Multi-part Composition Grouping

Roon Software Discussion
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On playing classical pieces, creating playlists, and radios:

  • Develop an easy scheme to elect, by playlist, radio episode, or album play, to honor or not honor a composition’s grouping. To make my case, no one, but no one, expects to listen to Chopin’s 24 Preludes, or anybody’s Etudes, in one sitting. Yet, if Roon radio lands on one track of them, you’re gonna listen to all of them (or else hit Next Track 23 times).

  • When adding such a “composition” to a playlist, it is tedious to trick Roon into treating them as single tracks. (I think the only way is to add each track separately.) Now, if you select the composition header and say “add to playlist” you will hear all 24 regardless. Make it easy to say to Roon, “these tracks need not stay together on this playlist.”

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Hi John, I ran into a setting at the album level that may help you solve this problem for some albums. In the album editor, 3rd tab, all the way to the bottom, there is a setting that allows you do disable multi-part compositions for the album. I’ve used it in similar situations as you describe and Roon essentially treats each track as an individual composition for purposes of adding to playlists, inserting in radio, etc.

Hope this helps
MR

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Thankyou @Miguel_Rode. That certainly was tucked away wasn’t it ! Not something I recalled at all.

@John_V- John does that cover your use case ? If not, please feel free to post any additional or varied Feature Request back in the parent thread.

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This creates a new problem in order to solve an old one, IMO. But thanks for the idea.

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Mind elaborating a bit? I’m still relatively new to Roon and learning so interested in your insights.

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When a composition, say Chopin’s 24 Preludes, is ungrouped, it loses its identity as a single composition. On the Performances page, 23 new performances will appear, warping the statistics. And the composition now appears as 24 individual tracks.

If you ever decide to regroup the composition, any playlist with any of the tracks will be adversely affected.

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Variations on this request have come up several times. I have raised it several times. So have others. There are various places where multi-part grouping can be switched on and off in roon. The problem is that these switches are not granular enough in terms of listening scenario.

I for example, similar to @John_V, would like multi-part grouping switched on when browsing by album or composition but switched off when in radio or playlist mode. Most of us, I would have thought would take this option for granted with physical media. I have a lot of “mood” compilations where the labels have sequenced single arias, solos, movements etc. Most “real” radio stations work like that also. It’s not really a practical solution to remember to globally switch off multi-part grouping when listening in radio mode.

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Thanks Tony, I see the issue now and what you say makes sense to me. I’ll add a paragraph to that effect into the parent thread later tonight, unless either you or John beat me to it.

I’m sorry if this has been raised before and I’ve forgotten. That was part of the incentive to create a Comprndium thread.