I feel the pain of using the “Identify Album” tool to modify the track order and naming. I bought many of the Jethro Tull 40th anniversary book releases. Trying to get these collections setup was frustrating especially when the DVD-A discs could contain 40-50 tracks and up to 5 discs.
After wearing out a mouse clicking the tracks into the correct location on the correct disc, I realized that there was a better workflow. I started to use the “Fix Track Grouping” tool. This tool allows a direct entry of the disc and track location for the files. By working on one disc at a time with this tool and then using the “Merge Albums” button, I have been able to develop a workflow that keeps me from going insane. I understand that this is not an optimal solution but there is a somewhat more convenient workflow to accomplish correcting the metadata. YMMV
Those are exactly the discs I was referring to when I said it took me 2 hours to fix 5 discs! I think “Heavy Horses - New Shoes Edition” was the one that nearly caused me to have a mental breakdown. It has three CDs and 2 DVDs with audio material. I selectively ripped tracks from the DVDs because I didn’t want the 5.1 DTS or AC3 Dolby Digital or video content - I just pulled out the hi-res two channel content. Roon couldn’t deal with the fact that I had “holes” in the content that I’d ripped, hence the two hour slide puzzle nightmare.
I’ll have to look into the “Fix Track Grouping” tool that you described. It had occurred to me at the time that I could have typed in all the track information for these discs from scratch in less time than it took to do the slide puzzle work.
If I hadn’t figured out a better way I would have no hair left
I rip the disc individually and use the “Identify Album” tool on each disc individually at first. Then I edit the tracks and disc number using the “Fix Track Grouping” tool. Once I get each disc setup correctly with the correct disc number, I use the “Merge Albums” button the create the multi disc album. The good news is that most of the Tull 40th anniversary collection are recognized in the data base but the automatic metadata association can’t figure out the difference in tracks with the same or nearly the same names. By working with one disc at a time and then merging the Roon tools were better able to handle the collection.
Good to know that there are fellow Tull fans out there
I have 2,674 CDs and SACDs in my collection and those few Jethro Tull albums in that photo were by far the hardest of all to properly arrange after importing into Roon. They were so stressful that I could only manage to do one album per day.
I’ve gone through similar pain-barrier with the Panegyric King Crimson DVD-A / Gentle Giant and Yes Blu-ray Audio re-releases. It was a real PITA, if I’m honest.
It seems to me that one way out of this struggle would be for Roon to offer two methods for sorting tracks. One could be the existing slide puzzle. The second option could be an empty column on the left and a column on the right with all your imported tracks. Then you could simple drag and drop tracks from the right column over to the left column to form the correct track listing. For multi-disc albums, a row of numbers at the top (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) would allow you to select which disc you are arranging in the left column.
This proposed scheme assumes that you already know the correct track listing (since Roon isn’t showing it to you), but I think between album covers, Allmusic.com, discogs.com, and even Amazon.com we can come up with the correct track listings. What do you guys think?
Gave it another try this evening and recorded some statistics.
I was trying to correct one album. All what was wrong is that this album was part of a recognized box set. The box set contains 5 albums. The album I was trying to correct was album 5 from the box set. It was tagged as album 1, so all that had to be done was to move the song titles from album one to album five.
This took me:
27 minutes in time, highly concentrating
547 mouse clicks
173 times scrolling up and down
47 mistakes because if you make one mistake you have automatically made 12 mistakes and you have to start clicking around to view the titles that don’t fit the box.
I will hold my comment, remember this is for only one (1) album.
Tried that, it refuses to move them to disc five if the other four discs are not there. I can not renumber one disc to disc five. I know it is an incomplete album but I don’t mind and it was the only match there was. I just want it to be recognized no matter what because Roon’s search, linking, radio etc depends on it and I just want to be able to use what I pay for, that’s all. Is that asking too much? Why does it have to be so painstakingly hard, why?
1 Like
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
78
27 minutes - you’re a speed demon! As I mentioned, I once spent two hours fixing up a 5 disc album. Of course the fact that it was 2 AM and I was strung out on pain killers for my bad back might have had something to do with that! Just try doing the slide puzzle when you’re loaded up with Percocet - boy that requires 100% brain CPU power for sure.
Keep trying this. I use the “Fix Track Grouping” on individual discs prior to Merging them into a single album. My work flow is to take a ripped disc and the first thing that I do is “Fix Track Grouping” and assign each track to the proper disc number. Them I try and Identify the disc. Sometimes this is all that I need to do; them I “Merge” the discs. Sometimes I will need to either use the “slide puzzle” or go back into the “Fix Track Grouping” and assign the individual tracks to the proper track number but I’m doing this on a properly identified disc number.
I wouldn’t take seriously a “premium” music player that claims to do all this, but then doesn’t provide the “understanding” and a “solution”. Fine if your metadata (source) is perfect, but that will never happen. So stop offering the option is not an option. Then Roon should also stop making the following promises. But then I, as a lifetime buyer, would feel really cheated. Do what you promise, better: surpass it. This currently is not the case, so drop all the MQA and other BS (pun intended ) fetishes and get your basic sh** together.
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
83
Some new release must be coming up. I’ve never noticed Roon being so quiet before. Or, I guess, they’ve decided the forum is becoming a bunch of villagers with pitchforks and torches.
) fetishes and get your basic sh** together.
