Is anyone having this issue? I am coming across this problem in two cases:
Case 1:
German or other non-English spelling of classical artists is extremely common, probably the majority case with public metadata from mega-labels such as Deutsches Grammophon. But it is essentially the same problem with major labels like Erato from France or BIS from Sweden. Here are two extremely common examples of arguably the world’s most preeminent orchestras:
Berlin Philharmoniker → Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Wiener Philharmoniker → Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
I cannot merge Berlin Philharmoniker with Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra because as far as I can see Roon has no metadata, for Berlin Philharmoniker. I have tried a few random tests for German and non-English spellings of some of the worlds most famous ensembles. It is not an isolated example. The end result is that I often find myself stepping out of the Roon environment into the Windows directory structure to hand-locate albums I know I have but Roon misses. Of course, I can always change my own tags to English spellings when this happens (all the time), but it is all very hit and miss and effects every corner of my library and is a bit impractical.
Case 2
I am also finding a very similar problem where there are two German or non-Englsh names for the same artist but the word order is reversed. So for example:
Staatskapelle Dresden → Dresden Staatskapelle
“Staatskapelle Dresden” is the correct form. But Roon instead uses “Dresden Staatskapelle” which is some kind of anglicised version that reverses the word order to approximate English grammar. The problem is that most libraries would be tagged with the first form.
In both cases although Roon can display the German forms or can be groomed to do so, Roon provides no hyperlink for the German forms so I assume it has no metatdata. But the knock-on effect is I cannot see how to merge the two versions. Am I missing something? I have tried ‘filters’ but they do not seem to work if Roon has no meta-data but maybe there is a simple way of merging I have missed?
Also. A very similar thing happens in English as well.
Case 3
All the most preeminent English composers and artists eventually end up with a title. This is again extremely common. For example, the famous EMI recording of Elgar’s Cello concerto (Jaqueline du Pre).
Sir John Barbirolli → John Barbirolli
Dame Janet Baker → Janet Baker
Sir Edward Elgar → Edward Elgar
In my case I cannot see any hyperlinks for the titled versions of the artist names so I assume Roon has no metadata. But this also means I cannot see how to merge the titled and un-titled versions. What I am surprised by is there is a hyperlink for a titled mega ‘synthetic’ artist:
“Dame Janet Baker / London Symphony Orchestra / Sir John Barbirolli”
I don’t really understand what the purpose of such a link would be or what possible meaning this one off collaboration is supposed to have? What makes sense to me is that there should be 3 separate hyperlinks for the 3 separate artists.
Same here: after merging “Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra” and “Wiener Philharmoniker”, despite when searching for "Vienna Philharmonic (which I picked as “main” because it has Roon metadata) Roon finds my albums for both… “Wiener Philharmoniker” has no hyperlink
These merged links occur because the metadata sources that Roon uses have got it wrong. You can use the Album and Artist editors in Roon to correct this in your library. Long term, Roon is hoping to address this issue:
How did you merge Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Wiener Philharmoniker? I cannot merge them because I cannot bring them both up in a search or a filter so that I can actually highlight them both and perform the merge?
Thanks Paolo but I said it a bit wrong. Maybe someone has some inspiration?
In my case if I go to Artists and put in “philharmoni” in the filter, all that comes up are Artists for which roon has metadata. For example, I have more than 80 of these strange ‘merged’ artist strings which have some kind of “philharmoni” component. There are even landing pages for these non-Artists (with no content). Also “Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra” comes up, it is hyperlinked and it has a landing page.
But the problem is that "Wiener Philharmoniker which is an artist, does not come up in this filter, does not come up in a search and yet has an un-hyperlinked reference plastered all over the library in literally dozens if not hundreds of places. I am probably completely wrong but I get the impression that only Artists with metadata can be searched for or filtered for which means the “Wiener Philharmoniker” I have cannot be merged with another version of the artist for which there is meta-data.
Do you definitely have an artist called “Wiener Philharmoniker”? If so, then I think the only way you will be able to merge this entry with the Artist entry “Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra” will be to go to the Artist browser, first select “Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra” by right-clicking on the entry, and then scroll to the “Wiener Philharmoniker” entry and right-click on that. Then you should see a “Merge Artists” button appear at the top right of the screen. Click that and you’ll be able to merge the artists into “Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra” as the primary artist.
Once you’ve done that, then Roon will know that “Wiener Philharmoniker” is a synonym for “Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra”. In my collection, for example, if I search for “Wiener Philharmoniker” I get all the results for “Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra”:
And thinking about it, perhaps the reason why you have an explicit “Wiener Philharmoniker” entry is because at least one of your albums with this orchestra has not been identified by Roon, so Roon has used the metadata from the tracks. And if one of these tracks has “Wiener Philharmoniker” as an artist, then Roon has used this metadata to create an Artist entry in its database.
Take a look at my screenshot - I searched for “Wiener Philharmoniker” and it shows all the results for “Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra”. If I searched for “Vienna Philharmonic”, it would return the same results. As I say, Roon understands synonyms, so it doesn’t matter how you search, it will return the relevant results.
And if I search for just “Wiener”, it will return the above results, plus additional artists and performers associated with Vienna/Wien:
but in a few years I won’t remember that I joined “Vienna” and “Wiener” and I’ll get mad trying to figure out why, searching for “Wiener”, it will never show unless I pick “Vienna”
(not to mention I had to pick “Vienna” as main artist just because “Wiener”, which actually is the correct name, has no metadata )
I’m clearly missing something here, because I don’t see what the problem is. If you’ve merged the artists, it doesn’t matter whether you search for “Wiener” or “Vienna” because both search terms will work and give the same results.
exactly: can’t see “Wiener Philharmoniker” in your search either
as I wrote, in a few years I won’t remember merging “Vienna Philhramonic Orchestra” and “Wiener Philharmoniker” and I’ll get mad. Same if a friend searches my music library without knowning I merged those
But the whole point is that you don’t need to remember that Wiener Philharmoniker is the same as the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra - Roon does that for you, and whichever terms you use will produce the same results. I still don’t see the problem.
on the contrary: Roon forces me to know/remember those two are the same!
searching for “Wiener Philharmoniker” will lead nowhere unless I know/remember they are
I still don’t understand you. Searching for Wiener Philharmoniker produces results… It leads somewhere, not nowhere. Are you saying that when that search produces entries for “Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra” that you don’t know that this is the same orchestra?
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