Thanks for being constructive. That said, Roon doesn’t meet my needs for extracting something to play. I’m a shuffle guy rather than an album guy (sign of the times) and while I appreciate “Radio”, in my limited experience I can’t rely on it to hit that certain mood.
Presumably I’ll keep trying. What I actually use for playback would be a Roon competitor (Sony’s SensMe that is included on some of their DAPs).
With regards to “Daily Mixes” I do have a better time of it, but even then I’m not certain it delivers what I believe it promised (“Machine Learning” on my “library signature”): the playlists do seem rather generic. But the music itself saves the day: it always does.
I believe the general consensus is that Roon Radio’s success lies in accurate genre and date metadata, and the streaming services have neither. I have a 100% local collection (currently at almost 51,000 tracks) with correct release years and particular genres applied to each and every track, and it works very very well for me.
My question remains: does a larger playlist of local files train the “Radio” to provide some variety given these inputs? A smaller playlist, to my taste, seems to stay within a (plausible) range of genre and era. Obviously if this is a preference (and keep the listening session shorter) then horses for courses!
Right now I have (FWIW) ~ 20K local files, mostly indie rock, and I love it when I’m surprised with classic rock, soul, blues, jazz… exactly what the Sony DAP delivers as it is “genre” agnostic, using what they call “12-Tone Analysis” of the file itself.
I’m sure that, once I figure out what I’m doing, “Radio” will deliver the very same good times: combining both shuffling methods can only help.
Here’s a sample of how well Roon Radio works for me - an actual excerpt of me finishing the album “October” by U2, and the next 20 songs…
Album Artist
Album
Title
U2
October
Is That All?
Genesis
Genesis
Just a Job to Do
Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson
American Roulette
INXS
The Swing
Love Is (What I Say)
U2
Rattle and Hum
Silver and Gold
Saga
Worlds Apart
Time’s Up
Pete Townshend
Empty Glass
A Little Is Enough
Dire Straits
Making Movies
Skateaway
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble
Couldn’t Stand the Weather
Voodoo Child (Slight Return) [Live at the Spectrum, Montreal; August 17 1984] [Late Show]
AC/DC
Back in Black
Shoot to Thrill
The Police
Ghost In The Machine (Alternative Sequence Edition)
Re-Humanize Yourself
Van Halen
Diver Down
Happy Trails
King Crimson
Discipline
Elephant Talk
Journey
Departure
People and Places
ZZ Top
Eliminator
Thug
Talking Heads
Talking Heads: 77
Happy Day
Dire Straits
Communiqué
Lady Writer
Little Feat
Waiting for Columbus
Cold, Cold, Cold
The Police
Outlandos d’Amour
Can’t Stand Losing You
Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel [3]
Start
Scandal
Scandal
Goodbye to You
I believe that Roon Radio works best with a local collection where you control all your own metadata, and suffers when used with streaming services that lack proper track year and track genre metadata.
I think Danny will argue with you on that one. As it was never devised for local music and plays it pretty boring if your ask me. It was designed to link and aid discovery of new music you don’t have not play a list of similar acts you have. This is where it fails. I would also see your case as a point of failure but it can’t do much else without access to music you don’t have or suggestions from other users.
Automated recommendations are perhaps fundamentally doomed to failure … It either suggests absolutely obvious music or second-rate B-material that won’t knock my socks off. Nothing about it is even remotely exciting. This is also where the automated playlists on Spotify fail. For there to be a creative spark, for it to really trigger joy and surprise, perhaps it really just needs human involvement.
It’s a bit different with newly released music, where I want to be informed about upcoming releases. With this, I don’t think Roon does a bad job, or worse than others.
However, when it comes to discovering your own music (and this would be helpful for anyone who owns more than 200 albums), I think there is so much obvious potential in the way it is presented and in the content itself.
I think it’s part of the problem with the „Radio“ feature that people expect different things from it, and everyone thinks that what they want is obvious
Not even the name is a reliable hint because there are radio stations that play the same old stuff over and over again, while others play new stuff, and there is an audience for both approaches.
Personally, I was always the kind of guy who listened to the John Peel show because you’d usually only hear bands you hadn’t known about. So a Radio algorithm that plays only stuff I know would not be a replacement.
But even for me it would depend on the mood and on other days I might like a good selection of favorites I have.
So even for one person like myself it’s impossible for one fixed algorithm to deliver all that I want from radio. (And after all, with real radio stations you also have the option to tune into the kind of station you prefer on any given day)
@Suedkiez I had planned another response that basically said this, so thank you for putting it perhaps even better than I could . It is, indeed, 100% subjective.
All that remains for me to say is this: since this is playing 100% from a collection that I have curated over my lifetime (and not all of which I have had a chance to hear, TBH), it “feels” more “right” than any other real-world radio station that I can listen to. I have Sirius XM and all the usual radio accoutrements, and this is better than any of them, to me.
Add me to the list of users who really enjoy Discover. It’s a great way to be re-introduced to music in your collection. Particularly helpful if you have a large collection. Too bad it doesn’t appear in a more prominent position on the screen. I read a comment a while back from one of the Roon folks that Discover sort of fell off their radar and they don’t really pay much attention to it. I think Discover deserves more love.
Cannot confirm this with roon radio. It is heavily relying on multi-layered genre classification and seems to involve audio analysis as well. Yes as times suggestions are a bit ´sounds similar to the starting point´, sometimes it is surprising me with a deviation from the path. But in general very good recommendations and I often just skip from one radio track to another and save those in a playlist which I want to keep.
I tried Spotify radio algorithm which many people like and it is a joke compared to roon. Every 3rd or 4th suggestion is making you really angry. It was heavily tending to superficial mainstream stuff which were trending and creating a total mess within in the genres I like.
