hi, I am new to Roon. I knew before hand it merges all of my local library files with Tidal. Besides going to a particular album manually and setting a default, is there a way to open and view only the local library?
Also, if a change is made, does Roon scan and update on the fly? or do I need to apply a setting on the Roon core app? thanks
in album (or track view), focus, inspector, storage locations, click once on tidal if it’s green.
Yes, if your storage is directly attached to your core (i.e, if your files are on the same computer Roon is running on). If they’re on a NAS, it can be hit and miss.
So, I’ll give you a quick answer, and others will likely say it better.
If you want to, you can use the Focus feature to create a view of just your local library (eg, via Focus->Inspector->Storage Locations), and bookmark it. You can also do that for subfolders in your local library. You can then do what’s called “bookmarking” that focus, and then you’ll have it.
In practice, I find a much easier thing to do is simply to browse my library, and enable the file format view in albums (doesn’t work on phones, only on tablet / desktop remotes) and then my eye knows which ones have the Tidal or Qobuz icon. It can get a little more complicated, because what’s shown is the default value - and the default is I beleive the best bitrate, so for albums that I have streaming in my library AND a local copy, streaming will often default over my local redbook unless I reset it manually.
But in reality, I stopped caring as much. I love my local library but some masters are better in MQA or hi-res streaming. If I prefer the streaming version, I’ll add it and make it the default. And if I prefer my local file, I just won’t add it. then I’m psyched that it’s intermingled. If I really want to browse my library I use the bookmarked focus I mentioned - but I find myself nearly never using it. I much more often use Discover - which means I’m digging up music I hadn’t listened to in a while, or Radio, which means I’m discovering new music.
So short answer is yes, you can do what you’re saying - but I’m predicting you won’t do it much.
And yes, changes are picked up immediately UNLESS your music is on a NAS, in which case it’s touch and go. Many folks just find themselves buying USB SSDs to keep music local to the ROCK/NUCLEUS and keeping backups on the NAS.
Thanks for the explanations, will definitely check it out
and yes music is local , stored on the same pc as the core software. thanks
Just wanted to clarify, maybe you already understand if so, then ignore 
, but your Roon library and the vast content of tidal are two different things. Tidal content can be added to your library and then it would be counted as “in the Roon library”.
The distinction is important because there are options available for content “in your library” that is not available for content “not in your library”.
Yes, I think where I was getting confused was, when I was going to Artists and/or Albums section, it seems to match what I already had in my local pc library and add the equivalent Tidal album versions. I thought maybe only my Tiday “Favorites” would show up. Im starting to get it.
Where are the options you mention for content “in the library” vs “not in the library” thanks
Well, for example, content in your library can be edited. You can add a heart, add picks to tracks, even rename the album if you want.
oh i see, ok thank you. Ill have to continue playing around with it, looks nice so far.
one more question, does the “Discover” work with the songs I play, or is it based on what I have in my library or a mix of both? thanks
So this is one persons observation - I think it is everything in your library (which as pointed out above, includes everything in your local storage plus what you’ve added from streaming services to your library).
It is not tunable - there are no preferences or knobs - I think it prefers albums / genres where it has better information, but that could just be me interpreting why some things seem to show up more than others do. It is by far one of my favorite features of Roon, and does the best I’ve seen at replicating / simulating / approximating what it’s like to flip through a stack of CDs or a shelf of LPs. It’s not the same, but that’s kind of what I missed so incredibly much. It’s the start of 70% of my listening currently, and one of the reasons I put up with tuning my network.
Others hate it and don’t use it. 
just a remark to comments here in this thread that new music files stored on a NAS are not instantly recognized by roon. This might be true if your core is running on a different machine. I installed my roon core on a Synology NAS and there the automatic recognition of new files in the library works perfectly.
Please also note that the upcoming new OS for Synology NAS (DSM 7) is currently not allowing to install the roon core due to security reasons but it seems this is already focused on by roon dev team.