Advice Needed - Compilation albums

I have a load of compilation albums ripped across the years mainly by DBpoweramp into FLAC. I would really appreciate some advice on how to re-rip or re-tag them to achieve how I would like to see the albums.

I would like to be able to go into album view and see one icon with all of the tracks for that album under it. Even if the album has seven discs.

Some of them do, but many more seem to have an icon per track of the album and as many compilations start with numeric identities “100 hits of the sixties” they clutter up my album view for pages before the proper alphabetic album covers start.

I have had jriver and other players over the years and have just grinned and put up with it, but as roon does such a good job I thought it was about time to do it properly. I don’t care how it would look in other players etc as I am dumping them one by one to concentrate on roon.

cheers
Ged

It may not be necessary to re rip or re tag. If you have multiple partial albums, select them (right click) and use Merge Albums in the edit menu. This should enable you to winnow down to one album icon per album. It can also help to edit in correct disk numbers for multiple disk albums and make sure they are marked as compilations.

Occasionally I get multiple partial albums after moving files around. Sometimes this results in duplicate albums that can’t be deleted because the files can’t be accessed. Hide Album can clear these up.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to reliably reproduce these behaviours, which is the start of trying to fix it. Sometimes I get “fractured” albums, sometimes I don’t. If you find that you can reproduce the formation of multiple or duplicate albums then I’m sure the Roon devs would be pleased to hear about it.

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Thanks, I will have a go once I get home but after have spent the evening installing and playing with the iPAD remote :smile:
Ged

Dear andybob,

Thank you. I read your suggestion and realized that it would serve a problem I just encountered where a HDtracks.com download of 21 tracks contained within the download, for some reason, an additional folder for track 18. When roon added the album, I found two separate entries: One for track 18 and the other for the remaining 20 tracks. Your suggestion prompted me to highlight both albums and in the edit menu merge album worked “perfectly”. I just learned an important, if rare circumstance, solution that I was unaware of until your suggestion.

With appreciation,
Richard

andybob, worked a treat thanks very much.

Although not necessary to re-tag as andybob mentions, I prefer to always re-tag. Re-tagging solves the root cause of indentifiying issues. Also in case of hardware failure (loosing lets say the roon core). rebuilding will be easier, since the tag issues are solved.

That’s a good idea as well! Which brings me back to my original question in a way. What is the best way to tag compilations so that the tracks have their own information as to artist etc but so they appear in a cohesive album?
Ged

Having a problem with this solution now. Will have to raise a support topic. Sometimes when I combine albums the whole lot just disappears.

I’ll move this thread into the Support category and we’ll see what can be done. There are a number of reports of odd behaviour with duplicated albums etc. Some of it appears to be reproducible which should enable some fine bug-squashing.

I think what is happening is that the previous selection of albums to combine isn’t unselecting.
So if a previous selection of stray songs in my case I had 100 greatest chillout and went round gathering them up into a single collection. Then I moved on to The Sting soundtrack and selected the two parts that had separated and clicked combine. However they got embedded in the 100 chillout album. I found the tracks from The Sting by searching and then used roon identify an album to extract them.
The problem I face now is that I have gone around grouping these for a while by going to a visual screen full of duplicates and, after combining, assuming they were shifted in the album list. However they are probably tacked on to previous selections somehow. Will have a look some other time when I have time.

That’s consistent with what I’ve been seeing Ged. Build 55 of 1.1 has now been released and includes better handling of duplicates after deletion of files. Let’s see if that has affected this behaviour.

Are you using an organised folder ? I rip into an organised folder and then copy to a watched folder and move to a backup. Sometimes I seem to be missing an entire album after a merge. When that happens I have found the files in the organised folder under a previously merged album name, so check that out before re-ripping if it should happen to you. I am now closing Roon when I copy and shift files, cleaning up the library after moving files from the organised folder and doing all my merging on albums in watched folders. I figure that should minimise the scope for problems to arise.

Also I think @REShaman and @Rugby are onto something in this thread:

It may help to let Roon thoroughly digest new tracks before invoking any operation on them.

Check the file tags to make sure all the files have:

  • Consistent sensible track and media numbers, meaning tracks 1-17, and disc 1 of 2 (or 1 of 4, or whatever)
  • The same Album tag
  • The same Album Artist tag (if it’s a compilation with more than one artist, this should be Various Artists)

If you find a compilation that’s not grouping properly, make the needed changes in your tags, and then rescan the files if the changes don’t get picked up automatically.