I hope someone can point me in the right direction to fix the issue i have.
I am using Roon1.8, only local ripped files so no streaming services.
I recently ripping a 11 CD-box 'the art of Beaux Arts Trio by Decca (sold many years ago by the Dutch newspaper NRC, see screenshot).
After ripping all CDs with Exact Audio Copy (EAC) one or two discs where not recognised by EAC so i added all the metadata in the Flac files myself. Attached the Haydn metadata screenshot
So far i did not make any edits in Roon, only using the metadata in the Flac files.
Roon did not recognise the CD-box (unidentified) but i was able the set the Metadata of all tracks in such a way that Roon recognises all CDs as a box and all tracks properly. Thanks to the Roon documentation on Metadata i was able to do this in the correct way!
However, for some reasons, a few composers seem not to be recognised because no picture of the composer is shown nor the overview about the composer. I check allmusic.com, and all composers are listed in allmusic.com with pictures and biography.
It is about the following unidentified composers (exactly the name i used in the metadata->composer attribute):
Joseph Haydn (also tried ‘Franz Joseph Haydn’ but same issue
Ned Rorem
David Baker
Charles Ives
George Rochberg
I have no other local files with compositions of these composers!
Just a cranky old guy comment about what we call a photo these days. This, of course, is NOT a photo of Haydn, but a portrait, as Haydn died almost 30 years before.Louis Daguerre invented photography.
Not sure at all if it will help, but I would download a free mp3 album of Joseph Haydn (simple search in google), and add it yo your library.
See if that makes any difference. If Joseph Haydn then shows up as a Composer in roon, complete teh test by removing your mp3 album, and see what happens then.
If you cannot identify the album then this often happens in roon. There are a lot of duplicate composers / artists which are not necessarily linked to the artist / composer proper and their pics / bios / discographies.
Try highlighting the compositions within roon and adding a composition credit (with a pic). Then delete the composer you don’t want. You can also merge the two composers which is what I often do to try and remove as many of these unwanted duplicates as possible.
If you cannot find a composer with a pic within roon you will have little choice but to add an album that roon can identify so that it populates your composer/artist databases properly. If you had a streaming service this is easily done but may be more difficult with just a local library if it is not very large or the composer / artist is more obscure.
Luckily, i have a CD with Haydn Symphonies which i did not had the time yet rip. Done that now and added it to Roon. This album was recognised by Roon and, as you expected, Haydn was found as composer.
I can now postulate the following theory:
If Roon does not recognise an album (assuming for now using local files only), and its Artists and Composers are new to the library (even if correctly defined in the metadate of the files), Roon will not make an attempt to find them in the Roon ‘central database’.
This happened to Haydn and the other composers i mentioned . In addition, all the other composers and Artists that are only in the metadata of unidentified albums are also not recognised.
This is for me a surprising behaviour. I would expect that Roon tries to find Artists and Composers in any album, identified or unidentified.
I don’t follow: "Add the metadata as tags to the files as well as you can. Before you import the album, ensure that you first add albums to the library … ".
What i do is, rip the CD, check/correct the metadata with mp3tag. If ok, i move the folder to the area where Roon find all my albums. Is that the same?
Thanks for your reply. I replied to Dirk de Taey already and i came to the conclusion that any new artist or composer (not present in the local library) in an unidentified album will be marked as unidentified.
So you must have identified album with the new composer/artist to get them identified.
I noticed that i can add Artists to an album manually but the list seems to include artists in the local library.
Is there another way to solve this then buying an album with the composers an hope it gets identified?
As said, you can download mp3 albums for free, and delete them afterwards.
Disclaimer: many roon versions ago that I have tried this
Another way youcan explore is to register an account in Qobuz for pontially purchasing albums. No need to subscribe a streaming plan for that.
I only do not know if in Roon, you can actually use that account (long time ago it worked, but I fear that has been deactivated). Does not hurt to try.
Importing into the library = moving it to Roon’s watched folder if it’s files, or otherwise adding to the library from a streaming service
However as you found with the first Haydn, it may not be sufficient. Roon must be able to identify the album or there must already be other already-identified albums in the library (most easily from a streaming service) where the proper artist entry is already credited. Else it will create a duplicate, empty artist entry
