Can I access the Roon Tidal Collections without importing them?

Roon Software Discussion TIDAL
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@support,

This question is for the Roon administrators – those responsible for how the features operate.

I searched the database before posting and I don’t think this has been covered.

I’d like to take advantage of the Tidal Collections but NOT import them into my library. I’d like to do so because you have created a unique feature by fully utilizing Tidal. As far as I can tell, none of the playlists on Tidal offer the same list of albums in the various categories as do your collections. If I am wrong about that, please respond with the name of the Tidal playlists that correspond to your Tidal Collections. If such Tidal playlists exist, then my question below has already been addressed. But I don’t think this feature – the Collections – exists on Tidal but only within Roon.

But as far as I can tell, the only way a Roon user can benefit from your Tidal Collections is by importing them into the library and then mess up our libraries.

You now FORCE your customers to download the Collections as no other option exists.

Judging by the number of posts about deleting the Tidal Collections, it is clear that many Roon subscribers are attracted to the option of accessing the Tidal Collections, but later conclude they don’t want the Tidal Collections messing up their libraries. For that reason, Rune has had to create a separate FAQ page on how to delete Tidal Collections.

But the easy solution is to allow Roon subscribers to look at and access the Tidal Collections, and be able to play music from those collections, but not force us to download it permanently or even temporarily into our libraries.

Is that possible?

If not, it should be an easy feature to add. You already have the lists of Tidal Collections. All you need to do is to change the page on Tidal Collections. On that page include links to all of the various collections, that open to a list of the tracks or albums as the case may be. At the bottom of that page you can also provide an option of downloading the Collections – an option that very few will take advantage of.

There are also complaints about being asked to make this choice when creating a Tidal account. If you adopt the above suggestion, you can delete that part of creating an account, as the user can do it later.

Many thanks in advance for you response.

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The complaints about the Collections are made by users who inadvertently added Collections but then want to revert. Many users have added Collections and are happy with the additions to their libraries. They tend not to post because there is no reason to do so.

Adding a Tidal album (or Collection) to your Roon library isn’t a download. It’s the equivalent of favouriting the album(s) in Tidal. The main difference between unadded and added Tidal content is in Album and Artist displays and Focus tool searches. Radio currently uses only added Tidal content.

Why do you think adding a Collection will “mess up” your library ?

Now that you know how to delete a Collection, why not add one, see if you like it, You can Export the list of albums in the Collection as an Excel file and delete it if you don’t want it in your library.

Ummm, don’t add a Collection unless you want to ? This sort of hyperbole doesn’t help anything.

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I took the time to ask a detailed question. What I got in return is a sarcastic and insulting response. It is pretty obvious that you are not serious about addressing customer concerns. Just look at some of the threads that have gone for years and not been responded to. But I guess your attitude is that a sarcastic response is better than no response.

That question is remarkable. The clear implication is that you believe that no one has previously raised that point. Why don’t you read your own forums? Plenty of your PAYING customers have already answered that. (I stress the word paying because it is clear that you don’t appear to need or care if you keep paying customers.)

The answer, which has been posted many times, it that they don’t want their library to list all kinds of albums that they have no interest in, and have to scroll past.

All that I suggested was that you provide a list of the albums that make up the collections as links that can be clicked on to play the songs within those albums.

Then we – your paying customers – can enlarge our appreciation of that type of music by listening to what you consider to be the essential lists of music in that category.

The sarcasm oozes from that response. I was suggesting a way by which customers who don’t want to add collections to their libraries could still enjoy and make use of the collections.

I guess I mistakenly thought that is what Roon is about. To listen to customer suggestions and provide a useful interface that addresses customer suggestions.

Clearly I was mistaken, as were the many users who have requested that the the MQA files to be labelled so we know whether they are MQA before we start to play them. Those suggestions appears to have been ignored as well.

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Thought I should point out that @andybob, like the other community moderators, is a volunteer, not a Roon employee.

Your core request — that Roon subscribers have access to lists of what’s included in the various Collections — has some merit, I think. It would be nice to be able to check out the Collections and see if you really wanted to import, rather than proceeding blindly and then have to get rid of a bunch of albums later. (I speak from experience here.)

On the other stuff, though, I’m with @andybob. Roon’s not forcing its customers to do anything.

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I agree with this. Currently, Roon supports one library and I use that for my personal fill collection which is overwhelmingly HD and multichannel and would not want any of Tidal’s vaster but more varied collection mixed in with it. It would be nice to be able to simply switch to (and from) a mode/library/whatever that was exclusively Tidal and enjoy it with Roon’s superior interface.

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I’m interested to understand this too. I don’t think it is an unreasonable question either.

I added some collections and this has served to enhance the way Roon works … extending choice beyond my “tangible” collection. Also, IIRC it was really easy to see what was added since all albums were added at the same time and appear first when browsing. Occasionally, I have removed the odd album, but that is a painless exercise. I certainly had a choice and didn’t add collections that were no interest to me.

Regarding Tidal Masters (or MQA) the reason why these are not tagged is document and has as much to do with Tidal as Roon. As a workaround I tag masters when they’re added to my collection (either from Roon or via the Tidal app.)

This is a diverse community forum and therefore doesn’t represent the views of Roon Labs. Andrew’s post was neither sarcastic nor insulting: I think you stepped out of line when jumping to incorrect conclusions.

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I agree in that I “fell for” this upon first installing Roon as well. I didn’t understand this would mix in a large number of albums into my direct collection. That said, you can still sort by Tidal or not Tidal to see what comes from Tidal alone. But it’s not a download. It doesn’t impact your collection, per se.

I thought the original post and the OP’s reply seemed a bit more hostile than necessary. But let’s just give a pass and help Allan understand that this forum seeks to avoid the nastiness often seen in online forums, and to remain civil, and assume positive intent.

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The way I do it is to use Focus and create two Bookmarks: one for TIDAL content only, and the other for my content only. Works for me.

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Collections also have their own tags that you can Focus on.

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I’m not sure what was wrong with my original post aside from using the word “forced.” I chose the wrong word, we can all agree on that.

Aside from that, it remains true that the only way to benefit from the list of albums in any of the collections is to add the collections to our libraries. There is no other option.

As others have noted above, we are doing so blindly, without having any idea of what is in the collections or whether we want them.

I am new to some of those genres, and would honestly like to see a list of those albums, and I could then play the music and decide if I enjoy it, and if I enjoy it enough to add to my library.

As I explained in my original post, I believe it would be a very useful addition that would enhance Roon to the benefit of many of those who subscribe to the service.

Other posters (see above) have noted that another reason to have the list of what is in the collections is to make an informed decision – rather than a blind decision based on no information as to what is in the collections – on whether you want to import any of the collections when you first set up Roon or do so later.

We’ll have to agree to disagree about the tone of the response I received. I suggest you all read it again. My request was dismissed out of hand, and the tone was dismissive and essentially implying that no one has ever expressed this concern before, so he just dismissed it.

Especially this comment:

When your moderator made that comment, he was deliberately ignoring the many posts that have already made that very point, and later need help to delete the collections. The moderator, in his response, basically dismissed that concern, either because he hasn’t read all those posts, or chose to ignore them in this response to me.

As to the point that the moderators are volunteers, they are still spokesman for Roon. Someone appointed them to the position, and I assume it is the owners who are making $120 annually or $500 from all of us.

It is not uncommon in forums of this type for some to jump to the defense of the product and the moderators, and say that any critical comments are unwarranted.

Regardless, it would have been more constructive if the moderator had chosen to point out that “forced” may not be quite the right word, and then moved on to acknowledge that there is merit in my request, and in my explanation.

And that is precisely what he did not do.

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I will try that.and see how it goes.

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I went through the add a collection/remove a collection route myself. I’m never sure of the difference between adding things to the library or adding to a playlist.
Can the collection be in a playlist - add the collection - find the Tag and add to a playlist and then removed from the library? Will that delete them all from roon completely?
I’m in work so can’t go play at the moment so more or less thinking out loud…

Ged

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Kal, there’s lots of ways to skin the cat… For example, when you add a TIDAL collection to your library, Roon automatically creates a specific tag for the collection. So, when I added the TIDAL Classical collection to my library, Roon created a tag called “TIDAL:Classical”. I used the Focus on Tags to display those albums, and created a Bookmark “TIDAL Classical Collection”. Then I can simply call up that Bookmark to display the albums contained in TIDAL’s Classical Collection.

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I can instantly switch to the inverse of this by clicking on the green Focus criterion, and turn it red (so it becomes the NOT operator)

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If I want to display just TIDAL albums that I have added to my library (either individually or as part of a pre-defined TIDAL collection), then I’ve created a “TIDAL” bookmark (by using Focus and the Format criterion to focus on just my TIDAL content:

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Once again, I can click on the TIDAL focus criterion to display its inverse, i.e. just the local content of my library. I don’t need to create a separate bookmark for this, although I could if I wished.

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And, of course, using the predefined tags or the bookmarks to display TIDAL collections also gives the way to fine-tune them, to quickly remove albums from a collection that don’t interest me…

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Geoff, your posting above is extremely helpful and very useful! Thanks very much for that explanation.

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Adding a Tidal Track/Album to your library increases its visibility and utility. It shows up in the Album/Track/Composition browsers and more prominently in the Artist browser. It appears in results from the Focus tools, can be selected by Radio and added to a Playlist.

Adding a Track/Album from your library to a Playlist creates an association with the other items in that Playlist. You can Play or Queue them with a single click.

You could certainly add all of the Albums of a Collection to a Playlist. I believe removing those Albums from your library would also remove them from the Playlist, but haven’t checked it out.

As I mentioned above you can create a list of Albums in a Collection. Add the Collection to your Library, Focus on the Collection Tag, Select All, Export to an Excel spreadsheet. You can then delete the Collection as a whole or Albums from it as preferred.

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I know those posts well. Either because I’m in the thread pointing people to the delete instructions or referring them to Mike as part of the continuing campaign by Mods to remove the Collections page from the new user induction process (I think the word Essentials confuses people into thinking they must add at least one Collection. I wondered if I was making a mistake that way when I went through it).

But those posts are largely by people who didn’t know what the Collection would do. Your post indicated you knew the Collection would add Albums but were concerned that it would “mess up” your library. I wanted to know why that was. Was it because you were confusing adding an Album with a download ? Was it because you thought it would be difficult to remove unwanted Albums in the Collection ? So I asked.

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Andrew/andybob – OK, your explanation makes sense. My apologies for jumping the gun.

So, here is the answer that you requested. I am in the same category as several others who posted above. We all added one or more collections, did not like the results, and then deleted them. I can’t speak for the others, but I assumed that the Tidal albums would get mixed in with my regular library and there were so many it caused me to quickly reconsider. I read the directions on deleting collections and realized it would be easiest, and safest, to do it immediately while the Tidal collections would show up as the last addition. Your emphatic warning in the FAQ about deleting your own library by mistake was my concern. So I deleted them fairly quickly, on the same day, just to play it safe.

But that left me where I started. Wondering what is in the collections, and wishing I could access that list of albums in genres I know less about. Thus my original posting.

Geoff’s great post, with illustrations, was a revelation, at least for me. It explained how we can add collections and use the combination of bookmarks, tags and focus to either include or hide them. For that matter, to include or hide anything from Tidal.

Geoff – I strongly recommend that you include your post with illustrations in the user guide or FAQ. Maybe something similar is already there, but if so, I didn’t see it. Your illustrations along with the text is an outstanding explanation.

I’m assuming that I can use the combination of tags and bookmarks to create separate tags for albums from Tidal that were in the collections, versus albums from Tidal that I separately want to keep in my library? I haven’t done this before, and this might be a Rube Goldberg scheme, but my thought was importing some of the collections, and identifying the collection as Geoff explained. As I listen to the collections, I could move those albums that I like and will listen to again, to a “permanent” combination of Tidal tags and bookmarks, until I end up with the remainder of a collection that I don’t want, and deleting them. Or to put it a different way, as I listen to the collection, move albums I want to to keep to my “regular” Tidal tag and bookmark, while deleting anything else, until that tag for that collection is empty.

Any recommendations from you and Geoff would be appreciated.

P.S. If I may ask an entirely unrelated question. My very large collection has many album covers that are tiny and low resolution. My understanding is that Roon can show me when it is using a higher res album cover illustration. Can I actually copy the Roon suggested cover into my personal and permanent library and use the Roon larger res cover to replace the low resolution album cover I now have in many cases? So this would be a permanent change in my own library.

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Thank you, Geoff. I understand what you suggest but whether it will prove effective for me remains to be seen. I have not become very adept at managing Roon and this seems more complex than I had hoped.

What I really wanted was an either/or option in the settings to give me either my Roon collection or access to Tidal. Guess that is not going to happen.

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Thanks Allan, for my part I apologise for my “Ummm …” comment, I had an emotional response to the suggestion that users were being forced to do something.

I can see what you are saying about a list of the albums in each Collection. I’ve set out a method to Export such a list above but will have a go at doing it myself for each Collection tonight and provide a reference to the results.

Roon does it for you. The Collections albums are pre-tagged

Albums from Tidal collections are tagged on import, so you can access them by Focusing on those tags.
Click Albums from the navigation menu to open the Album browser, then click the [Tag} icon at the top of the screen. Here you’ll see tags for the Tidal collections you’ve imported (like “TIDAL:Jazz”, for example), and you can check off the boxes to focus on the various collections.

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I am in a similar boat and so far as I know the answer is No. I believe that when Roon finds a higher res album cover in its metadata then it is stored in the Roon database (fetching the art each time it is to be displayed would be inefficient) but that is unavailable to Users. It may be that the licence Roon has limits any copying to use with Roon.

In my own library I haven’t usually replaced identified Albums with poor artwork with better versions, but I have done a fair bit of locating and adding album art for unidentified Albums. Google/images works pretty well for that.