All my local files are manually tagged with correct metadata. Artist field corresponds with whatever artist name variant applies to the release, and Album Artist is what I use to group all ANV names under one name. Anyway, looking at my Artists after importing all my local files I’m seeing mysterious artists. For example, Bunk Gardner is listed with several tracks on one album by the Mothers Of Invention which is in my local library credited to his name. This album should be credited to Frank Zappa and/or the Mothers Of Invention. Another example, an album by Love shows up under artist name Arthur Lee and Love despite the fact that all metadata are assigned to Love for artist and album artist.
I see I can go to settings and choose Prefer Roon of Prefer File for different metadata fields but if I choose prefer file then will that correct the issue at the expense of Roon displaying other relevant metadata that is not included in my tags?
Can I have Roon display Album Artists instead of artists, that way all ANV names are grouped together for a given artist in my library?
Been using JRiver for years and got everything tagged with keywords to display in a well organized fashion, but seeing weird anomalies like an individual band member being credited as an artist in my library when all the releases are assigned to the name of the band is throwing me off.
Which Mother album ? I see 6 where Bunk Gardner is credited.
How does your JRiver Artist tag look ?
Roon sources its metadata (as far as we know) from 2 sources , AllMusic (Tivo) and MusicBrainz.
What shows is only as good as the source. Sometimes odd credits pop up but on investigation prove that the credit is correct.
There is a support section specifically for metadata where any REAL anomalies are reported back to source for correction
Roon can often override your tags - this is Mothermania credited to The Mothers of Invention but my JRMC tags set Frank Zappa. You can see that the primary artists are all the band members , Roon displays the AlbumArtist tag as the the Mothers
The best bet is even if your tagging is superb to let Roon control the visuals , anything you really object to you can edit . It makes life much easier especially with a big local library
As to why Roon selected one primary artist over another , I don’t know , maybe you changed a setting ? Mine shows 4 x Mothers , 1 x Reuben and the Jets and one as Frank Zappa (Hot Rats Sessions)
I do not fully understand the logic at work here though I do understand that Roon sources from reputable databases to get the many credits that it displays. I guess my point is that yes, Bunk Gardner does play on Mothermania, but he also plays on half a dozen other Mothers Of Invention records in my library and those records do not appear under his artist listing. And actually my primary point is that the artist or album artist should correspond with the artist name that appears prominently on the cover and/or spine of a CD or LP, not with randomly selected band members, not even soloists unless the soloist is prominently credited on the cover of the release as with classical releases.
I can take the time to go through all the Artist listings on Roon to find all these similar instances. Once having done so, what is the best way to correct them in MY library. I surely don’t care how Roon does things and displays things in the library as long as there is a relatively painless way to modify the listings that are not to my liking, just as I did in JRiver by assigning Album Artist Sort tags to all files in every folder in my library, so that Cale, John is located in “C”, Alice Cooper is located in “A”, Winged Victory For The Sullen, A is located in “W”, etc.
Is the simplest solution to go into Roon settings and select Prefer File instead of Prefer Roon for all those data fields that are displaying anomalous info?
And thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my questions.
Basically, my preference when I go to the Artists view, what I want to see is Album Artists, i.e. the main artist to whom the album is attributed. If Roon were giving me multiple artist entries for Mothers of Invention albums and listing them as Frank Zappa or the Mothers of Invention or even Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention it makes sense to me. It does not make sense to me to have an Artist listing in my library for Bunk Gardner since I own no solo albums credited to his name (if he even did any) and when I want to look for recordings in my library I look for the album artist. If I wanted to dive into the sea of information and explore the many different albums Gardner has played on as a sideman, I can do that, that’s what’s great about Roon.
How can I best change settings in Roon so that Artists displayed in my library are limited to the conventional artist or album artist attributions? I don’t need to have an artist entry in my local library for side players and band members.
Honestly, I don’t know. Just go and try it out – if you don’t like the result, revert the setting.
PS: Prefer means just that, a preference. It doesn’t mean ignore everything else. So for example a given track has a (one) titel only and you can prefer which source (Roon, File, Edit) to use. As by your example, there can be many Artists, preferring File will just ensure that all the artists from file tags are used (potentially no conflation being made) but artists “missing” from the file but present in Roon may still be added. See also:
Well, I changed most library preferences including Artist to Prefer File, waited for the library to update and looked and still my Artists include Bunk Gardner and Arthur Lee & Love, despite the tags I made when I originally purchased or ripped the files. What I want is an library view of artists that matches the album artist tag of my files and it appears that is not possible in Roon.
If you want to have an artist entry in my library for Bunk Gardner by virtue of his being a credited performer on many albums (not just the one that Roon ascribes to him), might as well have artist entries for every other band member or session player.
There are a lot of wonderful aspects to Roon, but maybe I’ve got too used to interacting with my local library in the JRiver software environment and so things that seem out of place bother me. Great to be able to see all kinds of info related to any release in my collection that goes far beyond the metadata tags, that’s for sure. I’ve got another twelve days to decide if this is something I want to pay for.
Thanks to those who’ve stepped up to offer guidance and support.
I ended my trial subscription to Roon after four days. May give it another try in the future when I have the patience to work on getting it to display and manage my local library the way I want (at present that purpose is better served by JRiver). Roon would be worth having just for the enhanced Qobuz experience but I have to decide if it’s worth another $15 a month on top of my annual Qobuz subscription. Thanks anyway, for your response.
