Two takes of same song seen as duplicates

Support
1

Content you’re reporting an issue with

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Benny Goodman; Birth of Swing (1935 - 1936) 3CD Set, released1991 by BMG

Have you made any edits to this content in Roon?

No

Is the album identified in Roon?

No

Is this content from local files, TIDAL, or Qobuz?

Local

Screenshot of import settings

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Description of the issue

Tracks on discs that are two takes of the same song (both file names & meta data have take numbers in song title) are see as non-matching tracks. It highlights a mismatch on track length, though my dbPowerAmp CD Ripper certified the tracks as matching AccurateRip database. This happens for several songs that had 2 takes. This part of a larger problem where Roon refuses to see the 3 discs as part of a single album.

mismatched tracks for multiple takes
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2

Hi @Michael_Arones,

Thank you for your post.

Rather than relying on file tags or track lengths for identification, Roon compares each album to canonical versions from its metadata providers, which include expected track order, disc numbers, and track durations. Your rips are accurate, but because Disc 1 contains two takes of several tracks with durations that differ from Roon’s reference metadata libraries for the 1991 BMG release, the system separates it from Discs 2 and 3 and flags the tracks as non-matching.

Once you force Roon (for this particular album) to either prioritize file-based tags or a unified metadata identity, Roon will group everything correctly and stop flagging alt takes as mismatched.

For this particular multi-disc set, is each disc stored in its own subfolder in the underlying file structure?

In the Roon Album Editor (album page → three dots → edit), do you have everything set to Prefer File?

We’ll keep a lookout for your response and proceed from there. Thanks!

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Hi @Michael_Arones,

We wanted to check in and see if you were able to run through the above info from @connor - let us know, thank you! :folded_hands:

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Thanks.
I have (as suggested) changed the metadata preference to the “prefer file” for all items (they do not have one for track length). It did not cause the 2-albums grouping in Roon. Is there an extra step to cause it to reevaluate the grouping after forcing the preferences?
btw it is odd that whenever I tried to do a fresh start by deleting the files in the monitored directory (disappears from the Roon display of albums) and then copy the files back into that directory, it does not tag it as newly added, but instead remembers when it was first added and uses that for its position in the By Date Added sort sequence.

Prior to importing the albums files into my Roon server, I placed the files for each disc in its own folder underneath a common folder that has a folder name matching the name of the 3-disc album (in the metadata). I have done this with many multi-disk sets without problem.
see the below images:

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5

Also, just noticed that sometimes “The Birth of Swing” had “Of” instead of “of”, so I changed that to “of” everywhere in the metadata and file names.
Still grouped as 2 albums, except the Roon album that only includes Disc 3 is now seen as newly added, while the Roon album with Discs 1 & 2 still is positioned back at the original add sequence position (still remembers the old add date?).

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Odd that even after I have set my metadata preferences all to be from the files and saved the results, when I go back into metadata preference for the album, the preference settings have disappeared. Maybe I don’t understand how that preference interaction is supposed to work & be used by Roon …
In any case, I re-did the data preferences for the Roon album that has Discs 1 & 2 and it now appears as the most recently added, next to the Album with only Disk 3.
But still not merging into a single Album with the tracks from all three discs.

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Good day @Michael_Arones !

Can you please zip this album and upload it to our Media Storage so we can have a look at it and try to group it ourselves if it has problems, and let you know if there are some exact steps to do.

Thanks!

Regards.

8

Hi @Michael_Arones,

Two quick clarifying questions:

If you navigate to Album Editor screen once more and click on the Edit Album tab, what do you have selected under “Multi-Part Composition Grouping” down at the bottom of that page?

Can you share a screenshot here?

Concerning the Date Added discrepancy: RoonServer retains a database entry for the object even after you deleted it from your library, so unless you fully dissociate the newly imported album from the one you deleted, it will “remember” the first import date. You’ll need to edit the Import Date in the Track Editor dialog window (click on the three dots for this track in the browser → Edit).

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Here is the screen shot for the album that contains Disc 3 only

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And here is the screen shot for the Album that contains Discs 1 & 2

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They are set to prefer file, as previously instructed .

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Good day @Michael_Arones !

I hope you’re doing well today.

I have just downloaded your album internally and tried to add it.


Despite the fact that some tracks are marked as duplicates you can still manage to play both takes of it once identified.

Can you please clarify what do you expect to see as the final goal ?

Thanks!

Regards.

11

This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

12

Hi! What’s not quite right with Roon?

· Music won’t play or issues with my library

Music won’t play or issues with my library

· Local files won't import or appear

Tell us what's going on

· This is a reopening of the same problem reported in the **previous report of the same name**.
Apparently the holidays caused a pause the expired the previous thread. See the previous thread for the ton of uploaded information regarding the situation.

The **ultimate objective was** to get Roon to recognize that all 3 disks were part of a single "Benny Goodman: The Birth of Swing" album 3-disk set,rather than:2 disks being in one in one album and the 3rd disk being in a separate album.
At an Album view level. both Albums (generated by import of the 3 disk set) are indistinguishable; I have to open each to see which disks (recognized by the songs listed) are in each Album.
Trying to add them as three Albums (with Disc 1, Disc 2, & Disc 3 appended to the Album names), which not really what I want or what anybody intends, also did not work - present a whole host of other problems.

**I thought that the described mismatching problems might be the underlying cause**.And created the report focused on these problems rather than at what I viewed as the undesirable final behavior.

The last response stated that while the underlying problem of mismatching tracks was not solved (nor the failure to properly merge the disks as one album), the individual songs could still be played successfully. [Problem? What problem?]
I don't remember receiving notice of that and only discovered the problem report closed today.

By that logic, no problem in Roon is valid as long as individual tracks will still play.

We could just forget about any additional functionality in Roon, as regards presentations By-Album. ;-)


* What is the issue with the records for this album in whatever database Roon uses,
* or what software glitch is involved,
* or what workflow procedure error did I make,
* or what procedure can I undertake that will correct this problem?

Tell us about your home network

· see previous report " Two takes of same song seen as duplicates"

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Hi @Michael_Arones,

Thanks for your patience and persistence — you’re right that this was never a playback issue, and we’re sorry for the frustration caused by the earlier closure. We should have seen this through with you.

Reviewing your earlier responses, the most likely cause is that Roon is identifying one of the discs as a separate album because the CD-level subfolders repeat the full album title. In some cases, that repetition can interfere with how Roon determines that the discs are subordinate to a single album object during identification.

While Roon fully supports multi-disc sets stored under a single parent folder, it expects the disc folders themselves to be clearly subordinate (for example, CD1, CD2, CD3). When each subfolder repeats the full album name, Roon can interpret those folders as separate album candidates, which is how you can end up with Discs 1+2 grouped together and Disc 3 split off, even though the albums appear identical at first glance. Because of this, we generally don’t recommend structures like the one below:

Music/Miles Davis - The Complete Columbia Album Collection/
 Miles Davis - The Complete Columbia Album Collection CD1/
 01-01 Track.flac
 01-02 Track.flac
 Miles Davis - The Complete Columbia Album Collection CD2/
 02-01 Track.flac
 02-02 Track.flac

This layout often works, and it explains why many of your other box sets import correctly, but it does leave room for occasional misidentification — and this appears to be one of those cases.

If you haven’t already tried it, we recommend renaming the subfolders to a simple disc format:

Benny Goodman - The Birth of Swing (1935–1936)/
 CD1/
 CD2/
 CD3/

After renaming, move the album out of the watched folder (or disable and re-enable the storage location), then reintroduce it so Roon performs a clean import pass.

Please let us know how this goes.

16

I renamed the sub-folders (one for each disc: Disc1, Disc2, & Disc 3).

The Birth of Swing (1935–1936)/
 Disc 1/
 Disc 2/
 Disc 3/

Roon still splits this into two separate Roon “Albums” (as before), but now is also showing a 3rd “Album” that only has a single song.
The is the first time that I’ve seen Roon create a one track album for a set of CDs.

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Hi @Michael_Arones,

Apologies for the delay and if I’ve glazed over this - but can you also test out the above again, but this time, remove the album from the watched folder, perform a library clean up (you may want to make a fresh backup before this) and then reintroduce the album back into Roon?

Let me know if that changes any of the behavior. Thank you!

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How long should it take to do a “library cleanup” with 2,200 albums residing on the Nucleus One provided internal storage?
Just for planning purposes …

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Library clean up removes releases from the database, so it should take seconds not minutes.

20

Thanks for the advise. I need to add a task of “Library Cleanup” to my workflow for each & every time that I delete an album to make adjustments before re-adding.

I still see two Roon “Albums”. Some additional detail:

The single track “Album” has track 2 from Disc 1.
When doing an Identify-Album operation & choosing the correct album, it shows me that Roon thinks that track matches track 2 on Disc 2 (but then why is it showing the name for Disc 1 track 2 instead of Disc 2 track 2?).
If I force the metadata preference to prefer file, it then displays the name for Disc 2 Track2, though still isolated in its own Roon “Album”

The other Roon “Album” lists all tracks in the 3-disc album, except for Disc 2 Track 2, which is missing in that “Album”
Also, in the almost-complete “Album”, starting at the last track on disc 2, it list 4 instances of the track.
This listing of 4 Roon “tracks” per real track continues until partway through Disc 2, at which point it starts listing 16 Roon “tracks” per real track, and then starts showing even more (24) instances for each track.
I understand that can happen if the folder hierarchy (with correct file naming) and file metadata is not carefully setup for Roon software to properly process.
But I have reviewed everything (including metadata via mp3tag) and do not see any issues.

Any other suggestions? Any more info that I can provide?