Roon radio silliness

Don’t get me wrong - I love Roon Radio for re-introducing me to old music, but tonight’s selection is beyond belief. We start with Beches Brew (Scandi folk-jazz)… RR decides that should be followed by Eagles One of these Nights, then Rip Rig and Panic Liars Shape up or Ship out then Crowded House She Goes On then Miroslav Vitous Epilogue then Springsteen She’s the One and now Michael Brecker Cardinal rule. All good tracks, all in my library - but where is the rationale?

There is no way to know. And even the person who knows, probably doesn’t know.

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So it seems. But I do not pay a ;lot of money for a total mystery.

There’s an interesting phenomenon you used to hear a lot about when Apple introduced the iTunes Genius and iPod Shuffle. People would swear that somehow the Apple algorithm was reading their minds, offering exactly the next song they would have picked if they’d been dj’ing. It probably helps if you’re stoned, too.

When I look ahead at a queue in iTunes, I find a lot of songs I’d just as soon rather not hear. For me, Roon Radio’s algorithm does a good job of keeping the mood/tone/cluster going, but there are still a lot of misses. But maybe that’s just part of the discovery process.

It’s not a total mystery. But you can’t predict exactly which song will play. The algorithm is proprietary.

If you start with something that’s obviously part of a genre you’ll get days of that type of music without problem. Sarah Vaughan for example will lead to hours of great vocal jazz.

If you start with something more niche it’s much more likely to result in a patchwork of genres and styles.

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Sorry Andy. Thanks for the reply but the tracks I listed are certainly not the same genre. Obviously it is something VERY clever if not totally random - but why will Roon not give us a hint ? I presume Roon is funded by us subscribers and not lizards/(I am not allowed the name that I used but it rhymes with frump).

I was suggesting that since you started with an unusual genre Scandi folk-jazz you will not get the smooth Roon Radio experience you would get if you started with Frank Sinatra, I found the same thing with electronica, it doesn’t even just stick to electronica, I can’t tell why it picks the tracks it picks but it hunts through all kinds of genre.

I’ve come to accept that it’s still not smarter than me about my own music collection but it’s smart enough that I can trust it if I give a well known starting point.

Do you find that it’s better if you start with Pink Floyd or Van Morrison or Sammy Davis Junior for example ? :slight_smile:

I was wondering this myself tonight and decided that when it can’t pick tracks from streaming services the rationale goes out of the window. My listening went Sophie Hunger to Dido to Hollywood Undead then Avenged Sevenfold!

Mine’s just nailed a 20 track playlist of techno recorded from vinyl over the last 3 months. I would struggle to do as well, so I have proved myself wrong about my earlier electronica comment.

I do still experience some random radio sessions. I’m only playing from my own library because there’s so much there to discover. That does include quite a few Tidal favourites though.

For me I find that sometimes, with a genre bender, like alt folk country blues rocker Lucinda Williams, it works really well getting me a cluster of artists with tendrils to her from some direction or other. Other times though, e.g. Neil Young, and it just wants to serve me people from their decade, as if it was saying “OK Boomer” at me all night (and when I am Gen X!), when it could be going, “Oh, do you like Josh Ritter, too, then?” or something

I guess it’s similar with artists like Sinatra. You’ll get a lot of the big names but less the Helen Merrills etc. I really don’t mind it myself, I like to change tack so frequently that a couple of hours autopilot is about as much as I need. I really appreciate the radio taking over when an album finishes and it will often be a few tracks before it makes me want to put on another album, so it’s working fine for me.

I would like to be able to use it for background music at gigs, when I’m busy relaxing with the band :). I couldn’t trust it that far at the moment.