On complicated compositions:
- Add a third or fourth “tier” of display. For Operas, it might have 1) the work’s name; 2) the Act; 3) the Scene; and finally, 4) the track name
PS: Sorry, already mentioned
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Prefer file WORK title
At the moment multi-part WORK titles revert to generic roon composition titles. There are many scenarios where the works should be grouped but distinguishing file WORK titles should be allowed. For example it would be much less confusing if a Bach violin partita transcribed for guitar has that fact reflected in the WORK title.
Greater composer granularity
Instead of bundling composers, arrangers, orchestrators, transcribers, lyricists under a single “composer” category on the main album page (and various other pages), the various contributions should be distinguished by role. Personally I am not a fan of the credits pages and would just like the option of more detail for an at a glance 360 degree view on the primary pages.
Edition handling
Some way of distinguishing different editions of scores. E.g. Nowak vs. Hass for the Bruckner symphonies or Breitkopf & Härtel vs. Bärenreiter-Verlag (Kassel) for Beethoven.
Prefer file album artist order
At the moment on the main album page, album artists at the top of the page are listed alphabetically by roon. In my file tags I have them listed “soloist; ensemble; conductor”. It would be better to retain this order than re-ordering alphabetically. This convention is useful if you are unfamiliar with the album artists, It also adds uniformity to the pages rather than the artists constantly jumping around as you scroll through the pages. Famous conductors for example will appear before or after the orchestra depending on alphabetical order of the orchestras they have been paired with.
Genres at track / composition level
Not especially a classical requirement but it it is very common to have markedly different genres on classical discs and boxes. For example, vocal and instrumental music on the same disc.
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A much needed initiative. Thank you!
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Edited in a paragraph about Work grouping in Radio and Playlists.
Another thing which bothers me regularly and of which I got reminded by this thread:
Enhanced WORKID capabilities
The WORKID tag should also be able to clamp parts of a performance together on an album. See also Not consecutively appearing multi-part works and performance count
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Yes, this is an interesting one. It is another case where digital offers different listening scenarios than the analogue one of just playing the album through. So when playing the album through I would want to listen to the non-continuous work as the artist intended. But when browsing compositions I would like the option instead of playing the composition through without the inserts.
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Yes, all my collection is filed as Artist = Composer. Are you trying to force a different filing structure?
Nope, I just add the composer as primary artist (within Roon, not in tags) to the album. I do this so that on the roon artistpage of a composer the album is listed.
I am really glad you are doing this. I don’t fully understand all of what you are describing but I would like to share some requests from a “user perspective.” I apologize if I am restating some things you have described.
(1) Multi-channel and Stereo Recordings. I have a multi-channel DAC and a stereo DAC. I have become interested in comparing multichannel and stereo versions of the same recording. I have purchased some NativeDSD downloads in both formats and loaded them into my Roon library.
Roon seems to either ignore one of the versions or use an identical tag for both versions. Because my labelling (which specifies MC or 2Ch), it is difficult to tell which is which. I would like to easily view both versions, side by side, rather than to try to investigate what happened to the missing one or which one is the one I am looking for. This “experiment” has become unnecessarily difficult.
I would also like to do a search of multichannel recordings only (i.e., without stereo recordings being included in the search) and vice versa. This would be helpful for when I am listening to music with my multichannel system as well as with my stereo system (located in a different area of my home).
(2) Composer, Conductor, Orchestra/band searches. I would also like to be able to search by composer, conductor, or orchestra/band in the same manner we are now able to search by artist and album. This ability would also be attractive for other types of music as well.
(3) Album labeling. I would also like to have the option of viewing entire albums as they were published (i.e., with all of the tracks) and viewing a particular piece (e.g., a 4 part symphony) without the other tracks on the album. This would be also very useful when I want to hear a particular symphony and would like to select among a number of conductors or orchestras/bands.
An alternative might be to have a composition listing, which would be for all of the parts of selected works my collection. For instance, I could select “Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7” and see all of my recordings of that symphony (including recordings with only some of the parts – although some notation about this would be helpful), without the other pieces that might have appeared on the same album.
Thanks again for doing this. It looks like you have put a lot of effort into this. I am very grateful.
There are many ways to skin the Roon cat …
I am sure you’ve found this route but if not …
The Composition view allows a filter on Composer, enter Bruckner , now enter Symphony in the composition filter and you get a list ( it supports part matches eg Symp will do)
Select, even bookmark it
Tap to show all recordings
It’s a pain I agree but specific composer group of works the only issue is when Roon doesn’t ID the album , you often get missed recordings which in a big library you may not even notice !
For conductors and orchestras, try the Album view Focus, Performer button , it mostly works
Bookmark is a good function, I have started with big boys , Beethoven etc
Album View Focus, select composer bookmark
Sorry if I’m teaching to suck eggs
These features would be better if built in. The baggy for me is the Composer view should show albums not works, the Composition view does that already
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Ps when you start creating Bookmarks you’ll see the bookmark browser is missing , it’s just a drop down which with lots of bookmarks is wanting
I suspect that you have got the “Show Hidden Tracks an Albums” (under Settings/General) turned off (this is the default). This will only show what you choose to be the Primary version of duplicate albums in the Album Browser. You could turn in on; but you could also use the Focus/Inspector/Duplicate feature to directly show all duplicates in your library. And if you have the "Show album format on browser turned on (on the same Settings/General page) turned on, you will see the formats clearly marked; like so:
You’ll perhaps also notice that some duplicate albums are marked Binaural or Stereo - that’s been done using the Version tag in Roon.
You can do this with Focus. Go to your Album view, hit Focus, scroll to the far right and there’s a “format” option in which you can select number of channels.
I want a sort by Composer more than any other feature.
Most of my albums are opera and classical. If I want to browse to choose an opera to listen to (for example) I will want to sort by Composer so all Puccini or Verdi or Wagner or Rossini operas will sort together and then by title. Same with orchestral works. I would want all Beethoven together, all Mozart together and so on.
I also might want to sort by Conductor. Suppose I want to listen to everything conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Or Leonard Bernstein.
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Is that sort by or a better search so you can find Karajan for example?