, where there are many possible artists
individual to each track in the album.

Virtually all Classical music is assembled onto an album
as a compilation, and therefore it is implicit that the
current situation fails with classical music.

2.1 International releases may be different

Albums may well exist in several versions in different
territories. These may have a different track makeup or
different Cover Art, even the same tracks but in different
order, or differing track lengths due to editing
refinements in later releases.

2.2 Gapless playback
Albums may be designed for continuous play. The

concept of ‘tracks’ being merely to identify location on
the physical disc. E.g. Opera, or Pink Floyd: The Wall.

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2.3 Multi Discs

Albums may be part of a multiple disc set

2.4 Data Tracks

Albums may contain material additional to playable
music – data tracks etc.

2.5 Metadata isn’t always correct

Integrity of data is paramount. Mistakes in data entry
mean that user-submitted databases are not generally
reliable.

3. Requirements

The requirements for a reliable database from which to
identify ripped CDs are summarised below:

3.1 Correctly identifying and allowing free searching
within ARTIST, ALBUM, GENRE, SONG CDs.

3.2 This is adequately covered by the available
commercial databases with one important shortcoming.
Unless the data is edited or subject to some verification
process the shortcoming the incorrect metadata could be
displayed, resulting in end-user frustration.

3.3 Correctly identifying and allowing free searching
within Compilation CDs, including virtually all Classical
and many Jazz CDs.

3.4 There are several types of compilation disc to be
found in a typical CD collection, including:

Classical Same composer, various works, various

artists

Classical Same orchestra or artists, various

composers, various types of music

Classical Same type of music, various composers,

various artists.

Sampler Various unrelated tracks, various unrelated

artists.

Sampler Same artists, re-allocation of tracks from

other releases

Sampler Same record label but various artists and

tracks

3.5 Correctly identifying and allowing free searching
within multiple disc sets. Providing that there is sufficient
cross checking and binding of discs in a multi-disc set
then the situation is as above. Multiple discs can be
combined into a single playing experience using the
server Create Playlist function.

4. The Naim Solution

The solution devised by Naim is creating a database
internal to the server populated by data from AMG
among other databases, with sophisticated internal
processing of the downloaded database entries.

AMG provide data at both Album and Track level.
Importantly the database is manually edited: from both
submissions from Record Companies and from User
Submissions, manual database editing creates a master
database, which initially promises to meet the specific
requirements of Naim as below.

Additionally the database is configured by Naim to be
self-optimising and various user tools as detailed in

section 4 ensure a comfortable user experience. The full
amount of AMG metadata is actually downloaded:
nothing is discarded. This gives scope for additional
functionality in response to market sentiment.

The basic engine for the Naim Hard Disc Player and
Music Servers is provided by Digital Fidelity and is
based around a powerful XML database application.
Further specialised functions ensure that the sound
quality achieved is well in advance of industry standards.

5. The Naim Extended Music Database

Correctly creating a database that will be effective for
Compilation CDs requires that the search fields operate
at both ALBUM level and at TRACK level.

The search fields proposed in the Naim Music Server
and Hard Disc Player are: -

ALBUM LEVEL
Album Title
Album Artist 1
Album Artist 2
Album Genre

TRACK LEVEL
Track Titl e
Work
Track Artist 1
Track Artist 2
Track Artist 3
Track Artist 4

The concept of Artist includes:

Artist or Group or Soloist or Conductor
Composer
Orchestra or Group

Naim introduces the concept of PEOPLE for all Artists,
Composers etc, to avoid users having to manage failed
searches due to incorrect recollection of the precise
Artist attribute.

There is therefore within The Naim servers and Naim
Hard Disc Players the concept of PEOPLE SEARCH.

ALBUM LEVEL

DISPLAY SEARCH
TITLE Y Y
ARTIST NAME Y Y
PERFORMER /
ORCHESTRA
GENRE Y Y
COVER ART Y

Y Y

TRACK LEVEL

TRACK COUNT DISPLAY SEARCH
TRACK TITLE Y Y
WORK / PIECE /
MOVEMENT
COMPOSER Y Y
PERFORMER /
SOLOIST
CONDUCTOR Y Y

Y Y

Y Y

PEOPLE
SEARCH

PEOPLE
SEARCH

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