Well, it’s no better just using Genres coming from Roon’s metadata. Perhaps the fault lies in the Tidal metadata of the Handel opera? It’s a known album in Roon, but GIGO will still apply…
I think Roon is interpreting Roundabout as a Classic Rock song and simply playing other Classic Rock. There may be a need to find a proggy subgenre and shuffle that if you want something a bit more targeted. Since others found the prior version of Radio to be too restricted, the only way to please both crowds would be with some sort of sliders.
My guess is this is something Roon considers proprietary and they won’t say…
Somehow Geoff i was not picturing (or better: reading you) you as a guy that would use ‘WTF’ 
I’ve been corrupted by the youth of today, yer Honour…
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It was definitely more targeted with Roon 1.0, and I preferred it that way… I shouldn’t have to listen though a Lou Reed song ever - and especially not when desiring to hear songs similar to Roundabout.
To be fair, Radio started a couple nights ago after I played Joni Mitchell. It took me through a nice journey through songs that were very much similar. I’m not sure why progressive rock is matching more poorly.
Sure is - but they’re not at all similar to Roundabout.
Roon just followed Death Row by Chris Stapleton with the Suite #4 for Cello by Bach. next up is Grant Green, Moon River.
Great example showing why I argued that Radio 2.0 seem random. Thanks for posting this.
I much prefer the new Radio. The previous iteration was unlistenable to me due to repetitiveness. I usually felt like I could predict where it was going next…
Although it seems as though some users almost WANT it to be predictable and narrowly focused.
This is music, not investment banking…the fun is in the exploration and the unexpected.
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I think part of the problem is that in everyday English a lot of the words being used to describe the radio experience have quite broad overlapping meanings that are easy to stretch. I could imagine that becoming a problem in a computer algorithm with the meanings becoming fixed in unintended ways.
For example, rather like a real radio, the perfect virtual DJ for me randomises a play list whilst repeating moods, BPM, genres and styles in an unpredictable way for a predictable length of time.
I cannot see any way round that except by giving some user control about how wide the playlist diverges against some parameters from the seed. I could imagine also a picklist where a professional DJ had already “balanced” the parameters and this was applied to your library. Does Spotify already do something like that?
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aKa Curated lists. Songza used to be the best with playlists for moods, activities, or a combination of both. I used to love the “3PM Friday Afternoon” channel.
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Some simply want “similar” to actually mean “similar”. If Radio is meant to just be a random journey through a music library with no rhyme or reason Roon should use different words. Instead of the indicating “Playing songs similar to Roundabout” they should indicate “Playing songs similar to Roundabout, well sort of but not really, but the fun is in the exploration!”
I wonder if the repetitiveness is a function of library size - particularly with respect to the song that starts Radio.
It wasn’t.
Can you offer an explanation for why you say that? I can recall the previous journey through “songs similar to Roundabout”, and it took me through my many albums from King Crimson, Genesis, ELP, etc. I have pretty much the entire discography of each. But what would have happened had I only had a disc or two of each?
I’ll grant you that at times Radio 1.0 would just get stupid. For some reason it kept going back to “Thick as a Brick”. I ended up deleting album that from my library. So maybe that’s what you’re getting at. So obviously improvements were needed. But as I wrote in my original post, they took it too far. It would be nice if we had the choice to dial it back.
My library is huge with lots of depth in most genres and sub genres, the pre 1.4 iterations of radio were still nauseatingly repetitive and somewhat predictable. It’s taking a few wrong turns now but it’s imminently more listenable than what came before it. I’m sure the Roon team will fine tune it as they continue to refine and enhance its capabilities.
“Roundabout” IS Classic Rock and so “Thunder Road”, both were played back to back on the local FM Rock Radio station back in the day. Perhaps Roundabout is the wrong song to start the seed. Try “Close to the Edge” instead.
I agree with Daniel. Classic Rock is an odd genre, crossing quite a few other genres. Album Rock is similar. It is possible to batch delete unwanted genres from all albums (click on the genre, show all albums, select All, Edit Album, Genre delete) if they are leading Radio into strange selections. I’m not too fussed about those connections in my own library.
The Classical/Non-Classical division feels like the kind of separation that should be more strictly enforced. But what about Classical Crossover ? We’re starting to prescribe things like “don’t give weight to genre x unless the seed also has genre y”. Possible of course, and I think the Classical/Non-Classical area needs some refinement along those lines.
Radio 1.0 used to be smarter and more discriminating than that. All I’m asking for is a return in that direction. If I just wanted random by the broad genre of classic rock, there are dumber products that’ll do that for me for free. Roon used to put its wealth of metadata to use to give me better than just random play through classic rock.
Interesting that “Roundabout” led me to Lou Reed and eventually to “The Revealing Science if God” from Tales from Topographic Oceans from Yes. I pity the Lou Reed fan who would get taken to that song! That should never be deemed similar to “Perfect Day” or even “Thunder Road”.
As far as picking a different song to start Radio, most times that I let Radio gets involved is when it picks up on its own after I’ve just finished listening to an album I selected. I love how Radio allowed me to stay with that same listening theme. It was exactly what justified the cost of Roon (for me).
I really liked how Radio 1.0 took me through my library of Christian music. If Radio started with Christian Contemporary, it stayed in vicinity of that. But if it started with Christian Rock, it stayed with vicinity of that. Now with Radio 2, secular songs are thrown in.
I can’t understand why those who have posted here preferring Radio 2 won’t acknowledge that it’s in need of fix. Above we have an example of Radio determining that Bach is similar to a song by a country music artist.
I agree. It is the leap from Bach to Brittney Spears which bothers me. Although, I can see the desire for keeping it all Prog if that is what you want. But at that point, I would just select the Prog Genre and choose Shuffle.