In this particular case and most likely all others with the same preconditions (identified album / identified tracks but some composers missing) the import settings will probably not make a difference. I had a look at allmusic: https://www.allmusic.com/album/la-llorona-mw0000359818 … Roon insists on what it knows from there: some tracks don’t have a composer. So no composition. No matching.
It’s once again incomplete metadata from allmusic. But maybe Roon could change how this is handled when one adds missing information. Ignoring it seems kinda rude…
I can produce @BrianW’s scenario. I have two roon’s one for travel and one for home and I struggle to keep the library settings correlated. I was puzzled myself why I was seeing different behaviours on the road and at home.
In this identified album only two tracks have composers. I added “Dusty in Memphis” to track 1. I have one performance and no metadata and I get this:
I have actually posted this trick several times but it didn’t seem to work for anyone and that even included me. But I think in hindsight I hadn’t realised how many dependencies there are between the library settings and after fiddling about with it I had accidentally switched off a useful work around. The problem of course with workarounds like this is that there are no guarantees it will continue to work in future releases. I will be interested to see how everyone else gets on with this.
Apologies, I should have been clearer… I meant the album Dusty in Memphis by Dusty Springfield.
However, that’s not to detract from your putative work round. So, I tried changing my import settings - no change unfortunately. I couldn’t change the WORK tags as I was dealing with a Tidal album.
The WORK tag is the crucial step. I don’t have a TIDAL account. I thought it was possible to edit TIDAL albums as long as they have been imported to your library?
Hmm, this trick should probably not get applied on a global level because preferring file grouping will have a negative impact on classical music. I’ve tried it with my test album and indeed it worked. I’m not sure how it impacts association with tracks which have additional metadata though. My example had none for already identified compositions so I couldn’t verify.
Personally I have file multi-part grouping set globally in a large classical library and I find it works very well for my needs. It only kicks in when you have set the WORK/PART tags and doesn’t when you haven’t which is exactly what I want.
But I have been doing this on and off for a long time and I think it works just as well setting multi-part grouping on an album by album basis. I just cannot remember.
PS. I have just tested on the basis of album by album setting of prefer file multi-part grouping and it works just as well.
I have a couple of versions of that album locally and they have all the composer and composition metadata for all tracks fully populated from roon. There are no gaps and I have none of the composer tags populated in my files, for example. So roon found it all.
I don’t have a Tidal account but I regularly see comments that the metadata is very patchy and this looks like what you are experiencing. Anyway, it is academic if you cannot set the WORK tag because then the only workaround that I am aware of is unavailable. Shame
I think this is something everyone is going to need to make their own mind’s up on. With my particular library and my particular tagging habits I find exactly the opposite settings work better and involve less effort.
So what I do is I set file multi-part globally and revert to roon on a case by case (album) basis when something has gone wrong to see if roon can do better. It’s the mirror of what you advise. Over a period of 18 months I have tried both ways and I know what works for me. Having said that I would much prefer it if i could rely on roon defaults but that is not my experience and I have given up on that some time ago.
We can both give many counter examples I am sure. At the end of the day it is going to be a judgement call which way works best for each individual library.
OK. I still think it was worth mentioning what impact this setting may have. If there wouldn’t be a properly identified Creation in your library the example wouldn’t look as good as it does. So if you’ve got only a single instance of a work / composition you will loose potentially available rich metadata if set to file, I think.
My conclusion for today: what this all boils down to is insufficient metadata from Roon. Will this ever change without giving users a better tool set within Roon to adjust stuff? I doubt it. Also, I doubt that we’ll get those tools for making the connections Roon and its major metadata provider missed. Now I hope I’ll be proven wrong.
Not at all. I am basing a lot of this on the day to day experience of working on a small travel roon that is about 15% of my home library so I have lot’s of examples where I only have one composition. I can give an example even in the same box.
I hope it works out for you. I know this has been driving you crazy for a while but please take into account it is just a work around. It seems to work because of dependencies between library settings that were never designed with this in mind. To my knowledge this has worked since at least release 1.3 but there are no guarantees it will work in future releases. I think roon are a little skeptical and need convincing why this sort of functionality is useful and should be provided in a more product standard way.
happy too soon
it worked for a couple of albums. but then i started looking around in the library, trying to solve missing tracks i could remember… it does not work…
yes. i agree with you:
yes, i can say that roon’s worth for me relies 95% in cross links between performances.
-as i used to tag files… added infos from roon are not so important. especially as they are often wrong
-bios and reviews… i don’t care.
i still would like any kind of comment/help by someone of the @staff@support
You must set all the library options including the prefer file multi-part and WORK tag. Do you have an example of one that doesn’t work and the library options you have set?
After playing with this some more: I think to keep the rich metadata it may be necessary to change from Roon to file after identification. Not sure yet…
These are entirely reversible options. Whatever works for you. I’ve never had much success with roon automation so I tend to prefer starting from a “file” default.
