It would be nice if we could select the genres and also select subgenres to display in genres. I have a fair amount of Bluegrass music for example and must click on Country and wade through a bunch of stuff that is not of interest to me before I can click on the Bluegrass subgenre. I’ve only got 1700 albums in my collection but it is getting hard to remember what I’ve got. Genres at least would give me a starting place, but it’s not very nice to use. It also covers wide areas of musical activity that is of zero interest to me and having to go to settings to hide those is a nuisance.
It would be helpful if we could promote sub genres, and remove genres we are not interested in directly in genres.
Another way to do this would be to add a genre category in the library search tool. The library already does this when you navigate to a genre or subgenre in Genres, but this would be much more direct. (You would have to type the name of the genre you wanted, I am not suggesting a drop down with hundreds of entries required.)
There is a way to make subgenres display in Genres. It’s been awhile since I’ve done it, but give me a few and I’ll figure it out again and post instructions.
On this screen, type Bluegrass in the Filter Roon genres box (do not select any of the genres that will appear below the box!). Then select Make top-level genre, then select Save.
You should now see Bluegrass listed when you go to the Genres screen.
Unfortunately, I do not know how to completely remove a genre. You can move a top-level genre under a different genre (thereby making it a sub-genre) using a similar procedure as above so that the doesn’t show on the main Genre screen. If you need instructions for moving a top-level genre so that it doesn’t show in the Genre screen, let me know.
If you can figure out how to remove a genre that would be very useful to know. There is a hidden option in the library settings, but the caveat is that the item you want to hide has to be on that list and some of them are not. I would for example like to get rid of Christmas and Children categories. There are others as you might imagine.
Thank you again for your help with sub genres - that really helps.
I haven’t been able to figured out how to completely remove a genre; only how to move a top-level genre under a different genre so that it no longer appears on the main Genres screen (but still is listed a subgenre under whatever genre you put it).
Unfortunately, Roon’s knowledgebase is all but worthless on the topic of genre editing (lacks any specifics how to do these things).
It’s an option, but completely breaks hierarchical genres. After doing this, Bluegrass will not be considered a part of country anymore. This can work out for some use cases, but it’s not how it should be
“Not how it should be” in the sense that Roon uses hierarchical genres for a reason. E g. Bluegrass is a sub-genre of Country. Therefore, displaying the whole Country genre also includes Bluegrass. And an album using the Bluegrass genre also appears when choosing the Country genre even if the album does not explicitly have the Country genre applied to it.
By making Bluegrass a top level genre, the OP avoids the annoying drill-down from Country through various sub-genres down to Bluegrass. This might be helpful for the OP.
However, pulling a sub-genre out of the hierarchy and making it top-level destroys the hierarchical genres and as such is clearly not what is intended by Roon’s hierarchical genres. (Bluegrass would then not be included anymore when listing country albums). As such, Roon should offer a better method that avoids the annoying drill-down without having to do this.
Thank you everyone for your thoughtful replies, it is clear from the comments that this is an issue a lot of people have given some thought to. All of the workarounds are great and can be selected based on your particular needs.
I don’t use bookmarks, but maybe I should.
Ultimately the user should have the choice of using a method that works well for them. I pointed out one that would work well for me (add genres to the library search tool)
FWIW I have never considered Bluegrass to be a sub genre of country music, and in most record stores where I used to shop it was treated as a separate genre. Long ago I had a friend who was talented bluegrass musician, and he used to cringe when people described it as country music - I know it evolved from it, but music evolves over time into new and IMO often discrete forms.
Bluegrass is a relatively recently acquired taste. I always liked the Punch Brothers, but Tidal and Roon have introduced me to other artists, and being more interested in Bluegrass and very much less so in the generic “Country” is what drove my frustrated request for help.
Great topic and information! I was adding new sub genres to my genres section when it was posted that doing this ruins the original genre. Now thinking if that is ok in my case. Also, Roon started “hanging”, maybe processing the new info i was sending it. But thank you for a great topic!
Roon has been " hanging" now for 10 minutes not allowing new genres to be added. Other than that it is still fully functional.
Update: i have been busy, see photos. Roon definitely is working hard when i give it these new genres, if i try to add too many it spits it back out. The circling blue ring is constantly spinning too. If i wait overnight and then try using genres and have any issues i will uninstall/reinstall. Will let you all know if interested
Currently it’s between a stone and a hard place. I have this with things like Pop/Rock > Punk/New Wave > American Punk > L.A. Punk / New York Punk.
(Note that this is already edited because by default the LA Punk and New York Punk genres are on the same level as American Punk. I moved them to be subgenres of American Punk. In reality I would like Punk and New Wave separate, but it’s simply impossible because far too much work)
On the one hand, I would really like a quick way to go to L.A. Punk, and drilling down from the Genres in the side bar is a joke. (It’s easier to search for an LA Punk band and then click the Genre tag there, which seems silly)
On the other hand, clearly when I choose Punk or American Punk I want to have LA Punk included, so making it a top-level genre is out of the question.
It’s simply another area in Roon that is in dire need of some navigational improvements
