I’m new to Roon. I have many spoken word artists (and some music artists) that have no images associated with them. These artists are on valence eg Adam Buxton, Tolkien etc. But how can i link missing images to the ones on valence. Or what can I do to the metadata to help roon recognise the artist in question.
(moved to #support from #uncategorized). Welcome to the forum!
- Did you import these albums as local files or are they from streaming services?
- If they are local files:
- Are they identified by Roon (or does the album show “Unidentified” in the album info)?
- Was an album where this artist was credited already in your Roon library when you imported them?
- If you search for the artist name (with the magnifying glass top right), does it find the artist more than once, one with the artist picture (and possibly artist bio and other info) and one or more others without?
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These are local files. Hence why I can alter the metadata somewhat.
Aha, yes they are labelled unidentified.
If I search I just get the empty box with initals.
So clicking unidentified give me a lot of options. I really just want to be able to associate this with what is valance somehow. I’ve come from kodi where ive got a rigorous setup re filing and imagery. But I created a very bespoke setup that enhanced my skin. Roon doesnt really work with my current images. Eg if photoshopped things to be left aligned more or fit certain size ratios.
The thing is this: If an artist exists properly as a known artist in Roon (e.g., may have a Valence picture, a biography, and/or is credited on other albums), but no album where they are credited is already in your library, then Roon often (or always?) creates a duplicate artist when you import the local files. I think this can occur even if the newly imported album is identified, but definitely if it is unidentified.
This duplicate artist will show under the name as it appears in the file tags, but the artist entry won’t be linked to the proper artist that Roon knows. I.e. it is just like a different, new artist, that happens to have the same name as the existing one:
- It won’t have an artist picture from Valence
- The artist metadata (like birth date etc) is empty
- The other works of the real artist won’t show in the duplicate artist’s discography.
The same issue will happen if you edit album/track credits in Roon and add an artist credit - if you don’t yet have an existing, identified album in the library yet, where this artist is already credited, then Roon won’t find it during editing. When you then create a new one by that name, it will be a duplicate without the real artist’s metadata and links.
I think the best way to avoid this is to make sure that you first add an album to the library from a streaming service (if you have any) where this artist is already credited. (After you import your local files, you can remove these albums again from your library if you don’t need them). If you don’t have a streaming service, then you need an identified album with this artist credit in your library before importing the new one.
Yes it is a PITA to make sure of this before every import but I think it leads to the cleanest outcome.
Alternatively, you can search for that artist name(s) after importing your new album, or find them on the My Library > Artist page (but only primary artists show there). Then select both (or more) artists with this name. A “Merge Artists” button will appear top right. Click it and you can merge the duplicate artists into the real one. (Note: “Merge Artists” will only appear if you have an identified album of each selected artist in the library, so you won’t get around this anyway. Again, after you are done with merging you can remove these albums from the library again, if you don’t need them)
Also see this post and the other threads linked from there:
thanks I’ll take a look.
It seems like an easier solution would be to set up a way for valence searches to be available to be activated in roon itself.
As a lot of these I have are not going to be available on most streaming platforms but are available in valence then i think its easier just to copy the image from there and add manually.
I can think of many better solutions in Roon for this mess 
But the best solution would be to search all artists during import (not just the ones that are already in the library) and link them, but this would probably require more cloud integration that doesn’t exist yet.
If you just want the picture, sure, but I’d think you also want your import artists linked to the proper one so that you get the proper artist biographies and other metadata as well as links to any of their other albums in the discography. If you just copy the image you’ll end up with a holy mess of duplicates
nah I just need the image. A lot are just 80s nineties radio comedy, or standup, or audiobooks, or lectures. I just have spoken word artist page bookmarked to separate from my actual music files. If any of the comedians or poets have actually released stuff on record they pop up, like Ivor Cutler or Tim Key etc.
Well then But if you import 3 unidentified albums with the same artist, you might still end up with 3 separate artists by the same name (and not one where you can find all three albums in the discography), so you might still want to merge them at least in case this happens
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