My Search for a Better Way to Manage a Personal Music Library

[HiAndy]

Hi everyone,

Some of you may remember my introduction a while ago.

At the time, I mentioned that although I’ve always wanted to own a Synology NAS, I don’t actually have one yet. My current setup is still a Netgear RAX120 paired with an 8 TB external hard drive, and that’s where I keep most of my personal files and memories—including my music collection.

Even though my hardware is different, I imagine many of us share a similar habit: we keep our own data instead of relying entirely on cloud services.

For me, that includes thousands of music files collected over many years.


The more my collection grew, the more I realized something.

Streaming services are fantastic, and I use them too.

But they aren’t really a replacement for a personal music library.

Some albums disappear because of licensing.
Some recordings are never available on streaming platforms.
Some music simply seems to vanish over time.

If I hadn’t kept my own copies, I probably wouldn’t be listening to them today.

That made me realize I wasn’t looking for another streaming app.

I was looking for a better way to manage my own collection.


Over the years I tried different players and media solutions.

Some focused on streaming.

Some focused on folders.

Some worked well for playback but offered little help organizing a large collection.

I found myself writing down a wishlist of everything I hoped one application could do.

Eventually I stopped writing the wishlist and started building it.

That project gradually became Sovault.


Rather than trying to replace streaming services, Sovault focuses on people who still maintain their own music library.

It currently supports importing music from:

• Local files and folders
• SMB shares
• FTP servers
• WebDAV servers
• Direct file URLs

Whether your collection is stored on local disks, external drives, or a NAS, the goal is to make it easy to build and maintain a personal music library.


One area I spent a lot of time improving is format compatibility.

Many long-time collectors don’t just have MP3 files.

Sovault now supports a wide range of formats, including:

• MP3
• AAC
• M4A
• WAV
• AIFF
• ALAC
• FLAC
• Opus
• APE
• TAK
• TTA
• WavPack
• Musepack
• DSD

so there’s much less need to convert files before importing them.


Another challenge with older collections is metadata.

After years of moving files between different computers and operating systems, it’s common to end up with broken tags, missing artwork, or garbled text caused by legacy GBK or Big5 encoding.

Sovault can automatically detect these encoding issues, repair them, and write the corrected metadata back into the audio files, helping preserve the library instead of just masking the problem.


Managing a large collection is also about finding things quickly.

The library includes fast search across songs, albums, artists and playlists, while the macOS version offers customizable list columns, making it easier to browse large collections and inspect file information such as format and size.

For everyday listening, I’ve also tried to polish the little details that matter over time—more reliable playback, automatic resume after Bluetooth reconnection, smoother interruption handling, and many stability improvements that make the app feel more dependable.

I’m still using Sovault every day myself, and it’s still evolving.

Many ideas have come from conversations with people who care about preserving their own music collections, and there are plenty more I’d like to improve.

Although I don’t currently own a Synology NAS, I’d genuinely love to hear how people in this community manage their music today.

Do you primarily use:

• Audio Station?
• Plex?
• Jellyfin?
• Roon?
• Something else?

Or have you built your own workflow?

If you think Sovault might fit your setup, I’d be grateful for any feedback—positive or negative. Real-world usage is always more valuable than anything I can test on my own.

Thanks for reading, and thanks again for making this community such a great place to learn from.

 

[fredbert]

Not quite sure what information you are wanting in order to understand usage. So here's how I got my music to where it is today...

It started with iTunes and CDs. Using the import feature it would automatically create artist/album/track and add artwork. That was using AAC and as storage increased I did this a couple of times using a higher bitrate each time.

Now I use dBpoweramp and it simultaneously creates AAC-128, AAC-320, and ALAC versions into separate music libraries, it handles metadata and artwork. This is to avoid transcoding when streaming on mobile data, or filling out the Garmin SD card in my car with music (it reindexes the USB drive when it's put back in after using CarPlay, which is a pain, hence using the spare 11 GB on the 32 GB SD card).

I also have hi-res files in a separate music folder/library. But all music files still adhere to the original iTunes structure and naming convention. To fix or modify metadata I use PerfectTUNES.

Painful as it was to set up, now it's done it is easy to add new music. There are six main folders/libraries

• Highest quality from source:
  • music (hi-res) ... ALAC from hi-res sources
  • music (alac) ... ALAC from CDs
  • music ... AAC 320 from CDs and DRM-free 256 AAC and MP3
• Transcoded down:
  • music (alac) - transcoded ... the hi-res to 'CD' ALAC
  • music - transcoded ... hi-res and CD ALAC to AAC 320
• music (lo-res) ... all music in AAC 128 or DRM-free 128

This allows me to make a Plexamp single library with only the highest quality of any source (since Plexamp only support selecting one library). I still use Apple Music on Mac but only to keep a library of 320 kbps music which I can manage onto my 'i'devices, it's easier than using app built-in download features.

With the same folders of music I use different servers:

• Plex for Plexamp. It is my primary player on mobile and desktop devices. Also used on AppleTV when I don't just use HEOS on the connected amp.
• Asset UPnP (also but less so now, Synology Media Server) for my Denon HEOS amps and speaker. Asset can serve multiple libraries so I have one like Plexamp, but also others than are source-type specific.
• The fallback was, but it wasn't really working recently, Audio Station. Maybe the recent update has fixed it?
• Download local files to mobile devices/car.
• Haven't tried it yet but I saw that Home Assistant has a Music Assistant project. If I have spare time and inclination I might try that.

So the important bit is to organise the files such that any server/app can easily catalogue them.

 

[HiAndy]

Not quite sure what information you are wanting in order to understand usage. So here's how I got my music to where it is today...

It started with iTunes and CDs. Using the import feature it would automatically create artist/album/track and add artwork. That was using AAC and as storage increased I did this a couple of times using a higher bitrate each time.

Now I use dBpoweramp and it simultaneously creates AAC-128, AAC-320, and ALAC versions into separate music libraries, it handles metadata and artwork. This is to avoid transcoding when streaming on mobile data, or filling out the Garmin SD card in my car with music (it reindexes the USB drive when it's put back in after using CarPlay, which is a pain, hence using the spare 11 GB on the 32 GB SD card).

I also have hi-res files in a separate music folder/library. But all music files still adhere to the original iTunes structure and naming convention. To fix or modify metadata I use PerfectTUNES.

Painful as it was to set up, now it's done it is easy to add new music. There are six main folders/libraries

• Highest quality from source:
  • music (hi-res) ... ALAC from hi-res sources
  • music (alac) ... ALAC from CDs
  • music ... AAC 320 from CDs and DRM-free 256 AAC and MP3
• Transcoded down:
  • music (alac) - transcoded ... the hi-res to 'CD' ALAC
  • music - transcoded ... hi-res and CD ALAC to AAC 320
• music (lo-res) ... all music in AAC 128 or DRM-free 128

This allows me to make a Plexamp single library with only the highest quality of any source (since Plexamp only support selecting one library). I still use Apple Music on Mac but only to keep a library of 320 kbps music which I can manage onto my 'i'devices, it's easier than using app built-in download features.

With the same folders of music I use different servers:

• Plex for Plexamp. It is my primary player on mobile and desktop devices. Also used on AppleTV when I don't just use HEOS on the connected amp.
• Asset UPnP (also but less so now, Synology Media Server) for my Denon HEOS amps and speaker. Asset can serve multiple libraries so I have one like Plexamp, but also others than are source-type specific.
• The fallback was, but it wasn't really working recently, Audio Station. Maybe the recent update has fixed it?
• Download local files to mobile devices/car.
• Haven't tried it yet but I saw that Home Assistant has a Music Assistant project. If I have spare time and inclination I might try that.

So the important bit is to organise the files such that any server/app can easily catalogue them.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed reply.

Honestly, I was genuinely impressed by your workflow. You’ve clearly spent many years refining your music library, and it shows. It’s probably one of the most sophisticated personal music management setups I’ve come across.

My first reaction, though, was: “That must take a lot of work!”

Maintaining multiple versions of the same collection is incredibly thorough, but also a significant investment in both time and storage. Of course, everyone’s needs and available resources are different, and they naturally evolve over time. Personally, I don’t think I’d maintain that many parallel libraries myself—at least not right now.

As I mentioned in my introduction, I don’t even have a “real” NAS yet. My current setup is still a Netgear RAX120 with an 8 TB external drive attached to it. So my requirements are probably much simpler than yours.

That said, I realized we actually share several core ideas, and they’re very close to the philosophy behind Sovault.

One sentence from your reply really resonated with me:

“The important bit is to organise the files such that any server/app can easily catalogue them.”

I completely agree.

To me, the music library itself should remain portable. The player should never “own” the library.

That’s exactly the direction I’m trying to take with Sovault.

A few examples:

• Preserving and improving metadata. My goal is to keep metadata as complete and accurate as possible. At the moment Sovault automatically detects many metadata issues during import, while anything missing can be edited manually. I’d like to automate even more of this in future versions.
• Keeping the library independent from any single player. Remote Sync Libraries were designed with this idea in mind. Once the music has been organized, it can be synchronized back to your NAS, making it easy to switch to another player whenever you want. At the moment, synchronization is library-based rather than folder-based.
• Keeping the listening experience in sync. The music I’m actively listening to—whether imported manually or synchronized from a remote library—can stay synchronized across my Apple devices (iPhone, Mac and CarPlay) using iCloud. The idea is similar to how Apple Music keeps your library consistent across devices, while still letting you own your files.

I’ve been trying to describe Sovault in a single sentence, but it’s surprisingly difficult.

Perhaps the closest description is this:

It’s both a tool for building and maintaining a personal music library, and a clean, lightweight music player designed for everyday listening.

The “lightweight” part is important to me. I don’t want it to become so feature-rich that it becomes difficult to use.

One thing your post has definitely changed is my thinking about folder-based synchronization.

Until now, I didn’t consider it a high priority. But after seeing how carefully you’ve organized your collection, I can clearly understand why preserving the folder structure matters. I think that’s something I’ll need to seriously consider for a future release.

So thank you again—not only for sharing your workflow, but also for giving me a new perspective. This is exactly the kind of real-world experience I was hoping to learn from when I started this discussion.