Bye Roon, why I am not renewing my subscription

Sex and Drugs and Rock Roll , the song of course :laughing:

To underscore how complicated this issue can get, in the US, the question is whether a compilation involves some minimal degree of creativity. So, for those who remember such things, a “white pages” telephone book (which just lists names in strictly alphabetical order) is not copyrightable, but a “yellow pages” telephone book (which organizes businesses into types) likely is.

Probably not the “fully automated” system anyone might be looking for, and really only suitable for technical users who can handle the command line - but I heartily recommend Beets as a means to process audio files before importing them into my Roon library. It’s been mentioned on these forums a few times…

While it also relies on MusicBrainz, you can also resolve metadata from Discogs and Beatport. It will handle all sorts of things around fixing file tags and normalizing metadata, fetching art etc. The plug in system and the community around it have contributed an enormous amount of capability to the solution, and it gets better and better with time. Plus, it has capabilities far beyond file and metadata management - it’s very powerful and flexible. Python-based plug-ins mean you can write your own solution if you’re so inclined.

http://beets.io

It does have a good bit of duplication with what Roon can do for you when importing files, but offers much more for the power user.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have to say that I am doubtful that the solution could be found in tagging software. The experience of many here is that though Roon does read one’s tags, it is not really designed to work based on tags.

Roon’s model is simple, and that is what makes it so attractive: load your albums, and enjoy.
Based on the fact that Roon mainly uses AllMusic, and that AllMusic is incomplete and sometimes inaccurate - what do you do when information needs to be completed/corrected ?

Today’s “tweaks” (prefer tags, split box sets, merge artists, etc…) are not the solution - in my opinion. But whatever alternative is found, if any, it should be as simple as possible (and within the “law”!).

There are some good suggestions in this thread. The first step is for Roon to recognize the issue and perhaps open up the discussion with their client base to exchange on these topics more openly.

Now I am going to be singing The Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” the rest of the day. I thought only magazines had the “cancel my subscription” protest posts, but I guess not :slight_smile:

Tell that to the artists - they are the ones getting “screwed” in this. It is estimated that between 25 and 50% of royalties due are misallocated because of incorrect/insufficient metadata (streaming or even sales). Its better to burry your head in the sand (or in your headphones).

Completely with you here. If I want to dig deep into Miles or Billie Holiday, Ike Quebec - it’s just not there. But it is out there and this is a premium product. Expecting way better from Roon on this area. Years and still not there.

1 Like

So I buy a lot of music, mainly pop and rock, and frequently I will buy from the artist’s website direct. I used PledgeMusic for a time, and fortunately all the artists I supported there got their money, but now just go direct. It’s a bit more costly but I hope that, in some small way, it helps offset the loss of revenue from what the streaming services pay.

I also tend to be out of the house a lot and, although I have my music server set up to stream my owned content to my phone or computer offsite, I still stream from Tidal or Spotify, hoping, again, that in some small way they get a bit of coin out of it. Maybe my thoughts are misguided in this area, but, I try.

It never occurred to me about the metadata, mainly because the artists and songs I listen to, even back to classic rock stuff of the 60’s and 70’s, always seems to be properly coded in my apps, so I never perceived a problem.

I am also undecided if I want continue using Roon, and yes, my only issue is not being able to use my own metadata in the event there is something wrong with what’s provided. Simply add my vote as a feature request.

Indeed, and as a premium product we expect much better. If it was a best-effort part-time project reliant on donations then maybe we would accept years of tinkering without fundamental improvements.

1 Like

33 posts were split to a new topic: Posts about leaving Roon

I’d wager that males, affluent, 80%+ of which over the age of 50 and mostly caucasian should be all the explanation you need as to where the entitled behavior comes from.

4 Likes

There are Roon KB articles on album tagging and editing how Roon presents things. If I don’t like what Roon comes up with, I select “choose file”, which assumes the file was correctly tagged in the first place. Never had a problem with dbpoweramp. I suppose the next step would be to share your edits for the greater good.

https://kb.roonlabs.com/File_Tag_Best_Practice
https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing

I understand your irritations, but after 3 years of payment you have Roon allmost for free. Lifetime.
From the inside (paying member) it’s easier to influence Roonlabs to make changes then from outside…

I happen to think my point of view on the issues surrounding Roon are not totallly irrelevant, and that the discussion has generated some suggestions and ideas.

I basically said what i had to say in my first post, and expanded further later in reaction to some comments to detail further some aspects: why i think metadata is important both for the end user and for the industry as a whole.

As for the “drama”, I was only referring to the TONE of the last messages, which I find inappropriate - there is no point in posting comments on forums which only mock and denigrate others.

Anyway, as you rightly point out, I have made my point and am done - I wish Roon would have offered some feedback on their strategy and how they see their product evolving, but they have not, which could mean:

  • either they feel the issues are not important
  • or they do not have a clear strategy to address them, at this point

No problem, no sweat.

3 Likes

Mods come into these type of threads for two purposes:

  1. To check whether an unhappy user is missing something. It’s a big product and very few people know all of it (I’m not one of them). So far as I can tell @anon49565150 isn’t missing anything and has accurately and politely described why Roon isn’t fitting his requirements;

  2. To make sure other users don’t pile onto a perceived critic. The admins have asked us to watch for that and ensure people who are critical of the product can have their say. Obviously there are sometimes trolls who intend to inflame as well as criticise and occasionally a thread may have to be closed to avoid the reaction getting out of hand. Thankfully that still seems very rare.

I was pleased that this thread seemed to follow a more mature path, at least initially. We really should all be able to listen to people who have a different experience of Roon without getting upset.

2 Likes

The OP never committed to lifetime. He bought the annual license. It’s not cumulative. You have to pay the whole fee upfront.

My renewal is tomorrow or the next day. Would not want to be without it.

3 Likes

The best solution to the ”why I’m not renewing” dilemma, is to buy a lifetime in the first place. Honestly, it saves a great deal of worry :rofl:

7 Likes

In my opinion @anon49565150 was very corteous providing reasons for his exit, in an elaborate way that can be of great value to the Roon team and product. Roon will never (hopefully) be everything for everybody, but I for one, surely want it evolve. No, I wont like every product change, but then you can always make your voice heard here.

1 Like