Duplicate Artist - How to resolve?

Hello

I seem to have a number of artist that in some cases share the same name but I have no music by them, or the artist seems duplicated.

Am I able to resolve this to remove them?

You can merge them easily

But the “Air” and “Black” are two different artist so can’t be merged.

If you are quite sure that two different artists are in fact the same, then the Roon KB has a section on merging artists.

If you get it wrong, you can un-merge via settings > library > un-merge artists.

Note, such artists do need to be in your library. I’ve mentioned that here

1 Like

Thanks, I’ve merged the duplicate artist.
With “Air” I managed to prove Qobuz are pulling in two artist of the same name but from different countries even though I only added the “Air” I wanted to follow.

I have merged some artists by selecting them and clicking “Merge Artists” in the top right as described in the KB. However, this does now always work as there is no such button, see this screenshot:

I have tried to add an album of each to the library, but this did not help. Why is that and what do I need to do?

In addition, this same artist is also known under his birth name, Luca Persico. How can I merge the various 'O Zulù artists with Luca Persico? I failed to search in a way that makes them all appear so that I can multi-select them. Or would this be a bad idea and I should “aka” them? However this works - I have seen some artists labeled as “XXX - aka YYY” but have not found a way to create such an edit.

Finally, how to generally best handle artists who appear on the album with a nick name? I.e. I ripped an album where this same guy appears as Luca “'O Zulù” Persico. Other musicians also appear as First “Nick” Last, and these guys do not exist as artists in the Roon database at all. Should I create them as First “Nick” Last, or as two artists, one with First Last and one with Nick and then merge them?

Any and all help appreciated!

Here’s a kludge. In the Artist view you can select one of the artist’s listings, then edit the artist name using a code like MergeArtist. Do the same for all you want to merge. Then you can filter for MergeArtist, select them all and merge. Then go back and either use the name suggested by Roon or add your own edit name. Also you can add “aka” in the edited name, but I’ve not found a way to add an “official” aka.

1 Like

Thanks very much. So there are areas in Roon that are not perfect :slight_smile: (I am new, have used it for 4 days and am thoroughly loving it)

1 Like

Nothing in this life is perfect if you look long and hard enough… But so much is right…

1 Like

I just learned that if you enter “Firstname Lastname aka Nick” in the Artist edit field, it displays the aka in a new line and smaller font, e.g.:

and then it autolinks this artist to tracks/albums where they appear under the Nick. Amazing. Roon is so smart!

I am not complaining, it is truly amazing software, so much so that I am surprised to find a cranny where it is not perfect.

4 Likes

That’s great. I’ll try that.

Doesn’t work for me. Can you post a screenshot showing where you made the edit?

No, you are right, I don’t know what I did :slight_smile:
I created other artists with aka names and they do not not show up like this. The Maria Di Donna aka Meg does, though. Maybe I merged them, and looking again I think it seems I somehow messed something up :slight_smile:

  • I had created Maria Di Donna because she was not in the database and had no credits on a bunch of albums I was ripping (and which also exist on Qobuz). On these album booklets, she is credited as Maria “Meg” Di Donna, so I went with the birth name and added these credits.
  • Then I remembered that she did some solo recordings as Meg, and sure enough this was in the database and there are Qobuz albums under that name.
  • Then I did “something”
  • Now, when I search for Maria Di Donna it brings up both artists, “Maria Di Donna aka Meg” (as in the previous screenshot, with the “aka” Meg in smaller font) and also Meg.
  • The albums where I added the credits list her as Meg (not Maria Di Donna, which was what I used)
  • The “MDM aka Meg” entry has no content and I cannot favorite her (there is no heart)
  • The Meg entry only contains the credit edits that I added, but not “Meg” solo albums from Qobuz. I can favorite this Meg, but this does not appear in the Artist view.
    -When I search for one of the names of the Qobuz albums released under Meg, it does list those albums, not find the albums where I had added the credits.

Excuse me while I am gone to fix this :slight_smile:

Edit: I think I see. I deleted all these ripped and edited albums again. Now I see that the pre-existing Meg is already labeled “aka Maria Di Donna” (in the small font). Searching for the aka name then brings up the “other side”, i.e. Maria Di Donna “aka Meg” (in small font). I guess that this is independent of my edits and pre-existed in the database. If so, it is a bit inconsistent as e.g. John Lennon has aka names, too, and if you search for them the results differ for each.

Oh well, live and learn, good that this happens now, while trying things before I rip all of my 1000 CDs …

Yeah, one of the problems for Roon is artists with aka’s. You wind up getting duplicate listings. For example Roon has Wally de Backer and Gotye. It’s the same guy. Bebo Best is also Bebo Balban. Lots of examples. Roon’s metadata supplier sometimes gets it right and sometimes not. Kind of a crapshoot.

1 Like

There are endless complications in metadata. I just found out that Animal Collective renamed their 2003 album, Here Comes the Indian, to Ark, for political reasons. Who would have thought of a need for aka album names. I am happy that Roon understands that works have original release dates and version release dates, and that you usually want to sort by the original date, this is already miles better than what I had before, i.e. Tidal and others sorting 60ies albums into the 2000s :slight_smile:

1 Like