What's the best way to track album recommendations?

What I really mean is what’s the best way to track album recommendations without having to add the album to my library? In other words, I’m always adding albums to list of new albums to explore. To track these with tags, I have to add them to my library. The only way I’ve found to do it without adding them to my library is to use bookmarks. This works but isn’t ideal as bookmarks are just a flat list and then I can’t use them for any other purpose. I suppose I could encode the purpose in the name of the bookmark. E.g. “New Album: Kind of Blue”.

Is there any other way that I’m missing?

Are these tidal albums?

I don’t see many options within Roon if you don’t want them in your library. Maybe a Tidal playlist?

Can you Tag a bookmark? Never tried…

Yes, these are Tidal albums.

Bookmarks are a saved focus, whether that is a focus on existing TAGs or a Focus created using the Focus Tool. In the first case, the Bookmarks and tagged albums are identical. In the second, after you have created the bookmark, you can select all albums and a tag that way. There is no way to directly add a Tag to a bookmark that I’ve found.

On the other hand, you can add a tags to a Tag. I.e. nested tags.

Tidal playlist seems the most sensible way without adding to the library.
Is there a particular reason not to add them to the library? Then you could tag them as “explore feb” or similar then Focus> Delete afterwards… perhaps.

That is pretty much what I’m doing now. I started out adding them to my library and tagging them as you suggest. Then I changed my approach. Instead of tagging them, I just add them to my library and use the library view “Sort by Date Added”. The new albums come up first and I know that many of them are just exploratory. If I decide I don’t like them enough, I remove them from my library.

Now, I’m trying Bookmarks as an alternative. This doesn’t require that I add them to the library, but I’ll have to see if the list becomes unmanageable. I posted the question to see if there was any other way that I’m missing, but it looks like this is it.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

We all learn at the same time I hope. :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

That has been my normal library view since I started using Roon.

It seems to me there is another case of bookmarks that is not a saved focus. I think (correct me if I’m wrong) that a focus always refers to albums in your library.

You can also bookmark Tidal albums and artist pages that are not in your library. If there is a way to tag albums not in your library and then focus on those, that would be the exact solution I’m looking for.

You are right in that you can bookmark a single album or a single artist page but this use of a bookmark it is essentially just like a website. Something, I don’t think I’ve ever done. And yes, focusing requires that the album be in your library. There is no way to tag things not in your library.

If I hear about an interesting album, I just add it to my library. I have a bookmark called Tidal which is sorted by Date Added. So, if I want to review some of the albums I’d added, I just use that bookmark.

Doing this allows me to get fancier :grinning:, like putting a Date range on the focus and restrict the Bookmark to only those added within the last three months or the past week. And then, I could also restrict it to focus only the Tidal albums, added in the last 3 months that have never been played. But, you won’t get that without it being in your library in the first place.

1 Like

One related point that may be helpful is, in album view, you can view by Tag and then click on it to make it negative, so that the logic is “NOT-Tag.” This way you can view your library except items Tagged as “to check out.” Tag logic doesn’t combine very well so you can only go so far with this, but this much you can do.

2 Likes

I have a bookmark called Tidal which is sorted by Date Added. So, if I want to review some of the albums I’d added, I just use that bookmark. Doing this allows me to get fancier :grinning:, like putting a Date range on the focus…

Actually, this sounds like a pretty good idea. My objection to adding them to my library is some sort of feeling that “they don’t belong in my library unless I like them”. If I jettison that belief and start using tagging and focus as you suggest, I can have a separation between albums that belong in my library permanently and those that are in there for a trial period.

You could also create a playlist from the Focus Potentials and get a feel of them that way.