Easier way to move out of order tracks up and down?

[Mike_Rubin]

Core Machine (Operating system/System info/Roon build number)

NUC 10 i7 with ROCK 1.0, build 227.

Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)

Netgear DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem, ASUS RT-AC87R, all ethernet.

Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)

fiber => ultraRendu => USB Topping D90 DAC; fiber => Sonore Signature Rendu SE => USB Wyred4Sound 10th Anniversary DAC

Description Of Issue

Either because of your database’s errors or because I have modified metadata, I often have to match “unidentified” albums manually to the database. When I do, I often find that tracks, especially in box sets, have to be moved down the righthand list one at a time, which requires a click to move it one space, plus another click to move the displaced item below it back to its original place. With box sets, it’s not uncommon to have to move a dozen tracks from the top of the list down ten or twelve full albums’ worth of titles.

How hard would it be to allow me to drag and drop those, or to allow me to create a new “version” of the album that consists only of blank fields that I then can match with the files on the righthand side?

Here’s an example. The new hi-res download version of the “ultimate” Woodstock box set (pathetic, I know) omits two discs of Jimi Hendrix material that was in the original 40 CD set. It also substitutes serial numbered tracks for “disc x, track y” ordinals. Only the CD version of the box set is in your database, so there is an instantaneous mismatch due to the different numbering conventions.

Nonetheless, the database managed to connect most of the righthand tracks to their left column equivalents. However, it managed to miss linking track 103 (Disc 10, track 3) and, instead, moved it down to the whitespace where the missing Hendrix tracks would fit if they’d been included.

As you can see, to move track 103 to where it should have been, I would have to click at least 280 times to move the track to where it belongs and another 280 to replace the original occupants of the righthand spaces back where they belong. That’s 560 clicks to move something I could have dragged and dropped in ten seconds.

It’s tedious and unpleasant and happens in way too many cases for me to be happy about it. (I assume some responsibility: I break up each composition on classical albums into separate albums, both with respect to file storage and metadata. I would rather have separate Debussy, Ravel, Ibert, and Honegger albums than some hodgepodge that shows up as “Rampal Plays French Party Favorites.” Almost routinely, this baffles Roon’s database.) At the end of the day, I often leave albums as “unidentified” so I can avoid that kind of carpal tunnel-inducing work.

In this case, it’s not a huge deal to leave the album as “unidentified” because there’s no real value-add commentary available, anyway, but, with many albums, leaving them unidentified rather than do all that clicking deprives me of the additional material that supposedly makes Roon a value proposition.

Am I missing something? If I am not, can you please consider this a feature request for drag and drop track sorting or for the ability to create a blank surrogate album from any album so that tracks match up automatically? Thanks.

[Mike_Rubin]

I guess I am not missing anything.

[ged_hickman1]

Most people use external editors such as mp3tag. The roon tool as you can see is absolutely abysmal and roon haven’t improved it over many years of complaint. Shameful tool.

[Mike_Rubin]

Thank you. I do use an external editor to edit metadata, which is why I have this problem in the first place. Editing the metadata so that it no longer is what the Roon tool expects to see often is the source of the problem.

I get that the mismatch is my responsibility. However, if I am correct that I am not overlooking a Roon capability, there should be a better Roon tool for making the sometimes tiny changes that would resolve the disconnects.

My complaint isn’t so much about editing the metadata in Roon as it is about correcting track matching failures that prevent albums from being identified properly and, thus, becoming “unlinked” from the Allmusic database and the album credits that I am being charged to access. A thousand clicks to move a few tracks from the default top of the righthand list down to disc 10 in a 12-disc set is ridiculous.

[Mark_Bowell]

I’ve asked for this previously. Yes, desperately needed.

[noris]

Hi @Mike_Rubin,

Thanks for the feedback here, I’ll pass it along to the team!

[Mike_Rubin]

Much appreciated.

[Mike-48]

I also badly want to see this improved. My library of files pre-dates Roon’s existence, and when buying downloads, I sometimes changed disk/track numbers to put items into a more logical order, rather than what might fit on a CD.

For example, the Andras Schiff 2-disc set of Bach Partitas, I put into order 1, 2, 3, … 6, rather than the oddball order in which the discs are programmed (perhaps to minimize number of CDs in the set).

To get Roon to match this would mean moving 41 files through the worse-than-painful Roon mechanism for re-ordering. I have a similar boxed set, with 109 tracks that would need be re-ordered to accomplish full integration with Roon.

Not only is the click and re-click method unwieldy, the window showing tracks is so small that it makes the situation worse.

This NEEDS improvement. And along with that, couldn’t Roon do a better job of recognizing track titles and getting the order correct – or closer to correct – itself?

[terzinator (Chris)]

it’s hideous, yes, but i did discover if you start from the bottom, and only move tracks UP, this will save a bunch of clicks and re-sorting

[Mike_Rubin]

Interesting. You’ll note, though, that the obnoxious Roon behavior that led to this post was an instance in which I started from the bottom.

[David_Hicks]

Well, I encountered this problem just now and couldn’t figure out how to correct it in Roon but it was a snap fixing it in Windows. I right-clicked on the file at its source in my NAS and selected Edit ID-Tag. There were various things listed that I could change, including the track number. I changed the offending files track number, went to my Roon home screen, and selected the album and all tracks were now in the correct order.
Interestingly, to me, the files were labeled 01- song name; 02- song name; etc. in the NAS, but this, apparently, did not satisfy Roon with regard to the order they needed to be listed in the Roon album display. BTW, this was an album I had ripped that is not available as a digital download. I’m not sure if that makes any difference or not.

[Mike_Rubin]

Thanks, but I don’t think that missing or inaccurate track numbers are my issue.

All of my tracks have proper track numbers. I am absolutely and unapologetically anal about metadata and don’t put anything into the Roon database before I have made any edits necessary for my consistency and accuracy requirements.

Roon nonetheless sometimes gets things out of order, for example, where I have a digital download with tracks 1-48 and the only entry in the allmusic junkyard is a CD release that expects to see a box set with discs 1 through 6 and tracks 1-8 on each, or, perhaps, the opposite, where I have a CD box set with individual CDs’ tracksnumbered separately not in the allmusic database other than as a digital download with tracks numbered seriatim.

It’s easy enough to imagine fixing everything with some simple drag and drop capability, but, instead, I get the privilege of manually moving dozens of tracks up and down the list with hundreds if not thousands of individual clicks. I have understood that a lot of Roon screen anomalies are due to it not being html-based but, instead, comparable to a videogame screen, but I have played a lot of videogames that allow dragging and dropping, so I don’t think I was asking for the application of rocket science here.

I appreciate the tip, however, which is a good one to keep in mind.

[Petter_Edelsward (Petter Edelswärd)]

Yes! we need this to work better. I’m totally loving Roon as it is but this needs a lookover. Box set are a hassle to edit in Roon. Even if there are workarounds this needs to work inside Roon.

Keep up the good work Roon devs!

[Neil_Russell]

Oh,I hate reordering a work with, say, 100+ tracks. Imho, making this easy would be the single most appreciated improvement Roon could make.

[Joe_Strain]

I have certain albums/sets which have unfortunately remained unidentified for years due to this issue.

I’m not a programmer, but, it would be swell to see maybe some form of a column view, where you could then simply drag and drop files from left to right and save it as you wish.

Would that be a difficult implementation?