Multiple Names for same Composer

Hi Geoff

I understand the “object” approach (Retired Developer), just not making enough use of focus etc I suspet

One question does raise itself, why do we see 2 Beethovens, there seems no consitency in what we call HIM , Ludwig Van Beethoven or Beethoven. Ditto with many other composers.

If I select Both forms is the filter additive , I suspect it is so I should go for the lesser “Beethoven”

In my example I have 2 filters “Murray Perahia” and the 2 forms of Beethoven. Selecting one shows 13 results , the other 6

Ludwig van Beethoven (13) includes all Beethove (6) , so why both ?

Can some one clarify maybe

Mike

I suspect your multiplicity of Beethovens (and other composers) comes from a clash with the results of your own metadata tagging and Roon’s metadata. I know that when I first started using Roon, my own metadata was in a bit of a mess, and while Roon did its best to understand things, I certainly needed to help it out on a number of occasions.

Roon is generally pretty good at recognising the various ways of referring to the major composers, so I’m surprised that you’ve still got two entries for Beethoven. However, if you have multiple Beethovens (or multiple variations of composers and/or artists), the best thing to do is to tell Roon to merge them.

Go into the Composers browser, and right click on each of the variations of the composer’s name in question. Then click the “Merge Composers” button at the top right of the screen.

For example, I’ve noticed that in my collection, Roon has four entries for the composer/performer Sade:

  • Helen Folsade Adu
  • H. F. Adu.
  • Sade Adu,
  • Sade.

And for the Sade entry, Roon actually takes it to be the name of her and her band , whilst the Sade Adu entry is for her as a person, with date and place of birth. So I’ll select just the first 3 and make Sade Adu the Primary Artist, and leave Sade (the band) out of the merge. It’s not perfect, but it works for me. This just goes to show how messy and fluid the metadata business can be.

If you make a mistake in the merge process, you can always revert your merge, so don’t be afraid to go ahead and try it.

Interestingly there is only one entry as Ludwig van Beethoven in the Composer view . I can’t see any of the other duplicates like Mozart, Brahms etc

They only seem to show in Focus , possible it’s a bug ?

Then have a look in Artists? It’s probably being driven by some bizarre metadata from Rovi listing Beethoven as a performer in one (or more) of your albums.

How, precisely, are you building up the Focus query? (which categories are you choosing?)

@andybob - I’m conscious that Mike and I are pushing this thread OT - perhaps you could extract our conversation into a separate thread? Thanks.

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You might want to check that your extra Beethoven’s are not “performers” or “production” or other artist credit. Something other than a composer.

It is all over my library. A real mess. Probably all over yours as well. This all comes from roon metadata not local tags. So far I have found if there is a:

(1) “Cadenza” credit then roon will categorise the composer as a performer
(2) “Revision”, “Liner Note” (probably because of a citation) “Original Material” or “Orchestration” credit then even more worryingly the composer becomes an album producer.

This creates a lot of confusing clutter on various screens where you will see dead composers with long lists of “appearances” on albums and also long lists of “production” credits on albums. It creates a mess on all searches on composers as you are presented with multiple composer, performance, production options and I often click on the wrong thing.

I cannot see any easy way round cleaning it all up other than removing these sorts of credits one by one from albums. It’s a big problem on composer boxes of a 100 or more disks as I cannot see how to do this at a box rather than an individual disc level. This is an example where it would be better if roon dealt with these sorts of composer tags from the metadata suppliers more intelligently in the first place.

Tony, you can do a bulk edit across several albums worth of tracks to get rid of the spurious composers in one swoop.

Of course, this begs the question of having duplicates in the first place. Roon is kind of an “un-indicted co-conspirator” in this mess. The real culprits are: the database Roon uses and has to make sense of; and TIDAL, whose classical albums are “minimally tagged” to be kind.

Not sure if “bizarre” is the right word, Geoff. Treating Composers as Primary Artists is pretty typical among the labels and Rovi. I THINK this is a holdover from the bad old days when composers weren’t tagged at all. Calling them Album Artists was the ‘best’ bad way of getting them to show up on album displays.

Tony, try this shortcut:

  • Go to Ludwig’s composer page, then click on the Performer button. Scroll down and click “Select All Tracks”. The track list that results all have “Beethoven” as a Performer; in my experience, it is almost always a Primary Artist tag.
  • Select All Tracks (cmd A) and Edit/Edit Credits/Remove Credits. Scroll until you find the Beethoven-Primary Artist tag(s) and delete it(them).
  • Take some care here! If appropriate, Add a credit for Ludwig van Beethoven as Composer before you save.

This works for “quite a few” tracks at once. However, I tried it on a 1000-track list once and was denied; I asked but never found out what the upper limit might be.

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Well, it may be pretty typical, but it’s still bad practice, IMO :grinning: Hence, I reserve the right to view it as bizzare.

I THINK the Roon search has combined the functions of a database key search and a more general text search. When you type “BEETHO”, the “Ludwig van Beethoven” result is the artist database “Beethoven” The “Beethoven” result is a generic text search, finding all instances of “BEETHOVEN” in titles, ensemble names, etc.

But, I’m guessing.

how about “typically bizarre”? :slight_smile:

Thanks John, that’s a good tip. I just managed to get rid of all my annoying performer and production credits for Mozart. All except one. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has a production credit on a CPE Bach album but I cannot see what is causing that:

When I view the credits on that album there is no Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I am getting this with other composers as well. I never noticed it before because there was so much clutter I couldn’t see the woods for the trees. Anyone have any ideas?

Johns suggestion works but we are back to what to trust, as usual due to dodgy metadata you can’t reallly trust what Roon shows you,

I have whole Aertists missing in some compositions and that’s only because I KNOW they are missing , if I didn’t expect to see a specific artist I would be totally oblivious to the omission

What next , classical metadata is S**t it simply can’t be trusted, so manual intervention seems the only way but that’s not why I bought into Roon

Mike

Any lingering issues after your Track purge almost have to be at the Album level.

Go to Album/Edit /Edit Album/Primary Artist Links. You’ll likely find Ludwig as a Primary Artist. Uncheck him.

And you MIGHT be able to do this across multiple albums, but I haven’t tried it.

Best of luck.

Oops: I answered a question you didn’t ask.

Try selecting all tracks (probably again)/Edit Track Credits/ Remove Credit and look again for CPE.

Or, go to the offending credit, which is a link, click, select tracks remove.

But AFAIK, artist stuff hides either at track or album level. Oh, I suppose it COULD be a ROON metadata link, come to think of it. Otherwise, I’m stumped.

Wow, Mike, you said a mouthful. Roon agrees with you; they don’t want you in the tagging business, and I agree in principle. But Roon is still working on strategies or tactics to navigate the muck and mire of existing audio databases.

It seems that there is no business model yet invented that makes of improving audio DBs profitable. Roon could strap it on, but I’m afraid the task would be monumental, chances of success slim, and would likely absorb all their resources. The labels aren’t going to do it. A DIY DB has problems of its own. And the non-profits have given it a try, but fall short.

You (and I) have chosen a lousy genre to be interested in. :smile:

You are absolutely bang on. And you can batch it from the same screen. You just choose albums instead of tracks.

At the album level there can be a credit called “Quotation Author”. So in the booklet it might be the case that one composer is cited in relation to another composer. This has the effect of giving production credits to a dead composer on another dead composers album. :astonished:

It is all over the place in my library. Probably yours as well. sigh

heh heh, we were just now answering each other’s posts. :smile:

At least listening to some soothing Schubert calms Me down after a long session of getting frustrated

Much better than chill pills

An ice cold beer and Schubert what could be better

Shame my diet forbids beer !! (Very bad as a retired Brewer)

Thanks for all the suggestions, I’m working through em

Mike

@John_V thanks for this hint - I always missed the “Select All Tracks” link on this screen.