Am I missing something? Where is the supposed album info Roon promises?

[Bill_Janssen (Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)]

2494 albums have Reviews (74%)

Oh, yeah, Reviews. Here’s the entire “review” of Konitz Meets Mulligan:

W/ Gerry Mulligan Quartet. A simply wonderful pairing of idiosyncratic talents.

Really.

[Jazzfan_NJ (Listening to JAZZ since 1972!)]

And even for the unidentified albums, informative links are still be available on matching artist, composer, label, genre, etc… based on tags placed in the album flac files when I ripped or downloaded them.

Metadata is not the primary reason I bought into Roon, but I do find it quite useful and do believe/hope Roon will continue to improve the state of the metadata. I also wish for a Roon feature that would allow us to add/annotate album or track descriptive info as well. I can do that now by dropping PDFs into the album folder resulting in a displayed PDF icon, but I’d rather see it integrated within Roon.

I’m quite aware that are several very labor intensive work arounds available to make dealing with unidentified recordings more manageable. But my issue with these work arounds, be they more tags or PDFs or whatever, is that:

1. they are, as I stated, labor intensive, meaning MY labor, which is not the case with identified recordings, since for those recordings Roon does all the leg work.

2. And more importantly, no matter much time one spends on these various work arounds the recording still remains unidentified, which means little to no hyperlinks!!! And hyperlinks are one of the single best features of Roon. Here’s an example of what I mean - say that I’m listening to a properly identified 1960s Miles Davis Quintet recording and I go to the credits screen and click on Ron Carter’s hyperlink because I would like to listen to some other recordings featuring this great bass player. The only recordings featuring Ron Carter that will appear when I click on that hyperlink are those recordings that have been identified by Roon. All the other unidentified recordings that feature Ron Carter will not show up, unless his name appears in one of the file tags. That’s why Roon identifying a recording is so important. Now Ron Carter may not be the best example since most of his recordings are properly identified but for less well known musicians this is often the case.

[mdconnelly (Michael)]

@Bill_Janssen - totally agree that not all “Reviews” are worth much. Still, when there is a review, it is usually helpful. . .

@Jazzfan_NJ - I can link to “unidentified” albums based on tags from the flac files I’ve ripped or downloaded… Most every download I’ve purchased has such tags and whenever I rip a CD, I try to ensure basic info is there. If I recall correctly, you came from an LMS/SB environment, so surely all your music is already tagged to a reasonable and useful extent, no?

Look, I’m not trying to convince anyone that Roon’s metadata doesn’t have issues. Lots of room for improvement and hopefully Roon will get better.

[Jazzfan_NJ (Listening to JAZZ since 1972!)]

If I recall correctly, you came from an LMS/SB environment, so surely all your music is already tagged to a reasonable and useful extent, no?

Yes you are correct, although I’m not a big fan of lots of tags, therefore most of my tags are very basic but I have expanded the info in my file tags since using Roon. And sometimes it’s the identified recordings that Roon screws up more so than the unidentified recordings. So for example I diligently put all the names of the XXX Quartet members in the track “artist” tag only to have Roon show “XXX Quartet” in the credits of the identified recording (Note this does not happen all the time but it happens often enough). On the other, if the recording is unidentified all the names show up and with hyperlinks! Very frustrating, to say the least.

Does anyone know of a way to edit the track “artist” field within Roon’s edit album screen, because I can’t seem to find out how to do that.

[tripleCrotchet (Tony)]

I use an external tag editor (mp3tag). I’m not sure if this is exactly what you want. But I put the quartet or ensemble or whatever in the “album artist” tag and the members in the “artist” tag. Then you get a screen like this:

I cannot see a way of doing something similar with streamed content. There is a big difference between what roon allows you to edit between streamed and local content. I avoid tagging within roon so I am not sure if any of this is possible that way.

[mdconnelly (Michael)]

You can tell Roon to use your tags instead of its own. But, that falls into the PITA category as does trying to edit Roon tags at the track level. I have seen albums where I think the Roon tags are just lazy or wrong, but I tend to ignore it unless I know that my tags are far more accurate. My hope is that the Roon metadata will get better over time. But if I tell it to ignore it’s own metadata and use mine, it will not update if/when it has more accurate info.

Hey, it’s a moving target and with time, there is hope that things will get better. The challenge is that right now, now one does it better than Roon AFAIK.

[evand]

I have seen albums where I think the Roon tags are just lazy or wrong, but I tend to ignore it unless I know that my tags are far more accurate. My hope is that the Roon metadata will get better over time.

I think huge strides were made in and leading to 1.7, where Roon has identified an album. Further gains can be had eg adding composer metadata to a performance that’s in an unidentified album where the same track by the same artist/performer appears elsewhere in your library and had additional metadata e.g. composer.

[john_kryjak]

What I find helps is looking at the upcoming tracks in Que recommended by Roon Radio.
Also when you are ripping cd’s It is also a way to fine tune recommended tracks that are provided in Roon Radio.
I have a collection of approximate 6000 cds have been ripping a little at a time.
Maybe its my imagination but when I rip a curtain Genre it seems that the Roon Radio Adjusts.
Absolutely love Roon.
Enjoy.

[Jazzfan_NJ (Listening to JAZZ since 1972!)]

But I put the quartet or ensemble or whatever in the “album artist” tag and the members in the “artist” tag. Then you get a screen like this:

Thanks!

I do something very similar using mp3tag and get a similar result - except when the metadata that Roon downloads for the recording decides to change everything as I stated above. Very annoying and I can’t for the life of me find a way to override this. Perhaps I should keep the recordings where this happens “unidentified”.

[TheraP]

I have then Roon radio turned off. Because when it tried to start playing, it didn’t offer me what I was needing.

My desires for what to listen to come from inside me. So I just go to the library, where I’ve already set aside a lot of music. And see what I feel like.

[TheraP]

Eventually I will try ripping.

But right now I’m just thrilled with what I’m getting.

Cheers!

[Jim_F (Remember - It's easier to Keep a Customer than to get a New One)]

The beauty of Roon radio to me is you can discover a lot of music that you really like but would never have known about otherwise. Of course, you can discover a lot of music that you really don’t like also.

[Jazzfan_NJ (Listening to JAZZ since 1972!)]

The beauty of Roon radio to me is you can discover a lot of music that you really like but would never have known about otherwise.

For the most part I enjoy Roon Radio but I do have some issues with Roon Radio’s understanding and knowledge of jazz. Works great on popular music but often drops the ball when it comes to jazz. But that’s the topic for a different discussion.

[mdconnelly (Michael)]

Roon has an Album Editor that I’ve found quite useful when I don’t like the tags Roon provides when an album is identified. It allows me to use my tags - track or album level - instead. It will even let you add your own tags here, but of course, that’s only stored within Roon. Here’s a pic if you’re not sure where it is…

[Jazzfan_NJ (Listening to JAZZ since 1972!)]

I’m aware of and use the Edit function. What I’m looking for is way to set the track artist to my tags, similar to how one can edit the album artist tag (see below - album level metadata preference).

I have not found found a way to edit the track level artist tag (see below - track level metadata preference).

I hope that I am making myself clear.

[mdconnelly (Michael)]

You can edit each track’s metadata preference or info regarding each track via the Track Editor. It is a PITA, but you can change credits or each track and identify the credit roles on each track such as Primary Artist, Composer, etc…

All doable, but I must admit I’m hesitant to go down this path myself because whatever you do is only stored in Roon which limits what you can do with it down the road if/when something else comes along that makes you want to switch away from Roon. Having tags in the flac files themselves seems like a better strategy to me. So what I occasionally do is tell Roon to ignore the metadata from the identified album and use my tags instead. It works and easy to do, but there’s also a price since once you do that, Roon stops looking for updated metadata for that album.

Personally, I don’t see this as a Roon deficiency as much as I do a total lack of an industry standard to manage such metadata. Even if Roon came up with a comprehensive solution, it would still be Roon’s solution that would unlikely port to any other product or service down the line.

[Geoff_Coupe]

I’m hesitant to go down this path myself because whatever you do is only stored in Roon which limits what you can do with it down the road if/when something else comes along that makes you want to switch away from Roon. Having tags in the flac files themselves seems like a better strategy to me.

As has been mentioned a couple of times before, you can get Roon to put tags of the basic metadata into a copy of your library files using the Export function.

Metadata and Tags

Roon does not modify your files in any way. If you stop using Roon, and have made edits in Roon, then you should export the files in your music library to a secondary storage location. During the Export process, Roon will insert basic metadata into the exported files.

[evand]

Having tags in the flac files themselves seems like a better strategy to me.

Exporting from Roon gives you the following:

• albumartist
• album
• discnumber
• track
• title
• artist
• composer

[mdconnelly (Michael)]

Thank you @Geoff_Coupe and @evand! I had seen that but just never got around to checking it out. Those are fields that I strive to correctly populate correctly within the flac files before Roon gets it. But knowing that Roon’s export can do the same does make the Album and Track Editor features far more useful in the long term.

[Jazzfan_NJ (Listening to JAZZ since 1972!)]

@evand @Geoff_Coupe @mdconnelly

As far as I can tell so far no one has shown me how to get Roon to the file tags for track artist instead of the imported metadata track artist, as I tried to show in my previous post.