Simple request: When I go to “Albums” view, and possibly have a Focus, I would like to be able to choose “Sorted by Random”. Why? Because I would like to discover things burried in my library.
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100% miss this Feature as well!
+1
I would like this option as well.
Have you tried “Discover”? I’m not trying to be a smartar*e, but I’ve only relatively recently discovered how good “Discover” can be for exactly those moments when you want to listen to something but you don’t know what, and you want all sorts of suggestions from a variety of angles. It is very good at highlighting stuff you might have forgotten about.
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Discover is nice. But there’s no Focus in Discover, it is very different from what I am asking here. Hopefully this is obvious.
More importantly, I can see how asking for certain features (such as track-based DSP settings) might be complex to implement, whereas a feature like random sorting, given there’s already sorting choices, seems to me much easier to implement and would substantially add the to the experience of someone who values physical media and its quirks.
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I would expect reasonable software to let me sort by whatever I want to sort by. BPM, bass player, anything. Clunky ol’ JRiver does. What’s the point of metadata that you cannot use?
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Does JRiver have a sorting that is “randomize”?
Yes. On any view, including ones you define. So artists in random order, albums in random order of bass player, anything you can think of using any tags.
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Ok interesting… I do have a JRiver license but zero desire to switch to it.
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What you’re tired of your ‘A’ albums and artists? 
A big plus one on this from me.
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The best way to discover what is buried in your library is to sort by most played and reverse the sort. Then you will see what you aren’t playing very much.
I do this often.
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Yes done that many times, but not as useful as what I am asking for.
You want a randomized view which should be simple for Roon to add.
A randomized view is not the best way to find what is buried in your library. The best way to do that is exactly what I suggested.
If you want to play random tracks, shuffle works well for that. If you want to play random albums, you need a randomized view.
I am not arguing for or against a randomized view. All I am saying is it is not the best way to see what is buried in your library.
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Correct.
I disagree. I could put a Focus where I choose albums not played in the last month. That would render thousands of album. I want to randomize that.
I DO NOT care to play random tracks - this should be obvious from my album ask - and more importantly, I do not want the randomize function to play random albums but to SHOW me albums in a random order, off of which I would PICK the album I want to play.
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I understand all of that. My point is that the random view of albums is not the best way to find what is buried in your library. It is the way you want to look at your library. Big difference.
You can disagree all you want. But that does not make you right. The first few pages of a random view could show you albums you play a lot or don’t play much at all. It’s random. Therefore, you don’t know what is going to be put in your face. That, by default, is NOT the best way to see what you have not been playing.
You want a random view so you look at your library in no particular order. Great. Unless you play in that random order, you are still going to naturally shun some albums and play others more. And that random view is not going to tell you what albums you are shunning and what albums you are playing more often.
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I disagree with you. Every time I “reorder” by random it would give me another order. I do not care to be exhaustive in my perusal of albums I have not listened to in a long time or never. I care to see them every now and then and be able to pick them.
The problem with your view is that you think your objective is the same as mine. It clearly isn’t. I have defined my objective programmatically: I just want an album sorting that shuffles the albums, that is it. All your interpretations of my desires are utterly irrelevant.
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Of course it would give you another random order. I am not arguing that you should not want or request this view. I am arguing that if you really “would like to discover things burried in my library”, there are better mechanisms than a random view to accomplish this. What you have really asked for is a view that helps prevent albums from getting buried in the first place. Or at least puts albums in front of you that you might otherwise not seek out. I think that is a good approach. I am not sure that I would use a random album view but I might. I would certainly give it a try.
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I can always add Focus conditions such as never played, that’s not a problem. Given the size of my library, that doesn’t really help much at all. Adding the simple feature of randomizing what I see will get me to see albums I have rarely played.
I pretty much always know when/how/why I got a particular album when I see the cover. My intention is to replicate the “stumble upon”, not a thorough coverage of my library - that would take a long time.
Imagine I played all albums never played for example (since getting Roon that is, which was July 2015). Most of those albums I would not feel like playing at all!
What I want is a shuffle to show me what I have and I can then choose what I want.
Makes sense?
Yes, I understand.
If you have albums in your library that you would never want to listen to, why are they in your library? That right there would ruin the random view for me. I have made a conscious effort to not add albums I will never listen to and to remove any albums in my library that I know I will not listen to again. I really don’t care about inflated albums totals. I care about having music in my library that I actually want to hear.
I don’t see how the random view idea solves your problem if you have so many albums you don’t care to hear.
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Well, obviously because I might not feel like listening to them right now just because I decided to put them in at some point!!! I have Elvis Presley albums in my libray that I have not listened to in a long while, and I might like those albums, and I might have zero desire to listen to them right now. How obvous is this? Sorry I’m getting irritated by this but really how obvious is the answer to your question?