I listen to Qobuz through Roon. I have noticed that when artist have the same name they are often listed together erroneously in the same Qobuz entry. Does Roon just rely on a computer or are there actually people there that edit the metadata? Jazz greats pianist Bill Evans, arranger Oliver Nelson, keyboardist Bob James for example all have other artists with the same name within their Qobuz entry. This is annoying and slipshod. I have noticed may other metadata mistakes in my first year of Roon but these artist with same names are the most egregious and easily fixed for anyone who knows music off he top of their head. Thanks.
Showing some screenshots of what you mean would help otherwise it’s a bit vague.
Does anybody at Roon acknowledge or respond to customer comments???
A screen shot is not necessary. Just go to the artist page on Qobuz of the three artists I mention above and you will see that these pages list completely different artists that happen to have the same common name.
Anybody want to also check James Taylor, Tom Jones and Andy Williams for fun?
When you say “within their Qobuz entry” what do you mean exactly?
Hi @Respe,
We’ll look into this. Can you please provide some screenshots of albums that are incorrectly assigned?
Thanks!
It is difficult for me to give you a screenshot since my Roon core does not have an effective email program and there are too many same name errors for me to take pictures of anyway.
In any event, discovering these is quite easy. For example, go to Bill Evans the jazz pianist on Qobuz. You will see 112 listed main albums. Below these it lists “With Miles Davis” etc. The third entry says “With Bill Evans” . These appear to be all albums by the saxophonist Bill Evans not the pianist and the pianist could not have also played on these albums since he passed away in 1980 and the earliest of the saxophonist’s albums is listed as 1983. The reviews of these albums under “With Bill Evans” also clue you in that these have nothing to do with the pianist Bill Evans.
Go to pianist top result Bob James. There are 49 main albums. Go to the second page of these 49. On the bottom row there are two albums (3 and 5) by “cowboy” Bob James not the jazz pianist. These are titled “When the Darkness Falls” and “In the Words of a Song”. If Bob James the pianist also played on these with Bob James the cowboy, I’ll “eat my (cowboy) hat”.
Let’s do one more. Go to James Taylor the famous singer who sang “Fire and Rain.” Go to the section “Appearances” where 110 albums are listed. On the second page top row is an album by James “J” “T” Taylor entitled “Master of the Game”. This is obviously not James Taylor the pop/folk singer and I doubt the pop/ folk singer though versatile played or composed on this funk album; he’s just not a funky dude. Lastly go to “Production” for James Taylor which has 17 albums. The sixth album is by the James Taylor Quartet which as anybody knows who is a fan of acid jazz has nothing to do with the folk/pop James Taylor apart from the same name.
I could go on and on. I’ve seen mistakes with many others. Without being too sarcastic, I pay Roon in part to teach me about music not the other way around.
Someone there needs to check all common names and make sure the entries in Qobuz are not listed wrongly. If they do not know music, may I suggest the discographies listed in “All Music” and “Discogs”.
Thanks.
Since everybody seems to like screen shots, I took the time to get them. Hopefully Roon will improve.
Here is the wrong Bill Evans entry on Qobuz through Roon:
Here is “Cowboy” Bob James (third and fifth album) mixed up with keyboardist Bob James:
Here is funky James Taylor mixed up with Sweet Baby James Taylor:
Here is the the exciting James Taylor Quartet (Secret Agent Man) erroneously mixed in with Don’t Let me Be Lonely Tonight James Taylor as you can see by the last album in the shot:
Mixing up these artists with these common names is amateurish on the part of Roon especially since each of these is a major artist in his respective genre. With these kind of easy mistakes, one gets the feeling that Roon is run by a Bot rather than by people who love music!
Of course it’s run by an automated rules engine, how could they afford the people to do it.
As they get feedback from users they inform their metadata suppliers and tweak the rules.
Ged, you are way too charitable. Details matter for music fans, especially jazz and classical. I have used the Allmusic web site discographies for years for research and I have never seen a mix up of albums by different artists with the same name. I would presume that Allmusic has as much if not more data collected as Roon so preciseness can be done with the right diligence, attention and oversight. Thanks.