Basic Roon customization

I have just started testing the Roon Server on a fully tagged collection that I also make available in my LAN via MinimServer. I have some basic customization questions:

  1. How do I tell the Roon Server which embedded tags should be presented to the Roon control app? I am looking for something equivalent to the “indexTags” list in MinimServer.

  2. Does Roon support “intelligent browsing” a la MinimServer?

  3. How can I set the Roon control app to present a “list view” in “Artist Browser”, “Album Browser”, “Composers”, etc.? In the current “tiled” view, two tiles take the whole width of the screen which is just too much.

Thanks,
Nicola

As a new user, it’s good practice to read the manual.
Roon doesn’t support UPnP/DLNA and is not like <fill in the name of what ever software u used before>.

  1. At least at default settings, Roon’s only use for your file tags is to help identify your music.
    See also: Import Settings
  2. Roon has different browsers to access your library. You can use the Search, Focus and filters to help find the content your looking for.
  3. Please see below:

What is Roon?

Roon is a music management and listening solution that takes a very different approach to interacting with your music. Instead of seeing a spreadsheet-like view of your music (as with iTunes and almost all other media systems), Roon provides a very rich non-list based experience, using credits, artist relationships, genres, lyrics, concert/tour dates, artwork, and more to allow for an informative navigation and exploration of your library.

Roon manages digital music files collected on hard drives and networked storage. It can also watch your iTunes library, and optionally integrate with the TIDAL and Qobuz music streaming services.

Roon cleans up your music library, upgrades the metadata associated with your music, and provides a user interface that is far richer than anything else out there. Roon makes music exploration and discovery both informative and fun.

Roon provides no-compromise audio perfection. Bit perfect playback of lossy and lossless file formats, including high resolution audio content (PCM and DSD). Additional conveniences such as crossfading and volume normalization make it suitable for both concentrated listening sessions as well as social events.

Roon manages your audio renderers (the things that make sound). Whether they be built-in sound devices, like your laptop’s audio output, a USB connected DAC, or even networked audio devices.

Roon is an application suite that must be installed. It is not a website. It runs on Macs, Windows PCs and Tablets, Linux PCs, Android Tablets, Apple iPads and iPhones. Support is provided on the Community Site, and membership details and configuration are provided on the Roon website.

Roon uses your music files, Internet Radio streams, and content from the TIDAL and Qobuz streaming music services, but doesn’t come with any music.

The Roon software is constantly being improved and updates are always free of charge to licensed users.

@BlackJack: Thanks, I am well aware that Roon does not support UPnP/DLNA, from an operational point of view I also have no issues with Roon.

What I am trying to figure out is whether there is a way to setup the Roon Server to present only (a well-defined subset of) the tags embedded in my music collection to the Roon app.

I use a specific way of naming compositions and musical forms (string quartets, ouvertures, symphonies, quintets, tone poems, etc.) and want to have full control on the way the contents of the corresponding tags are presented to the Roon app. I am not interested in Roon building any additional tags or browsers or retrieving other artwork than that already embedded in my files.

If there is not a straightforward way to achieve the above goals, than Roon is great but it is not for me.

If there is a straightforward way to customize the Roon Server to present a user-specific set of tags to the Roon app (like in MinimServer for UPnP streaming), I would be grateful if you could provide me with a pointer to the respective section of the manual.

Thanks again,
Nicola

Roon is great, but the opposite of this desire. Roon doesn’t deal well with custom embedded tagging schemes and pretty much only displays and organizes in its own schemes.

Hi Nicola

Roon provides little if any customization but it does something’s very right, as with any software there’s a learning curve. I did the one year $120 “trial” , 2 weeks doesn’t scratch the surface. Beware it is addictive!

If you dig in a bit the Composer view looks ok but a bit bewildering at first. Roon tends to demand a lot of typing even just 3-4 letters to get around where others don’t primarily due to the customization you seek

I too got frustrated at first but you do settle in to it. The bigger issues of classical music are discussed in depth in many post, maybe search the forum.

You will (have to ? ) learn new ways to navigate but if you like the info presented and how it’s presented then it’s worth it. The big plus is that you don’t have to groom metadata (much) and that saves hours of keyboard effort, if you have already done the work it is a frustration not to be able to use it

Bit wordy but try getting around using

Album focus
Composition view filters
Composer view

I switched from Composer first to Artist first …

Good luck

@James_I, @Mike_O_Neill: many thanks for the clarifications!

As I mentioned, I have a classical music collection that I have tagged according to my specific needs.

Apart from the usual Composer, Composition, Conductor, Ensemble, etc., I have tags for different musical forms (something different from genres), eras, Gramophone magazine lists and more.

I have put a lot of efforts in tagging my music collection and every time I buy a new album, I first spend some time getting the metadata the way I like them to be. This is by the way a work that I quite enjoy, spending a lot of time tagging my files doesn’t bother me at all.

I am very, very happy with MinimServer’s support for “intelligent browsing” and with the way it allows me to browse my music collection.

I can imagine that Roon works very well (perhaps especially for collections that are not particularly well tagged) but I do not particularly like the way my collection is displayed in the Roon app and I do not want to have to do any typing for searching or browsing.

Thus, for the time being, I have concluded that Roon is perhaps very good but not necessarily for me! Thanks again, Nicola

Roon’s focus is on music exploration and discovery. It’s actually very stubborn when it comes to adapting to a given user’s methods of organization. Thus, I agree, I don’t think it fits your description of what you are looking for.

HOWEVER, I still suggest you play with it for a while. You may decide that while Roon won’t adopt your organizational structures, it still offers a LOT of value where it is strong. Just live with how it is displaying your collection and see if the features make it worth retaining Roon. I’ll bet you decide it is.

It’s a bit like the South African view of dogs, one to cuddle, one to bite !

I have 2 apps in parallel, JRiver which is infinitely customizable and Roon which bristles information

I split by Genre and SubGenre eg Mozart> Concerto > Piano concerto etc which makes navigation simple tapping . This works only in JRiver

I couldn’t decide which to use so I use both !! Not sure which one bites though :joy:

If money is no object I think the Tidal integration and the general info side of Roon is quite superb. Beware it’s addictive once you start you are unlikely to stop

@James_I, @Mike_O_Neill: Thanks, I have more than one week of free evaluation left, thus I’ll certainly play around a little bit more with Roon. The yearly fee seems reasonable, that’s more or less what I donate for the development of MinimServer and upmpdcli at the end of the year. Still, I do not see myself becoming a regular Roon user any soon. Roon is probably very good at collecting and filtering and presenting to the user additional information. This is great but it is not really what I am looking for. I already feel that I am flooded with all sorts of recommedations (from browsers, mailing systems, notification systems, etc.) no matter what I do. When I reach to a mobile phone to select some music to replay, I ideally would like to see my music collection and nothing else. I also do not like the excessive usage of pictures in Roon’s presentation, I tend to prefer lists and text-based browsing.