Upon import, one notices that all 20 hours – 153 tracks – is “organized” on one album (very tight grooves?).
And – no composers. So absolutely no composition IDs. So no rich metadata for YOU.
…UNLESS you’re willing to find a track listing from somewhere (no back or brochure art came with it), identify composers, and research and enter canonical names for all 153 tracks.
…THEN, one of the primary value propositions being sold by Roon/TIDAL will be realized. Until then, just put on, say, Track 121 and be thankful for the track entitled, “Allegro”, composed by no one in particular.
The issue is ultimately one for Erato - and, unfortunately they are not alone as a record company. Roon and Tidal are downstream suppliers - they cannot be blamed for the content any more than can a library supplying a book without an index or page numbers.
I just checked Qobuz version - which may be a bit better - but only just. The names of the works are there - but nothing else such as composer information - eg keyboard sonata in D major. Roon is not “recognising” these - so there is no composition information being supplied by Roon - eg “Mephisto Waltz No 1” - is listed as a track - and I am almost certain there would be Roon metadata for this composition. At least the Qobuz version comes with the booklet readily accessible.
I used to subscribe to Tidal - and they often used to do horrible things to some of their classical music releases - such as tracks out of order - and not only in box sets. This would occur even for releases from smaller labels that specialised in classical music. They acknowledged the first of these complaints but not subsequent ones.
The only consolation I can give is that it used to be much worse in the early days of digital music, when you would purchase a download and then have to spend ages, firstly searching out, then amending the metadata.
I appreciate the empathy, Paul, truly. I get frustrated that this long chain of value allows everyone to point at the other for not doing their jobs.
But, looking on the bright side, it improves one’s musical and detective skills to ferret out the likely composer. The catalog number prefix is a good clue.
Maybe your choice is a bit unfair. This boxset has hust been released a few days ago on Feb 22, along with a bunch of single album issues which are collected in the boxset.Metadata may not have time yet to populate the data providers databases. Perhaps it would be wise to be patient.
When big labels rip one off enrich one’s life with so called “Complete” items mingled together from their huge back catalogue they may - at times - not intend to provide a great experience. The only valuable addition regarding an integrated streaming service would be if Roon would not show those poorly prepared releases at all. Question would be if this is desirable (and allowed).
In theory the streaming offerings could get analyzed if they do also provide the original albums (qobuz for instance seems to have at least some from the Queffeléc set as individual discs too). If there’s enough metadata to do this I’m not sure. But I’m quite sure something like this is not part of the deal between Roonlabs and the streaming service(s) …
So to show disapproval: one could just refrain from adding stuff like this to the library. But somehow I doubt that WMG or Access Industries would take notice …
There’s another problem with this particular album: the version in the Tidal app lists 312 tracks and when it’s imported into Tidal only 153 tracks are there. I sampled a few of the missing tracks in the Tidal app and they play fine. Is there a bug somewhere on the Roon side?
At the current time, where releases are both provided physically in form of CD’s and “virtually” in form of downloads or streaming, I do not see a difference in providing metadata in printed form (booklet) vs. track based information as tags (at least in terms of a proper string fot the title track.
So to me, having a download or a streaming album with missing metadata is like receiving a CD with only half-printed booklet or with no booklet at all.
I think we should expect the same care from publishers for both, i.e. to have it available at the time of purchase (or streaming).
But somehow I doubt that WMG or Access Industries would take notice …