sorry if those questions were already asked, but with all this tagging, pop up windows and color flagging this area is too confusing.
I’m new and already liked most of what I would get if I say yes to Roon - which I haven’t yet. I understand that I can adjust a lot, but couldn’t find most of what I was looking for. I use Roon on my QNAP NAS with an iPad as remote. Works great.
I was looking for a couple of things:
Where are my compilation albums?
How can I start playing all albums from a band with just one click from the band’s overview page?
How can I stop Roon from randomly playing stuff after an album is finished playing?
How can I get rid of this “shuffle” button underneath a band’s name?
I was used to metatag my albums with a lot of stuff, like Rating. Is there a way for Roon to read that metadata?
As my albums are tagged with better information (I think) than those from Roon, is there a way to tell Roon NOT to use the Roon information and spelling? Or do I have to always change this manually?
Thanks for helping, I might come up with new questions!
You’ll find a lot of information about Roon in the Roon Knowledge Base. That should help with the learning curve.
In answer to your particular questions:
Compilation albums are sorted to “Various Artists” by default. You can change that to Album Name in Settings/General. You can Focus on albums marked as Compilations with Focus/Other (extend the Focus window to see it).
You can Shuffle an Artist’s music by clicking Shuffle with one click. If you want to play all or some Albums in order, then select one Album (right click or long press), select All (top left menu), deselect those you don’t want, Play Now.
To stop Radio playing after a Queue has finished, go to the Queue screen (music stave in footer), Toggle “Start Radio after music ends” to No.
Settings/Play Actions enables you to set preferences on various screens for the default button but I don’t think the Artist screen is one of them. I don’t believe this can be changed at present.
You’ll find material about managing your collection and File tags in the KB. This article is introductory and this one a bit deeper.
You can set global preferences to prefer File tags in Settings/Library/Import Settings
thanks for the help and the pics. I still can’t find my compilation albums. Using this (complicated) way of yours, it brings up albums that aren’t compilation albums. Those are albums where propably one song has an additional artist - which aren’t compilation albums. I tagged compilation albums in the meta tags. The real compilation albums aren’t there too.
I would expect to find ALL albums in the album section. But I don’t.
A One button play I never removed. When I select an artist, it lists all the albums and - of course: THE [Moderated] SHUFFLE BUTTON on the most prominent location (oh, I can start Radio too). And I can book concerts. It seems that plying music is the most irrelevant point here, as the albums are at the bottom of te page. Where would be the button to play all listed albums by an artist?
Yes, I de-selected the “Shuffle” option, but I guess Roon is all about shuffeling music, as it still everywhere on the most prominent locations.
I guess Roon is not for me. All I want is a music player for playing bit perfect music that shows my albums.
thanks for taking the time to answer me. I appreciate that!
This is awkward: The compilation albums are there, but I swear that I looked there a couple of times - as this is a very usual way to sort albums. The blame’s on me here. Sorry for that!
I do NOT want to shuffle. I now understand how to select albums to play them: Thanks for that! It works, but it would be great to have a button (best would be replacing the shuffle-button), for playing all albums in the listed order.
Thanks for the rest, I’ll have to dig a bit deeper, but I don’t think that Roon has the options and GUI I would like to have for a music player. If ads, shuffeling and Radio playing are well placed and by default set options but you have to deep click and select for more pure playing options - that’s not what I would call “The music player for music lovers”.
sorry, the compilation albums are there and propably were there all the time - I obviously have overseen them. They are filed under “Various artists”. I am sure I looked there a couple of times before coming here, but they somehow were invisible for me…
I would say give it more time to get used to the layout. Is two clicks to play an album such a hardship?
Also I would advise playing with the interconnections between artists. Click on a link in credits and see what it throws up. You will be surprised.
Also remember Roon is not a static platform and the developers do read your feedback. The next UI overhaul may we’ll satisfy your particular needs. Roon has come along way already and there is more to come.
You can also use Bookmarks to great effect when personalising your collection. An example, all my Tidal MQA albums are bookmarked for quick access, as are my Audiobooks. These can then be selected or excluded as required.
You could open a Feature Request thread asking for it. I suspect it may not have been regarded as a likely use case and the devs remain wary of over complicating things where they don’t think it would be used. The user configurable play controls were added in 1.4 and are something of a departure for Roon. I think they have been well received by users, but there can always be improvements.
Personally I rarely if ever play Artists in Album order (although I may have to give the Jack Black reccomended Zepathon a try !). I think I would find the first few albums getting played a lot but would never reach the later ones. Can you describe how this works for you ?
Once you have selected albums and created a Queue in album order as set out above, you can save it as a playlist and Bookmark it for easy access. That would help where it was an Artist you regularly played in order, but you wouldn’t do it for every Artist.
I’ve also Moderated one of your posts slightly. The Forum keeps to a G rating .
The thing is: at the moment I know only of one alternative to play high
res audio from a NAS, and that doesn’t work properly, so I guess I just
have to give Roon more time. But it’s a lot of money to spend for
something that is - according to my needs - partly overdosed and partly
short.
But: It’s not two clicks. I want to play all albums from one band. As it
seems I have to click and hold an album to select it, then select all
other albums just to play them. These are at least three clicks with two
albums, compared to a single click. There is a single click for
shuffeling though. Why is a basic thing (at least for me) so
complicated? I know of audiophile music listeners who just love to sit
on the couch and listen to all the albums of one artist (they do love
their vinyl and don’t do digital audio) - as I would.
I know of the bookmarks, but I tagged my albums with metatags and it
would be great to be able to read and include those. Other music apps
can do this. But this wouldn’t be a criterion for exclusion to use Roon.
It would make my music play life a bit more easy.
Yes, if I stay, I will open a feature request. It’s really nice, sitting
on the couch and listen how the music changes over the years. Take David
Bowie or Bob Dylan (that will take some time). I never thought that
someone seriously being into music would not do this. No offense!! It’s
nothing personal, I’m just “shocked” - and have learned again that
people do have different hearing attitudes (don’t know if this is the
correct expression). On the other side I would never shuffle album
tracks. This is rediculous, and unfriendly to the artists and producers
of an album. However this selection sits very prominent in the middle of
the picture. Seeing this I do not believe that the Roon makers are
audiophile music lovers.
Another feature request would be to add an extra item for Various
Artists down to the alphabet section of the album scrolling section.
I know about bookmarks, etc. I thought it would be great to read tags,
like Rating, from album metatags to add those information to all the
other information in the list.
I have had a similar issue with Roon regarding compilations. It was not enough for the album to be tagged “various artists”. It also has to be tagged as a compilation in Roon. This is done in the album settings. Hope this helps.
My “problem” was that I obviously have overseen them. I’m pretty sure that I checked the alphabetical order for various artists, but as it seems they were there while I was absent.
But good to know that I can tag them in Roon - I’ll do that.
No worries. Just to be clear - it’s not a “tag” as such. If you go into edit for the album’s metadata, there are a bunch of yes/no questions in there. One of them is something like “is this a compilation”? You have to set that to yes.
Yes, I know that Roon is not a tag editor (unfortunatelly). Roon tags are their own tags in their system.
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
16
At the risk of repeating myself, while I love much about Roon, its inability to leverage custom embedded metatags in any fashion is a drawback that cripples our ability to customize our listening experience.
It hasn’t stopped me from using Roon, but it has stopped me from fully investing in it because I can’t really control it how I would like to, the work to re-create that within Roon is very substantial with 5000 albums, and since Roon is a subscription based service that could disappear (or become crippled if the metadata service or streaming integration ceases), that work needs to be somewhat portable to other platforms (i.e. based on file embedded metadata or folder organization).
The lack of other vocalizing a similar concern tells me I’m in the minority. I just hope I’m not proven “right” by seeing Roon acquired and repurposed, having it lose the streaming features, or going out of business…
Nice idea: one album on the left channel, another one on the right channel. People with 5.1 or 7.1 systems could then listen to a whole bunch of their albums simultaniously!
Yeah, that’s how I then will handle it. But one button to play them all, one button to find them all… Oh wait that’s from a different thing.
Hmm. A frightening idea if you fully rely on the Roon database. I haven’t looked at all this, but isn’t there a possibility to save the settings and database information? Anyway I am a bit picky with the information about my music and always double check the metatags after ripping and/or downloading. Even bought digital music files sometimes comes with errors. So I would embed all new/better information within the music. Regardless of Roon’s possibility to show information from their database.
Thanks guys for helping. I now decided that Roon isn’t the right thing for me. I miss a lot and there are things I don’t like but that can’t be overseen. It’s the cost-value ratio that just doesn’t fit for me.
I think I have some days left with my trial period and if Roon is willing to accept my new DAC, I will take that time to dig a bit deeper into the Roon philosophy.
Like all things new, there is a learning curve. Once learned, you never look back.
(Remember learning to drive or programming a VCR in the old days lol.)
I would suggest giving the trial more time to explore music once set up. You will soon forget all the frustrations getting going as it is a big leap. You have gotten this far…
Today, I dont do anything with Roon set up. It just works and I enjoy music. I do find more and more ways to explore my library “wow, I didn’t know Roon did that” moments.
Then we have the forum, which can be addictive. A great way to share your music if you wish, Chat, get recommendations and also help readily at hand.
You may even find that having overcome the learning curve you are very well placed to help others in the future.
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