How do you Roon?

Sallah_48 · February 22, 2018, 11:18am

spot on, Paul, Roon does allow me to engage more fully with my digital collection than ever before. It’s like it’s something far more organic than a pile of bits and bytes . Until Roon, I was getting ever more detached from the core of my collection, listening to mostly the 1st 1000 albums only.

It’s still got a long way to go, or rather the potential to make it multifold times better at engaging the users is there waiting to be developed and nurtured.

Ill crank up a tagging/bookmarking thread and see where it leads

James_I · February 22, 2018, 1:35pm

Excellent thoughts all around. I was going to respond here but I’ll jump over to the new tags post. Thanks for starting that Sallah!

John_V · February 22, 2018, 9:22pm

Paul, Just picked up on this thread. Did you ever use Smart Playlists in iTunes? If so, is that kind of power what you have in mind? John

James_I · February 22, 2018, 10:46pm

This is really an excellent point, and I had not considered it before. I have been harping on “future-proofing” my collection by saying that I want to store object-by-object work as file embedded metadata rather than only as locked within the Roon database, since the latter makes that work far less (or non-) portable. But your point is that we could spend hours and hours Tagging and then the Roon team makes a change that affects the functions available for Tagging and “breaks” our use case.

This is a concern, for sure. The Roon team definitely looks forward and has evinced an ethic of releasing what is best for the long-term direction of the software even if it breaks things users are doing with it now (case in point: replacing one version of Radio with another without allowing users to use the prior version if they liked it better…Brian has said they in effect plan to do this again…this does not indicate my criticism of that philosophy; just pointing it out).

However, I think it actually goes back to my original point. If the Roon team were to make a change that “breaks” how I use a Tag, presumably that would be in the context of their having improved Tag functionality or that the change would have some related benefit, but just breaks some reliance I have on a prior function. I’d like to think that if the original object-by-object data were embedded in the files, I could just kill the Tag structure that was broken by the change in Roon, and then re-import that data so that it’s compliant with the new Roon.

Or at least having that data in the files gives me the illusion of more control over such an event…

Paulb · February 22, 2018, 11:04pm

hi Jonn, yes, I used iTunes a lot, with (smart) playlists.

I used to put “shortcodes” in the comment field which where a basis for smart playlists. * – * was a track without drums for example .
With the smart lists it was easy to find a track, but what I missed in iTunes was the possibility to browse in your library like Roon.

Have you read this also?

John_V · February 23, 2018, 1:09am

Paul No I hadn’t seen Evan’s post. I like that a lot.

One principle of mine is not to get beholding to any one service. I want to maintain the flexibility to leave Roon, even though I’m a lifer.

However, Evan’s scheme seems harmless; those tags created might be interesting to Roon but not anyone else. But who cares? If I leave, I gently lose that Roon advantage, but I don’t cripple my library. Interesting!

James_I · February 23, 2018, 1:24am

Exactly!!!

David_Snyder · February 28, 2018, 5:35am

I’m joining this thread eleven or days late. I’ve read @Sallah_48’s original a post a couple of times, and the clever use of tags looks very cool and worth the time to do…especially if those tags can be exported or added to file metadata somehow for permanence.

One thing that I don’t understand is the thinking behind running multiple instances of Roon core and proceeding to do backups and restores to keep them all in sync. If the main desktop, laptop, and hybrid computers are on the same local network, this is a lot of extra work vs. just designating a single core and configuring the other devices as zones.

You’re probably also leaving sonic performance on the table vs. leveraging Roon’s architecture as intended. Short version: Avoid directly connecting a DAC to systems that are running Roon Core or Roon Remote.

Here’s a link to the knowledgebase article that explains this better: http://kb.roonlabs.com/Sound_Quality

Sallah_48 · February 28, 2018, 6:05am

Hi David,

Thanks for post. I appreciate the advice and concerns, but everyone’s use-case for Roon is different. Here are my reasons as to why I cannot run Roon optimally:

I don’t have a laptop with ethernet connection. This means that I would have to rely on Wifi, which allows not 100% music streaming from the core at best even for Red Book rips.
I don’t have the money to invest to Optimally setup Roon.
I am quite happy with my arrangement and sound quality using cores-as-end-points.

At some stage, when I’m in need of another laptop, I will definitely consider it with Roon in mind with ethernet connection and rig up a wired connection, (& probably upgrade my router to one with ethernet connections at that time too). But for now, am happy enough working with a slight limp

Anthony_Bates · February 28, 2018, 7:04am

Is there any reason why a USB-Ethernet adaptor would not solve the first problem?

Sallah_48 · February 28, 2018, 7:25am

I didn’t know such things existed!

Will check further. Thanks for that. Any recommended brands or links?

EDIT… Just checking now. I feel a bit of a buffoon. Lol. I honestly didn’t think to check. There’re loads of options

Speed_Racer · February 28, 2018, 7:28am

Anthony_Bates · February 28, 2018, 11:05am

Hi,

I have used a few items by Anker and found them all good quality. I use this one myself:

It has all the LEDs you need for info, but it is not the cheapest you can buy.

eric · March 1, 2018, 5:54pm

10 posts were split to a new topic: Multiple tags causing UI slowness

Sallah_48 · March 1, 2018, 5:23am

thanks @Carl and @James_I , ill weigh in with my symptoms also.

Sallah_48 · March 1, 2018, 9:22am

Ok! Thanks to some keen advice on how to hardwire a laptop without Ethernet connection to a modem router, I took the plunge and bought a TP Link MR400 4g LTE modem with 4x Ethernet ports, a TP Link USB 3.0 Ethernet adapter dongle, some lengths of ethernet cable and now am running a rig comprising:

HP Desktop as core and outputting to Mojo+Adam a5’s in the office/kitchen area (hard wired via 20m of ethernet cable to the living room located modem router)

Sony 13" laptop in living Room as remote outputting to KEF X300A’s on stands (hard wired via 2m of ethernet cable to modem through the TP link USB ethernet adapter)

And Samsung Tabpro S as portable remote control for either living room or kitchen/office setups

Solid as a rock! Tested out this morning. Running everything from Red Book to DSD and Tidal MQA. No dropouts or glitches. I even managed to group the 2 zones and got them running together in sync.

I’ve arrived!!

PatMaddox · March 9, 2018, 6:00pm

I was wondering how you made a group of tags so I went clicking around… to find that you can add tags to tags!! This is huge. Thanks for sharing

It’s a bit counter-intuitive but I think you can, using the “inverse” tagging. Go to your albums and focus on the “Mood: Cool Blue Planet” tag. Then add the “Shuffle: Hits” tag and press the “+” to change it to a “-”. Now you’ve got a list of artists / albums / tracks that are Cool Blue Planet Deep Cuts.

You’d have to exclude each “level of depth” for it to work, but if you have Hits / Deep / Deeper then that’s only two tags. Of course you could create a bookmark for Deeper Cuts (not Hits, not Deep) as a starting point, or even a tag of tags (call it “Not Deeper Cuts”, add “Hits” and “Deep Cuts” tags to it, then in your focus you do a negative “Not Deeper Cuts” search).

I hope that makes sense…

James_I · March 9, 2018, 6:31pm

Yes, thanks, and I had discovered this. Basically I create a tag called “not hits” and then use that as a minus, and voila, AND logic for Mood AND Hits.

The issue is with database performance using such query logic. There is something about either the added logic or the fact that some tags are actually applied to an associated object rather than directly to that object (i.e. Moods are applied at the Artist level and Hits/Deep Cuts are applied at the album level) in a combined query that slows down the search performance dramatically – i.e. almost unusable. See this post:

Roon will have to get this worked out before we can really leverage it. I mean, I guess it could be my system, but I doubt it. Others have had the same issue and my Roon core is really on a pretty fast machine and the DB on an SSD.

James_I · March 10, 2018, 1:26pm

Here’s some fun I had last night. Not a totally new paradigm but a great way to create a kind of grand playlist out of a long-time favorite. This could be done with any beloved movie soundtrack or compilation album.

Anyone around my age who got into punk in the 70s or 80s knows the compilation album Burning Ambitions. This was the full treatment: buy this double album, read inside the gatefold while you listen to the album 100 times, and you’re a punker. One of the best and most meaningful compilation albums of all time (what’s your fave?).

So I took the idea and Tagged it as a “Group” (my designation for a collection of artists or albums that meets a certain criteria, as follows):

Then I went through and added each artist that was represented on this fantastic compilation to the Group Tag:

Then I went through Tidal and added every (desirable) title from each artist as a favorite and into my library:

Voila. Nearly 400 albums. It’s as though Burning Ambitions wasn’t just a little punk hors d’oeuvre anymore, but you get the entire discography of each band in it! In the right mood, I’ll listen to this for years. Like reliving the first time I ever heard that compilation but now it goes through many tracks, etc.

I’ve done this also with the Repo Man soundtrack (also really excellent, although my collection is a little Iggy Pop heavy and dominated by this artist) and the Valley Girl soundtrack (classic!).

I had this in Foobar too. But adding the capability of Tidal, I can access content I don’t think I’d pay full CD price for (would I really have the UK Subs discography otherwise? Maybe not entirely) and there is also the instant gratification of creating a whole new dive into a beloved record in about 30 minutes.

Bravo Roon, thanks for the memories!

(I should add, resolving from Artists to Albums within the Tag shows the same database slowdown problem I’ve had with complex tag queries. I am becoming convinced this problem relates to “indirect” tags - i.e. tags applied to related object, like viewing albums under an artist tag).

Paulb · March 10, 2018, 2:00pm

Nice list, “those were the days”, where are - Gabba Gabba Hey - the Ramones? (saw them once live, but left half way the concert, so loud!)