"Focus on Similar"

… ehm… cough-cough…

not a single baroque opera (nor in any of the following “pages”)
and there are more than a few in my library (not to mention on Qobuz) :roll_eyes:
some “interesting” suggestions, though :stuck_out_tongue:

looks it needs a brain upgrade for Classical :wink:

thanks :slight_smile:

I would agree. The “Focus on Similar” feature isn’t working well. It looks like it uses the main blue tags for the album, but not all recognised. For example if you use it from an album in your Qobuz library it must be seeing “Classical” only (all Qobuz albums whether baroque, romantic or whatever are classified as classical!) then it brings up my whole library of 1300 plus albums. On the other hand when I use it from an album in my own library it can be more successful - e.g. from an album of Beethoven piano concertos it shows my other 130 or so albums of concertos (mind you baroque to modern!), but not always! e.g. from an album of Bach’s complete organ works it once again shows my whole collection, presumably ignoring the baroque and organ tags but focused only on the Roon Classical tag.

So I don’t use it as it is not useful. Pity. I’ve just discovered another post on this started in 2015 Focus - would be great to have the default focus a little tighter - like your 'Similar To', 'Influenced' and "Followed' lists and a comment from someone from Roon within it 2016 saying it would be worked on but might take some time - it certainly is.

I am looking to get some good solution for “Focus on similar”. Living in country which don,t have qobuz, TIDAL and similar,(unfortunately exist) we are always on our collection. I have more than 1300 albums but when I listen for example MAVIS STAPLE and try this function you get Drive by truckers as similar ???

I believe that as long as software can’t read a users mind – and I really hope that this won’t become possible in the foreseeable future – this is just guessing. A shot in the sky. Pointing somewhere while blindfolded. …

I think what’s needed is an easy way to tell the software what you have in mind when clicking on similar and maybe a possibility to further fine-tune the result.


For many people all this classical music is similar. :slightly_smiling_face: So what similarities might a user have in mind when searching for similar? Similar

  • Genre / Style
  • Epoch / Time Period
  • Instrumentation
  • Performer / Artist / Orchestra
  • Conductor / Arranger
  • Composer
  • Composition Scale
  • Tempo
  • Rating / Critical reception

And this is not limited to classical at all.

Note: For many of the possible similarities listed above, the data is already present. So if one knows what (s)he’s looking for, there might be better more directed methods to get what one is looking for than click on (Search for|Focus on) similar. There might be more work involved but one can get a better result.
Or just go the easy way and let the software search for similar and accept the result as part of your daily dose of entertainment.

The only ‘solution’ is to ignore the feature until Roon fix it. Broken for several years now…

‘Focus on Similar’ has always sucked and not just for classical.
I’ve complained about ‘Focus on Similar’ before, as have many others. It seems to fall on deaf ears.

Part of the problem is that bloody Pop/Rock tag. It picks up everything; most of the time inappropriately. Sometimes Roon complains that there are too many results and to try to narrow the criteria (or some such verbiage). Very amusing.

Also, I’ve seen ‘Focus on Similar’ ignore albums by the same artist I’m currently looking at.

Unfailingly, it also includes the same album I’m currently looking at in its resultant list of the ‘Focus on Similar’. Evidently, it’s too much to ask the logic to not include the very album you’re running the focus on.

I had hopes when Roon Radio was improved, but no

Not a very good showcase for Roon’s meat and potatoes reason for being.

1 Like

I think a way to improve FOS would be to add a couple of layers in the page: the first should be the direct hits, i.e. same genre material. So if I am Focusing On Similar from “Third” from Portishead, which has only a “post industrial” genre tag, I would like to find other “post industrial” albums in the first rows. That’s how it seems to be working right now, and as a result the suggestions are either too narrow when using rare genres (as with this example) or too wide when using main genres like “rock” or “pop” or “classical”.
If FOS would offer parent genre suggestions in a separate section, it could help expanding those in a useful way, maybe using the “suggested for you” offered in the main album page. So in a FOS from “Third” I could find other Electronic albums/artists in a second row filtered by suggestions.
Other rows could be “same country”, “same year”, “same label”, etc.
Users could specify via Setting which of these categories they want to be applied.
Also, Focus On Similar should offer at least the same band albums as a result. I find this omission honestly baffling.