Lately I’ve noticed some artist/composer names are spelled in foreign characters. Since I can’t read it and I can’t type it, it seems particularly useless for a music database. Anyone know the logic here? Here’s an example:
So do these characters represent Ryuchi Sakamoto or someone who composed a song for this album? How can I possibly know when I have no idea what the characters represent? I thought Roon was provided in a variety of different languages based on the user’s preference. Shouldn’t this all be in English for me?
It’s a translation / transliteration feature that was added in April, here are the release notes:
Go to Settings > General > Languages for Artist and Album Names. Enable languages/scripts that you want to see, then order them in the preferred order. (You can also enable a script that you want to see by can’t read. In this case, drag it down the list. It can be neat to see how an artist is written in their native language even if one can’t read it)
That sounds weird and like a Support topic to me. I can, e.g., make the larger letters use English and the smaller ones Japanese, or the other way around, depending on what’s enabled and the order in settings - and I think this is how it should work. Surely if you have only English enabled, this is the language it should show you (though in this case I have English in large and the Japanese characters smaller below).
Also make sure that all your Roon stuff has the latest versions, just to cover all bases. When the feature was new we saw some weird behaviors if versions were mismatched.
Edit: I guess it is also possible that some artists only have a foreign name and no transliteration to English exists. Check out some other artists if they are all the same. The one in your OP is not Sakamoto, see my above screenshot
Yeah, I didn’t think the artist in question was Sakamoto. I think he’s a composer of a song on one of Sakamoto’s albums. TBH, I’m not sure I have the energy to pursue this. I love Roon, but sometimes it does get exhausting
Right, I have the same person as a lyricist on Beauty, only in Japanese as well. If you only have rare cases like this I suppose it’s because the source service that provides name translations only has the Japanese version for this one
You’re probably right. I’ve got other asian artists like this and several Israeli artists. It’s not a huge deal so I’m going to let it ride for now. Thanks for looking into it.
