Whilst I very much welcome the concept of narrative that accompanies the majority of my albums on Roon, it is almost always a slanted opinion of the reviewer’s personal tastes. The fact that some of my favorite albums don’t meet with the approval of the reviewer is rather annoying and irritating, to say the least. I don’t need or want to be told by Roon that my musical choices are, effectively, rubbish. Although it’s not something that will be solved quickly, and certainly not a priority over technical issues and the all important IOS app, can I ask that some consideration be given to hiring a narrative service that gives an encyclopedia-style history and context of the album, but which doesn’t celebrate the opinions of the writer.
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@Chris_Wright, I understand what you mean but it doesn’t bother me, I like reading an opinion, as long as it is not completely biased or offensive then I just choose to agree or agree to differ, I don’t want a sanitised encyclopaedic description.
YMMV
Russ
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Well it won’t surprise you that I see it somewhat differently. I don’t think the encyclopedia style has to be sterile. If it’s a well written narrative full of facts, some of which you might not know, then it’s going to be pretty engaging. Think about your typical BBC Radio music documentary - full of facts and story telling but much shorter on opinions. Let the listener decide. I certainly don’t think that the fact someone regards such and such an album to be a failure for whatever reason to be of the slightest consequence or relevance to my listening experience and enjoyment of using Roon. It therefore won’t surprise you either that I don’t need Roon, Tidal or various celebrity playlists suggesting what my listening choices should be, for much the same set of reasons. That said, I’m a big fan of random play of my collection as it does reveal dusty unvisited tracks quite often.
I understand being irritated with biased reviews. One of the first suggestions I made when I started using Roon was to get rid of the “Picks” check mark and the Album Star Rating. For the exact reason you stated. They are rarely my choice and it is irritating to see them. I would love and “OFF” toggle.
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[quote=“Chris_Wright, post:1, topic:2731”]
… can I ask that some consideration be given to hiring a narrative service that gives an encyclopedia-style history and context of the album,
[/quote]Does such a service / database exist? If not then the funding of such a project to author it would be astronomical.
Wikipedia ?
Perhaps the answer is more, rather than less. More opinions from a variety of reviewers with periodic changes, provision to filter, or even exclude particular reviewers. Provision for user reviews. Links to resources outside Roon. I would really like to be able to follow a particular user’s reccomended playlist and links. Perhaps from modules uploaded to this forum. Enabling users to share a tour through a genre or playlist would be very cool.
I like reading the existing reviews, even if I don’t agree with them, but they are not holy writ and I look forward to a variety of opinion.
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I would also opt for a multiple solution as andybob suggests. Maybe reviews from some larger publications as well as wikipedia. You get best of both worlds. Biased an unbiased. Going for one or the other there will always be a group of users that is not happy. But for now, keep it as is and focus on getting things up and running and stable.
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@Chris_Wright An interesting point, and one with which I agree. I’ve not bothered to post on this though, as it’s such a subjective issue and well beyond the control of the Roon team IMO.
Nonetheless, I really don’t like reading a review which tells me that the music which I’ve bought and paid for is crap…I’m interested in a bit of history and context around the album, with interesting info nuggets which I didn’t know before. Rather like you may have got on old time Liner notes!
Cheers
George
3 Likes
- 1 (million)
PLEASE let us turn off Picks and where do you get your reviewers from?
For example, I was just listening to and reading about Zappa’s two most famous/popular albums. There’s a reason for that. They are works of musical genius, funky and funny. The reviewer (to his credit) gave them each 4.5 stars, then bitched endlessly about the childishness of the lyicical content, then finished up by saying they were musically great.
I’m thinking either the reviewer is young enough to feel compelled to be 'politically correct" in today’s terms, (which involves not saying anything you won’t be shamed on the Internet for, or qualifying your positive review by explaining in detail how dumb/uncool/incorrect you think the subject of the review is) and/or he simply doesn’t get Frank at all. Get a sense of humor!
Picks can be turned off. When in album view go to “Focus” There you’ll find “picks”
Select all (cmd - a or ctrl - a) and click on edit 
in the edit fields tab set pick to “no” 
All picks should now be gone.
If you import an album that is considered a pick you’ll need to repeat these steps unfortunately as you cannot turn off picks completely by default
Thanks for the info - can it only be done on a per-album basis? I was hoping to be able to simply turn off all picks of all kinds.
Hi Mark,
This will remove the “pick” icon for all albums currently in your library.
You can also do this on a track level.
I guess I’m missing a step or something - I can do it individually (single albums or tracks), but if I tick the Picks box in Focus, then press CMD-A, nothing happens, and so I don’t get a selection or an Edit pull down. I guess I don’t know how to select multiple items. (IPad Pro - it should be CMD-A. I tried others to no avail)
I don’t know if it works on a tablet. Try on your core mac or pc. It works perfect for albums.
It does not remove the picks for tracks though. You’ll need to do the same thing again but starting from the track view-> focus…
So that fixed the album picks, thanks!
My bigger “problem” is the track picks on albums. When I go to Track View/Focus, the Picks tick box has the SAME number in the numerator and denominator (I.e. ALL are considered) and when you select all tracks and Edit, there is no option for turning Picks on and off (the third tab is not there).
So it appears to clear track picks, it will have to be done album by album…aargh.
Mark,pick a series of smaller subset of tracks. Turning Picks OFF then becomes available
Sorry, I meant turning Picks to No instead of Off
Awesome, thanks! That did it.
Without fail, it seems the reviews are always either ragging on the album, or if the reviewer likes the album, he is sure to put in a negative, just for good measure. Very predictable.
Also, the majority of them seem to be written by just one guy,