"Show library counts for recordings" not finding all versions of a song

[Bill_Terrell]

Roon Core Machine

NUC 8 (NUC8i5BEH), 8GB memory, 256GB NVMe M.2 storage, Roon Optimized Core Kit
Roon build: v2.0 build 1244

Networking Gear & Setup Details

NUC is ethernet connected to router

Connected Audio Devices

Number of Tracks in Library

number of tracks: 4963

Description of Issue

I have a number of songs with the same title by different artists on different albums.

I have “Show library counts for recordings” set to “yes” on all devices.

In the track listing for an album where I know other versions of a song exist, I get varying results in the column entry for library counts.
For some songs, Roon finds all of the songs with the same title; for other songs, Roon finds just some of the same-titled songs; for yet other songs, there is no count at all, even though I can see that this song exists on another album or albums.

When I do a listing by track of all albums/artists, all of the songs that have the same song title show up in correctly sorted order.

A similar posting from Apr. 2022 about classical music provided a solution which doesn’t work in this case.

As an aside, I will say that I am very, very careful about metadata.

Is there another setting I should be aware of? I am open to suggestions on how to make this feature work for all songs.

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@Bill_Terrell

for other songs, Roon finds just some of the same-titled songs; for yet other songs, there is no count at all, even though I can see that this song exists on another album or albums.

If a track is not included in the count as an additional recording, click the three-dot menu on the right of this track.

Does it contain a “Go to composition” entry like this, which is a track that has other recordings?

Or is it missing like this?

[Bill_Terrell]

Thanks for your quick reply.
Unfortunately, I got both conditions depending on which song I selected.

In the first case, I selected a song which only exists on one other album. I pressed the three dots and got the “Go to composition”. The ensuing screen only displayed the song I had just come from. When I tried the reverse, I simply got the drop down ending with “Edit”.

In the second case, I selected a song which exists on two other albums. I pressed the three dots and got the drop down menu ending in “Edit”. When I tried from each of the other albums, one album gave me “Go to composition” and the other gave me “Edit”.

Each time I clicked on the “Go to composition”, I got a screen with just the song I had come from.

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@Bill_Terrell

Unfortunately, I got both conditions depending on which song I selected.

If I understand your problem correctly, it’s because both of these conditions exist. Some songs/tracks are recognized by Roon as compositions and then they are counted as performances and listed in the counts. Some are not.

Sometimes it’s because a composer credit is missing from a track, then it helps to add one.
Sometimes with local albums (even if the tracks have composers) it helps to add a streaming version of the album and suddenly the tracks count as compositions.
Sometimes, it seems like nothing helps

See here for instance:

Roon not identifying duplicate tracks

Some tracks are simply not recognized as compositions by Roon and it’s a bit of a mystery what is necessary to make a track a composition if it isn’t. Adding a composer does not do it, for instance. Most likely, Roon only sees a composition when this metadata comes from the metadata services. Sometimes, I added a local album and tracks were not recognized as compositions, but then that changed after I added a streaming version to the library as well. But it does not always help. When a track i…

[Bill_Terrell]

Thank you for your clear and informative response. I had wondered if external, metadata services might have something to do with the library counts or whatever a “Composition” is supposed to be. Several of my albums whose songs are not “counted”, come from locally-produced CDs. Others come from LPs which I have digitized.
After following the link you provided, one wonders just what are the attributes of the “Composition” property?
I happily stand with others in asking Roon to provide a KISS workaround.

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

@Bill_Terrell

After following the link you provided, one wonders just what are the attributes of the “Composition” property?

Indeed one does, but I don’t think anyone ever found out for sure

One of my favorite artists doesn’t have great automatic metadata and in addition they have a huge output over several decades where songs get re-recorded a lot and often develop from home-spun sketches on 4-track to fully developed songs over the years, so tracking the performances of a composition would be a great tool to have.

It works in part but often not. Sometimes some songs in an album are compositions and others in the same album are not. I can’t figure out why So I have to use a “missing compositions” track tag to collect them, in case this gets ever fixed or I find out what to do…

[Bill_Terrell]

To test the “third-party” metadata repository theory (Allmusic or MusicBrainz), I spent some time putting together a bunch of metadata for some locally produced albums whose songs don’t have a “Composition” option and additionally don’t show up in the Library counts. Following the instructions on Allmusic.com, I sent this data off to be (eventually/hopefully) incorporated into their music database. At some point (probably after this thread is closed), I will have a chance to see if, all of a sudden, songs which are not currently included in the library count, get included. A long road.

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

Awesome, thanks! I guess the online metadata will always be incomplete, I don’t get why Roon doesn’t allow us to make a track a composition if we say so. (Or in fact, why any track that has a composer isn’t simply always a composition)

[Chris_Lischy (CJL)]

I agree with your last statement. Need that flexibility.

[Bill_Terrell]

I have an incomplete answer to the “third-party” metadata repository theory. Having Roon display accurate (local) library counts for recordings is not exclusively a function of that metadata residing on the AllMusic database. I have a number of albums with the same-named songs that exist on AllMusic yet still do not show up in the library count.
So, Suedkiez is correct in that there is an additional metadata component (or two) required, but undocumented, in order for local library counts to show up in the display. It seems that simply existing on the AllMusic database is not enough to guarantee an accurate count.
Sadly, the solution for local library counts is very simple - sorting and searching algorithms are well documented, easily implemented, and fast.