Tempted to try TIDAL recently and I subscribed to the 30 day free trial. I love the sound quality through the TIDAL app and even via Airplay 2 to my Bluesound speakers, the sound is great. Of course I then turned to Roon to test things out. I am currently struggling with how to manage TIDAL playlists from within Roon and I am hoping some of your wise veterans can help
The problem I am encountering is on how to integrated / add TIDAL tracks to my Roon library and subsequently manage them through Tags and Bookmarks. So far I am failing. Here is what I do:
TIDAL playlists sync with Roon without issue (I can see them listed in the Playlists tab). I am aware that these are TIDAL playlists and can thus not be âmanagedâ by Roon. Interestingly, I can tag them and they do show up in the corresponding tag. I notice however that playcounts do not update. Also, the âDate addedâ field shows blank. I assume this is because at this stage the TIDAL tracks are not yet part of my Roon library. So I then move to the next step:
I save a local copy of the Tidal playlist (as indicated but the roon KB for importing Tidal playlists). I add the _local at the end of the playlist name to differentiate.
Strange things then happen:
i) The local copy of the Tidal playlist still shows the âDate Addedâ field as blank for all tracks. I can play the tracks but the playcounts do not update (all show 0).
ii) If I exit the playlist and go into âTracksâ, I can see all the playlist tracks as added (todays date showing) and the play counts also seem to update correctly there.
iii) I can tag the local playlist but if I access the corresponding tag, I can see the tracks without playcounts and with the âdate addedâ as blank again.
iv) If I exit the tag and then select âTracksâ and then âFocus on Tagsâ, I can select the Tag where I located the Local playlist. However once I click on the Tag, this shows completely blank.
As a result of the above situation, I cannot manage the tracks via bookmarks or focus.
Have I missed a step somewhere?
Yes, it can be confusing. Your playlist, although now local, is pointing to tracks in Tidal, not in your library. Play counts and date added refer to library tracks only and are thus not shown.
If you add tracks to the playlist from within Roon then these fields will be populated.
So it appears that importing a playlist as per the KB instructions, does not actually import the playlist tracks. I can see that I can âadd to libraryâ but in order to do so I have to go into the album and select this. I can then see the entire album as part of the library (even though I only wanted a single track) and then I can re-select the track I was interested in, add it to a separate playlist and then tag that playlist and then add a bookmark.
I then need to try and remove from the library the album tracks I was not interested inâŚ
So I just tried to import a track that was part of a TIDAl playlist but it looks like the only way to do this is to select the entire album, then select âimport to libraryâ which then means I can see this through my âTracksâ tab. It shows all album tracks as part of the library including a correct âdate addedâ field. However, if then select and delete the tracks I am not interested in (leaving the single track I wish to keep), the entire album is gone including the single track I was trying to keep (despite not having selected to delete this).
Unless I am missing something, the only way to import and manage a TIDAL playlist of tracks seems to involve having to manually import each album and then picking the tracks from the imported album (through the âTracksâ tab) to then re-add the track to a new playlist. In addition, the entire album has to remain imported in the library.
OuchâŚ
I must be missing something. It cannot be that convoluted⌠I am sure I am doing something wrong here.
What that means is that adding a track implies adding the rest of an album. By itself that is no big deal and causes Roon no problems in terms of storage. If you really donât want to see the other tracks of an album you can hide them (3 dots edit > hide track), but I never bother.
I generally keep Tidal playlists untouched; and my own playlists reflect my library and my moods.
BTW there is no need to add your track to separate playlist once youâve made a local copy. You can add the track to the duplicate Tidal playlist as it is now editable, then delete the non-library track version.
Totally understand and appreciate this. I guess the album orientation is not complete as Roon Radio is track oriented. Perhaps one could consider a user playlist as a user defined Roon Radio :-).
Anyhoo, it turns out I was missing something and the process is (slightly) less convoluted. I researched the KB a bit more and I found this:
So thankfully I donât have to add the entire album in the first place just so that I can have a single track added to a roon playlist
My goal was to be able to sync a TIDAL playlist then find it in Roon and to be able to import all tracks (not entire albums) in one go so that I can then control them though tags, bookmarks etc.
As things stand:
i) Ensure roon has synced with TIDAL.
ii) Access a synced TIDAL playlist and select all track(s) intended for Roon library. Click the 3 dots (at the top) to âadd to libraryâ. This imports the album tracks (not the entire albums).
iii) Go to Library / Tracks and rank according to last imported. This will help show the tracks just added to the library.
iv) Select the imported tracks and âadd to playlistâ. This then allows full control, management, tagging of these tracks.
This works well
Cheers
PS: I edited the steps above following Brianâs help below
he he! sorry Brian, I was editing as you were posting
Regarding Edit 2: I tried this and initially I noticed that when accessing the synced TIDAL playlist, I donât have the potion to âadd to libraryâ after I select one or multiple tracks within that playlist. I would have to first access / go to the entire album and from there I would need to select the tracks I am interested in and add them to library (this option is available within the album view).
Edit 2.1: Upon further testing, the above was my mistake as the tracks were already added. Once a track is added to the library, the option âadd to libraryâ simply disappears. I have edited my posts for correctness and to avoid confusion.
I can indeed select multiple tracks from within the synced TIDAL playlist and then click on the âadd to libraryâ. Once the tracks / albums have been added, the option âadd to libraryâ disappears from the menu (no other notification available to show that tracks have been previously added).
Hmm, Iâm a bit confused here. If I choose a tidal playlist (not a local version of this), and select multiple tracks, I see two options, add to library and add to playlist. Choosing the first causes those tracks to appear in my library as expected.
Choosing the second causes the option for a new, local, playlist to be formed, but it will contain references to the Tidal tracks; these tracks will not have been added to your library.
You are absolutely right Brian The âadd to libraryâ for tracks is available within the synced TIDAL playlist. This is even better!
The âadd to libraryâ option disappears from the menu once a track / album has been previously added. It appears that as I was testing adding and removing, I confused what was in / out of the library. There is nothing to show that a track has already been added to the library, instead the option simply disappears from the menu.
Many thanks for the tests and advice, I am much happier with this process now.
I am going to edit the steps above to ensure they are accurate.
i) I have a few TIDAL playlists that I add tracks to from the app on my iphone.
ii) These playlists are then synced with Roon (Settings / Services / TIDAL)
iii) If I then go to Library / Tracks and I rank all tracks according to âDate Addedâ, I can see the new TIDAL tracks as already âaddedâ. The âDate Addedâ tab shows the correct date and I can add this track to a Roon playlist without issue. There appears to be no need to go through the steps I recoreded earlier in the thread.
I canntot explain what changed but for now, TIDAL tracks appear to add themselves to my Roon library as soon as I sync with TIDAL.
I wonder whether you are adding the track to your collection in Tidal before adding it to the playlist? That would then cause the track to be added to your Roon library directly.
Hi Brian, I am indeed doing this (adding tracks to my collection in TIDAL before adding the same track to a TIDAL playlist).
I was doing the same before (when I started the thread) but I would then need to take the extra step of adding the tracks to Roon library. Not sure why Roonâs behaviour seems different now.
Either way, perhaps the KB may benefit from an added set of instructions for this use case. The part about importing TIDAL playlists in conjunction with collection added tracks etc.
Cheers
Add tracks directly to a Tidal playlist. This gets syncâd to Roon. Then select and add etc. as above to produce a local Roon playlist referencing local Roon tracks.
Add tracks to your collection, and add to a Tidal playlist. This gets syncâd to Roon, but will reference the Tidal tracks, not the local library tracks which will also now exist in Roon.
Both end up with tracks in your library; choose whichever suits.
Iâm tagging @Greg here as he is the KB editor and can decide if some extra clarification is needed in the KB.
The stumbling block for you was the fact that references in the playlists can be to local or Tidal files.
This took me a long time to figure out as well. My issue is that I used Tidal for years before subscribing to Roon. I have massive playlists that have been created entirely in Tidalâs various apps.
Your idea of adding the songs to the Roon library, then showing recently added tracks in Roon is great, but a lot of my tracks were added to Roon at different times and not in any specific order. While listening to Tidal on the train, one song may have been good for my âpianoâ playlist, so I added it to my Tidal library and put it in the âpianoâ playlist, whereas the next song might have been good for my âfolkâ playlist, so I added that to my Tidal library and put it in my âfolkâ playlist, etc. When my Tidal syncs with Roon, I sometimes have fifty new library songs that I put in half a dozen Tidal playlists.
Overall, with thousands of songs in different Tidal playlists, it would take me hours to go through each song in each playlist, click on the album, add it to my library, then add the song to a proper Roon playlist, where you can see plays, whether the track has been âfavouritedâ, and all of Roonâs other wonderful features.
An option for Roon to be able to âseeâ my playlist and make a Roon playlist (not a local one referencing the Tidal playlist) would be fantastic.
As it is, I content myself with the âFocusâ feature in Roon, and not the messy Tidal playlist system.
