I don’t subscribe to Tidal nor Qobuz, but I would like a daily mix option as a subset of the discovery screen. I suppose Roon Radio is a bit like a mix, but it would be good to have a mixture of genres.
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If you only have a local library you aren’t getting Roon Radio. It’s our older non-Valence powered “keep the music going” algorithm, which is really poor compared to Roon Radio.
I did not realise that … any plans to update it for ‘local’ users?
It works for local+streaming users, but not local-only, because the algorithms require machine learning models that use more music and plays than you have in a user-centric library.
If they were trimmed to use only your limited local library, they would fail to give any reasonable results. The old algorithm is good for local libraries, but it’s pretty bad for discovery of new material.
Daily mixes are driven towards discovery, not just shuffling – no matter how smart that shuffle is.
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If you do end up trying out TIDAL or Qobuz, please report back.
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Are you saying Valence is incapable of surfacing any link/data point between artists in a user’s library or that Roon is not interested in what’s in a user’s library? I find it hard to believe that Roon isn’t capable of generating interesting daily playlists based on what’s in a library unless it’s tiny. Seems more a deliberate decision not to invest any effort on in-library content if it doesn’t extend to the possibilities of leveraging the population accessible via streaming.
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Disclaimer: I have about 3950 albums in my library - 60% local, 40% Qobuz.
Although I have not listened to the proposed Daily Mixes (saved them in Playslists), it is clear to me that they are based on artists/albums making part of My Local Library.
So Roon is capable of doing it, and actually is doing it for me.
Why this does not seem to work for many other Roon users is very weird.
I am also curious to see how Daily Mixes will evolve for me.
Technically, I see no reason why it could not work for all (most?) of you.
But as most users do not provide insights in their Library, it is difficult to see a pattern.
Dirk
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But the daily mixes can include library tracks, I’ve had a Dire Straits mix and it contained multiple tracks that are in, so its not all new.
That’s not strictly speaking true, although it sort of is!. The track in the daily mix is the non-library version of the track, even though it’s the same track that you have in your library.
You can see what I mean if you temporarily change the name of the track in your library and then look back at the same track in the daily mix. You will see that the daily mix track name remains unaltered.
Quite the opposite. Valence is very interested in the user’s library. However, Daily Mixes and Roon Radio are explicitly designed to leave your library. We use your library/history to find a good selection of music you may have missed or that you should be listening to. It’s not a smart shuffle. It’s meant to be a gentle way to expand the scope of your listening habits.
If you want to shuffle, there are ways to focus down to some subset of your library and just shuffle.
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Ah I was talking in Roon terms as its provides a unified view of a library which includes local and added from a streaming service, which in Jims case is all streaming as he does not have local files.
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Why should customers that maintain only a local library not be availed of the same capability? We all get that your Daily mix is intended to explore beyond what’s in-library, but why not have a similar capability that doesn’t leave the library when a customer’s chosen configuration is local content only? Shuffle is nowhere near the same thing, so again, why not offer the same capability to those with local content only - are they not entitled to the same level of sophistication (without the same degree of variety) or are they just dumb dinosaurs that should be content with a random shuffle?
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I would be very happy if I could use Daily Mixes only with local library.
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You guys are asking for a different feature than the one we built.
I know how these algorithms were designed and they were designed to leave your library. Asking for a library only version of a product that’s meant to leave your library doesn’t make any sense. If you think there is a product definition that involves local library only that could be called “daily mixes”, that may be an interesting idea, but it’s not the one we came up with.
Also notable is that while almost all Roon users do have a local files library, the majority has under 1000 albums, and a nontrivial % is under 400 albums.
You’re making a big assumption that the local content isn’t a random shuffle on a reduced data set already in the current daily mixes.
Your library and your history is intended to inform a taste profile and seed.
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I can’t use Tidal or Qobuz in my country.
We are working on solutions to that problem for Japan…
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I don’t believe anyone is asking for “a library only version of a product that’s meant to leave your library”, what we’re asking for is that next time you add a feature like this ask yourself what a user that does not steam might find useful. Daily mixes based on local content only would be useful to users that don’t stream. That much should be patently obvious to you and your team.
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And to help Danny out, here a name suggestion aleady: Local Mixes
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I too vote for the ability to have a “daily mix” exclusively from my library - driven by the seemingly superior Valence version. Perhaps this could be a setting switch of some kind (‘Restrict Valence to Library’)?
I have a TIDAL subscription, but I also have 7,141 albums in my local library - years of buying CDs and albums from sources such as HDTRACKS, HDTT, etc. I believe that my library has more than enough for a meaningful Valence-driven mix feature. While my library may be larger than average, Roon should not ignore the needs of we who are most dedicated to our music collection as demonstrated by where we choose to spend our money.
I find it also somewhat annoying that when daily mixes are produced, I have most of the tracks in my local library, nonetheless, the daily mix feature selects a TIDAL version of the same track - in many cases my local version is a higher quality/resolution version.
If Valence is superior, why is it picking the worst versions?
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My guess - they have not implemented a way of identifying something they picked in the cloud with something in your library. I wonder whether local library playback even feeds their ML dataset.
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