When will the Radio feature be improved? [Roon 1.4 is now live]

@danny @mike @brian @vova This has been a topic since Roon was initially released by many customers and it’s very poor/narrow algorithm right now and needs much improvement asap. Please give an update where this stand as the silence on this doesn’t give me much hope that it will happen.

Mike replied to your post in another thread indicating that the Radio algorithm issue would be dealt with, but only after the metadata work was completed in version 1.3.

Since they’re actively working on 1.3, we will have to wait for it to be released. No, I don’t know when that will be.

I know it’s been a while, but they’re a small group and we’ll have to be patient.

Cheers, Greg

Thanks for raising this @anon94274355. Improving Radio is absolutely a priority for us, and everyone on the team would agree that the current algorithm needs work.

A huge amount of work has been happening over the last few months and we’re really, really excited to deliver new functionality and improvements across the app. The changes we’re working on are wide-ranging, but one of our main focuses has been improving Roon’s metadata infrastructure based on the huge spectrum of feedback we’ve received since we launched.

These changes lay the groundwork for the kind of full-scale overhaul Radio needs. We’ve thought about this quite a bit and are considering a number of possibilities. We’re hoping to kick off work on these changes soon, but first we need to ship 1.3 – with this many changes in progress, a team our size really can’t afford to re-architect Radio twice.

I don’t want to get into too much detail about how we’re looking to improve Radio after 1.3, since the plans are fluid and could still change. I can tell you we think an important source will be what we capture about how people are already using Radio. We’re now at a point where we have a critical mass of users generating this data, and 1.3 will contain client-side functionality to help us gather that data before it’s analyzed in the cloud.

We’re also actively talking to new data providers about the kinds of data we can license to ensure Radio is making the best possible selections in your library, and in the wider world of TIDAL.

There’s no question it would be great to have Radio improvements now, but we don’t want to put a band-aid on this – we intend to treat this piece of the product in a truly first class way. While changes to Radio won’t be part of 1.3, rest assured that we absolutely intend to address these shortcomings, and will provide updates to this community as things firm up after this release.

Thanks @anon94274355!

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Thanks for the great detailed response @mike, much appreciated. Looking forward to seeing 1.3.

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As long as you’re looking to improve the Radio feature (and I agree, it’s selections are pretty narrow & repetitive at this point), would you be able to add a log or list of the songs for the most recent Radio session for review later?

Even now, I find that there are some real “gems” played that I haven’t listened to in a long time and while I make a mental note of the songs, I often forget them the next day or forget to write them down. A list that had a finite “shelf life” - perhaps until the next time Radio kicks in as the shortest option, user defined options even better - would be a great addition…for me any way! Thanks.

Chris

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Hi Chris,

Try the History screen from the main menu. It is a record of everything your profile has ever played, including Radio selected music. Tracks can be selected and turned into a Playlist.

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Obviously I had never clicked on the “history” option before…and I’ve used Roon since it went live…guess I gotta dig deeper!

Thanks for the tip @andybob!

Chris

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I have two feature requests for Radio.

  1. Let me make my own personal linkages. I own some fairly obscure music by non-US local bands from the 80s/90s, and they never get chosen by Radio, or suggested when exploring, even if they are closely related (if only in my experience) to more well-known music. I would love to be able to say “this is like that” and pull them into the Radio rotation.
  2. Album Radio. When I browse music, I still mostly listen to an entire album end-to-end. When it finishes, Radio starts playing tracks. Sometimes I would like to be able to tell it to play albums instead.

Thanks,
Michael.

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Well…This is my #1 request.
It seems to me the Play All starts at an album, then moves to another track, then after jumps back to the same album I already heard from, then rinse/repeat.
I have also noticed “best of” or compilation albums selected more often.

This is a huge factor, I’ve been loving Roon so far, but I really hate the un-randomness

Jason

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Hi Jason,

The Radio algorithm is currently under active development to avoid exactly this kind of repetition (among other things). I think I can say such development is “well advanced”.

I’ve made some suggestions for UI improvements for Radio. They are found here.

tons of radio improvements: