Roon Radio 1.6 Feedback Thread

I am thinking it might have been an “off” day for Roon Radio, as it has not reoccurred. The “pop” selections that were coming up were quite obscure. I also enjoy film music and would have been OK with selections from that genre - as it would have been in sync with the lighter classical music that I was originally listening to as background music.

I am starting to notice that Roon Radio throws up a lot of results from recent releases. Today most of Radio’s results were from 2018 releases.

Why is that? What would be the added value when the seed is say, fifties crooners or seventies rock? Why on earth would I want to get Michael Bublé after Frank Sinatra? Why doesn’t the algorithm throw any of the other Rat Pack members during a two hour radio stretch?

Another question: why no sonic similarity? Why does the algorithm throw a lot of uptempo tracks when you seed a slow song?

I think there’s still a ways to go.

It’s finding suggestions based on roon users usage so if a lot of people move from Frank to Michael then it will too.

Think so, Ged?

Not much of a learning algorithm then. Ah well…

We’ll see how it pans out. I expected more than just an applied statistics function.

It will learn over time but it’s basis is the accumulation of choices up to its release. As you and others feedback, like I did, that I don’t want Bublé after Sinatra it will learn.

Brian responded to a query about Playlist seeding Roon Radio in the main thread. The button shouldn’t be there and will be removed. Playlists are a bad seed choice because the selection criteria for inclusion in the playlist may have nothing to do with metadata available to the algorithm. For example, a playlist of red haired Artists is unlikely to give a meaningful Roon Radio experience. If a Playlist is genre or Artist based then better to seed off the genre or Artist directly.

I respectfully disagree. I don’t see people building up playlists of red-haired artists as a realistic use case. Most often I think playlists will be grouped thematically by musical elements: mood, key, mix of genre, etc… In situations like this I think it makes perfect sense to be able to seed the radio using a playlist. For example I have a Cookout playlist that consists of a mix of classic rock, country, reggae, and funk. Seeding off any single one of those genres, artists, or albums does not capture the full range of the playlist’s intentions. Prior to 1.6 I could seed off a playlist (albeit limited to my library) and I was generally quite happy with the results.

Perhaps a middle ground would be to allow people to choose a couple different seeds for the radio, even if they are restricted to the same type (genre, artist, etc…). A neat feature would be to make the radio work a la focus. Where you can narrow down your view of the library based on certain criteria and use that as the seed for the radio

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I used the new radio feature yesterday for the first time and I liked the results very much. I was listening to classic rock and let the radio feature do the work after a while. Besides a few tracks stored in my local library I was listening mostly to unknown or rarely heard tracks streamed from Qobuz. Very nice.

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I believe you can seed RR from a selection of multiple albums, but am not able to check for a few hours.

I don’t think so. Selecting multiple albums in album view just lets me shuffle not radio.

Roon knows nothing about the tempo/ sonics of songs it picks. It only knows about the genres assigned to the tracks (based on their album’s genre assignments) and the listening habits of its user base. These inform its Radio choices.

One day it may get smarter by analysing the underlying acoustics and using that to help inform its choices. As it is, it’s not bad though, but there’s always room for improvement. Machine learning is not a panacea for automagic playlisting.

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Waking up this morning and coming downstairs and yet again hearing Roon Radio softly playing in the background from the night before, I thought:

What about a timer for Roon Radio?

My request would be the reverse. I’d like more granular control of time frames. Example: If I feed Roon Radio “Pretty Ballerina” by The Left Banke, it doesn’t know that I’m interested in power pop and chamber pop across all time periods. Instead, it feeds me music from the decade of release, which I have no interest in.

Thanks,
austingonzo

OK - I guess I can’t seed from track, but should instead search Roon for genre Chamber Pop and then select Radio instead of Shuffle? That’s a pretty small list of artists and songs, though.

I could be wrong but it is my understanding that if you play a track and have Roon Radio enabled it will use the last track played as the seed. That is how it appears to be working for me using Roon with Tidal.

Just played Happy Together by The Turtles and Roon Radio played Rain On The Window by The Hollies from a Tidal album in my library next. Then moved on to Turn Of The Century by the Bee Gees which is from a Tidal album not in my library. Now playing Never Tell A Woman Yes by the Monkees from another Tidal album not in my library.

Sorry if I misunderstood what you wrote.

Tim

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If I seed from track, it stays in the time period of the track. If I seed from genre, it roams.

Thanks for clarifying. I’ll have to try seeding from a Genre.

Tim

Perhaps the Alarm Clock extension would suffice?

Why does Roon Radio still repeat certain tracks all the time? I appreciate that it now plays music from Tidal and Qobuz that is not in my library but it is still regularly repeating tracks. It used to be John Zorn/Fred Frith “Foetid Ceremony” but now it is Borah Bergman, “When Autumn Comes.”

Not sure if I am being asked to repost here or not but Roon Radio continues to repeat tracks. I love that it now plays music not in my library but would really love to see the repetition problem solved. Thanks.

Hi @cass_fisher,

I have moved both of your posts to the Roon Radio Feedback thread and you can discuss the issue here. I’m not sure if anyone else is seeing this behavior but can you specify what are you using as the seed (track/artist starting off)? Is this reproducible every time?

Thanks,
Noris