Local Music Database Structure - Flat or Hierarchical?

Roon Software Discussion
1

Desktop PC, i7 CPU, Asus MB, 64 GB ram, Roon Desktop, HQPlayer
Windows 10 Pro, 64 bit ver. All updates installed

I have a question about how to configure your local database best for Roon. I have always had a hierarchical structure to my music library (which was great when using foobar2000), but when imported into Roon several of my albums are not seen. I have since constructed a flat database of my music, where all CDs/albums are at the same directory level. I am seriously considering removing the older structured database and importing the new flat one.

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Connected Audio Devices

Number of Tracks in Library

Description of Issue

2

I assume you are asking about how best to structure the folder hierarchy in your Watched Folder(s)?

Generally speaking, as long as all the music tracks of an album are contained in a single folder, Roon should be able to figure things out. Rather than have (potentially) thousands of album folders at the root level of the Watched Folder, the usual structure adopted by many is to structure the hierarchy by /Artist/Album/.

Box sets need a little more attention, see here for guidance:

3

Thanks! I have it setup under genre/artist/album. Some of my library did not import however ( just a few). I built it into a flat stucture and was anticipating replacing it with the flat library version, but I sense that you are saying ‘no’ to that…

4

Personally, I use the /Artist/Album/ and /Artist/Album/CDn (for box sets) structures for my CD rips. For my downloaded albums, I use /Label/Artist/Album/(CDn). Works for me.

5

Well, now that I have a recreated flat database with all the bad metadata cleaned up, I can create such a structure. Then I will load it into Roon. Thank you for your help.

6

You might also look at the few that did not import and see if there are issues that caused it.

Check these for more info on special characters and such:

And this one on meta data: