How are you using the Roon Library & Roon Favorites?

I realize this is subjective but I’m curious.

Here is how I’m using these now… (albeit a work in process)

Add Album to Library: If I like at least 1 track on the album or want to explore the album later.
Add Track to Library: If I dislike all other tracks on the album. Very rare.

Favorite an Album: If I have “favorited” most of the tracks on an album.
Favorite a Track: If I really like the track.
Favorite a Performer/Composer: If I like the majority of their music.

Banning an Album: If I never want Roon to include the album in Radio. For deliberate playing only.
Banning a Track: If I never want Roon to include the track in Radio. For deliberate playing only or a track I strongly dislike.

(Side note: The Banning feature needs to me redesigned IMO. Should be split out from Favorite button. Topic for another post I guess.)

When I have the same album from multiple sources (e.g. local files, Qobuz and Tidal) I keep them all in the Roon Library and use “Make Primary Version” on the album that sounds best to me. I do exclude lower-res versions of albums from each source if a higher-res version is available from the same source (assuming it is better sounding of course).

Maintaining the same favorites for the albums/tracks/performers/composers across these sources is the real pain. The payoff is that this gives you a better chance of keeping your streaming source libraries current when Roon interacts with it. Useful when you are away from Roon using a mobile device with Tidal/Qobuz. Not sure there is a good alternative to this.

(Side note: I wish Roon would create a help page that explains exactly what happens when library/favorite activities are triggered in Roon and in associated Tidal/Qobuz accounts. I have only seen partial explanations so far. Topic for yet another post I guess.)

I would love to hear how you guys are managing your music in Roon. Feedback and corrections on the above are welcome.

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I just add albums I think I might want to hear. If I ever get around to listening to one I don’t like, I will delete it. It’s not like we’re spending money to buy something we may not like.

I admire the simplicity of your approach! So you don’t use favorites at all? Didn’t find it useful?

Similar to @Jim_F, I add albums to my library when I discover a track or artist I like when using Radio, looking at new releases or from What we are listening to [2019]. If I enjoy what I hear I may favourite the track, but rarely an album. I’ve no favourite artists.

Roon favourites are unique to Roon. When you favourite an album in TIDAL it is added to your Roon library: TIDAL favourite ≡ in Roon library, not Roon favourite. Adding a track or album to your Roon library lets you do more …

https://kb.roonlabs.com/What’s_the_difference_between_albums_in_my_library_and_albums_outside_of_my_library%3F

Interesting. Very light favorite usage as well.

Ok, to summarize my understanding:

  • Roon Favorites have no connection to Tidal at all.
  • Tidal Favorites are Roon Library items and can be added/removed from either Roon or Tidal.
  • A Tidal Album Favorite adds that album’s tracks to the Roon Library regardless of any tracks that are a Tidal Track Favorite on that album (1 track fav, none, all, it doesn’t matter). This can make it appear as though there is a sync problem.

Btw- I think these same rules apply to Qobuz but I haven’t verified that.

I never use favourites in Roon at all,as they are just favourites in Roon only. I just add to library either in Roon or Tidal/Qobuz app what I like or want to listen to from new releases or perhaps a song I might have liked on Roon radio. If I don’t like it afterwards on full listen it gets binned. With a ot of new releases I might make a playlist of new stuff to listen to, and I follow a few peoples choices on the what you listening to thread and add those to.

You guys have me wondering if anyone uses favorites. :wink: Maybe the combination of Roon Radio and playlists are good enough.

In Qobuz I use favorites to contain all of my albums. That’s the only place I see for them to show up. In Tidal and Roon, I use albums. In all three, all I want are my albums that I have included in my music library. I will, from time to time, look at playlist, etc. that have been provided by the applications to see if there is anything I want to listen to.

I use favourites on tracks. Firstly to build playlists from and secondly, if I remember correctly they are,or are intended to be in the future, part of the data that roon uses to select tracks for you.

Haven’t used Favourites in Roon to date but am interested in this thread to see how people use them.

I keep my collection as very much a curated collection - all the albums I have in Roon are ones I love and want to return to. When listening to something new I’ll give an initial listen without adding it to the library or Tag ‘Listen’ as a reminder and then delete from the library if it isn’t a keeper.

I’m very much an albums rather than tracks or playlist person though.

Hello there

I listened to all my library once. Everyone I liked a song, I clicked on the “heart icon”. Then I focus on it and created a bookmark called “All Favorites”. It plays 999 tracks out of 8600.

I’ve tried different approaches.

The “favourites” thing is a hassle, so that got old real soon.

Banning artists or tracks doesn’t influence radio at all, so that’s a waste of time. If I don’t like an artist, I don’t add anything by that artist to my library. If I don’t like a track on an album, I hide it.

Roon Library in overview mode is a mess: sorted by artist, albums appear in an inscrutable order (to me that is); sorted by album, you get a jumble of stuff; Roon’s logic scrambles my brain, so I just leave it in the “date added” order. One mess is as good as another until Roon figures out a lot of people like neat, ordered lists.

Roon Library by artist is another messy jumble: I find it counterintuitive to have to swipe left to browse artists. Swiping up would feel more natural, a vertical list would be ideal, but apparently as @James_I mentioned elsewhere, this scrambles your brain :woozy_face:

Add to that the fact that on an android tablet, more often than not the screen is yanked back in place when you try to swipe, so that adds a lot of expletive fun to the experience.

Navigating by genre is hopeless because of the lack of consensus about genres (this one isn’t Roon’s fault BTW) and focus on similar is a great idea. Too bad that what Roon defines as similar doesn’t add up with my idea of similar…

So I end up not using Roon’s library management functions very much because they frustrate me. My main tool in Roon is the search function, so I’m sorta twisted with a flat metal tool in order to be driven into a solid surface…

It’s a good thing the SQ and the queue management are quite good, because otherwise I’d have dumped the whole lot already. Not that the native apps of hifi separates are any better… Devil and deep blue sea, rock and hard place, plague or cholera,…

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I use favourites for music genres. I tag all my albums manually and use simple genre tags for broad classifications such as classical, jazz, rock etc. I then use the favourites function to separate these genres out so I see only one of them, and the albums so tagged, at a time.

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Sure they do. Favorites exists as a marker in Roon. A way of quickly sorting out those marked albums/tracks/composers/compositions.

I think you are just thinking in things in terms of streaming. Plenty of users do not have a streaming service at all and can have very large personal libraries. How else would they mark a favorite? I actually refer to it is Hearting in Roon, so I won’t confuse the two uses.

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Interesting the user bases developing. Folder view requests forget that a large (the greater?) percentage are streaming consumers and favourites forget that roon started without any streaming services.

Just to clarify… I am using Roon favorites for my local files (non-streaming) as well as for Tidal & Qobuz streaming. I’ve found value in using favorites but am also interested in how others are using them. Or if they found a more suitable alternative (e.g. just using the Roon Libarary or Roon Tags, etc).

Loving all the feedback by the way! Keep it coming…

I use favorites just a little bit - a track that is new to me that I want to remember to listen to again when I’m having my dedicated listening sessions. I don’t favorite all my old classics or things I know well, because while those are favorites, it defeats the purpose of being reminded to listen to something other than Stairway to Heaven.

What I use mostly to access my collection are Tags. I have found this is a better way to drill into music that fits my mood of the moment. I have tags that effectively represent “when I want mellow” or “when I want to air guitar and jump up and down” etc. and so they are kind of like genres, except more of a mood match than anything else.

Tags are great for that. It just frustrates the heck out of me that Roon’s Tags don’t export (and they don’t import from embedded metatags either) which means the work is not portable, Roon is a Venus flytrap, and if Roon disappears or I decide to move my collection to another application, that work is lost. It’s not like that in any other application where you can embed the tags in the file.

Point taken, but I don’t think this takes away from the request for folder view. True, streaming albums won’t appear, but it would be so useful to those who simply cannot or do not want to put in the time to locate their folder organized local collections. If folder view wasn’t just the bare basic that basically every media player has, or if it was a tricky development, I’d reconsider. I just don’t think Roon’s decision to be different here is defensible. It’s like the best burger place in town will only serve burgers medium and doesn’t have french fries. Headstrong.

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