I recently ripped an 8-disk box set, "Charles Munch conducts the Romantic Masterworks. This appears to be a random collection of tracks; only 2-3 of the discs were originally issued as albums.I think. I haven’t managed to get Roon to “identify” the set. dBpa couldn’t find it either; I had to enter most metadata by hand in mp3tag. But that’s not what I’m asking about.
Out of some 20 works over 8 CDs, just one–Brahms Symphony No 2–has the usual, preferred structure, with the name of the work as a header, followed by the particular movements. For the rest, just the names of the movements–the %Titles%–are displayed, just as I entered it.
In its default configuration, mp3tag doesn’t have a tag for the name of the work, so I created one: I called it “Work”. This is entered for each track, but it’s consistent across works; that is, it’s the same in all movements. I checked that carefully. I was hoping Roon would take this “Work” tag, recognize it, and use it as the header for each work–but as I said before, that only happened for one work from the set.
Can someone help with this? I’m assuming that I won’t be successful in getting Roon to identify the set. I’m OK with that. But I do hope I can teach it to recognize individual works within the set. How can I make that happen?
What is the folder structure of the rips @Jim_Austin ? For the 8-CD box set, are all the tracks being ripped into the same folder? I’m guessing no. That is important - Roon is happiest when all tracks are together in one folder.
Tracks (flac) now reside in the same folder (although they were ripped to separate folders). I’ve checked metadata and I’m using tag-based filenames: Discnumber-Track Composer Work Title.flac
I read it, thanks. Currently I don’t use XLD or iTunes–only dBpa. But I’ve entered all metadata for the set that was missing, including a lot of track titles. So, it was a lot of work, but things are well in order now. This set just doesn’t seem to be in the usual databases. (Not that I’ve checked them all.)
Yah, I think you’ll likely find lots of holes in classical in Roon. I typically add my own album artwork and clean things up myself for those Roon doesn’t recognize.
You are familiar with that approach?
Do give XLD with the Amazon link a try - failing that, iTunes really is pretty consistent in my experience. I’m amazed at the stuff it finds. Just rip to ALAC - don’t be too alarmed that it isn’t FLAC.
Derek - Yes, I’m doing a ton of my own clean-up. But I don’t fully understand what happens behind the scenes: Roon has not identified this set–so why does it display the Brahms Symphony 2 properly–with the name of the work as a header, followed by the movements with links–when it doesn’t do that for any of the other works? I’ve included the same information on all the works and tracks–so why the difference? More importantly, what can I do to help it recognize the other works and display them correctly? I’ve given it all the information it needs, I think.
If it was consistently failing I’d be less persistent. But if it works for that one piece, why not for all?
This is not going to work. You can’t invent a new tag and then expect Roon (or any other application) to read it, even less do something useful and slick with it.
Using a tag editor with automation, you can move the contents of the invented “Work” tag to the beginning of the Track Title tag which Roon recognises. (I use Metadatics. It can do that kind of stuff.)
I suspect what you’ve done is used Brahms Symphony 2 (or Symphony 2) in the Track Title tag, followed by the movement name. And also added a composer, and also added Classical genre. That would make Roon “clump” those tracks and give Brahms 2 as the work’s title, and display the movements indented beneath it.
If you have used the exact same format for other works, but they are not clumping it is likely because you don’t have a composer (the same one) for each track in the work.
And if you haven’t put the work title at the start of the Track Title, in a consistent manner, the clumping just won’t happen (especially not with regard to an invented “Work” tag).
That’s not the reason. There are rules to what Roon can understand of our manual tags, and if you don’t follow them the behaviour will not be as desired. But if you do it’s great.
This is coming from a man with thousands and thousands of unrecognised classical albums.
Finally, below is a screen shot of a correctly tagged album. Note the genre (I added it here to save the hassle of adding it in Roon), the composer for each track, and the consistent work names. That the work names are copied from allmusic.com means that Roon displays this performance along with recognised performances of the work.
You can also see that I used the “Conductor” and “Performer” tags both of which Roon recognises.
@Ludwig, it’s my fervent hope that this sort of very useful information should find itself placed prominently in Roon’s Knowledge Base. It’s too good to be lost in the depths of the community forums…
Ludwig, You’ve answered my question very well, even though my question may not have been coherent enough for you to realize it. The key piece of information I was looking for is that Roon looks for the name of the “work” at the beginning of the track title. It’s hugely important to know that–so is it written down anywhere? This is essential information for anyone building a Roon library, so it needs to be documented in an easily accessible place. Anything else I should know?
For what it’s worth, I spent a good bit of time REMOVING the name of the work from the track title, because it didn’t seem … hygienic to have it there–it’s a bit of a kludge, that–and I didn’t realize that Roon would do that for me (and use the information, too). And by the way, you’re right: The reason the Brahms piece works as it should is because despite my best intentions I failed to screw that one up.
So now I’ll go back and restore the “work” to the track title" Should be straightforward using mp3tag’s “tag to tag” feature, though I haven’t tried it yet.
Hey @Ludwig - thanks for the heads-up. Is Mp3tag the editor to use? I’ve been using Kid3 but looking at your screenshot, Mp3tag looks more elegant in its approach.
