Accordingly when I copy the path to one audio file, I get:
/var/packages/RoonServer/target/roonmnt/music/iTunes Music/Schubert, Franz/Viola music of Schubert, Schumann, Bruch, Enesco/02 Arpeggione sonata, D. 821 - Adagio.mp3
So, why does Roon not group these audio files in one album? I have lots of albums which are scattered like this one.
How can I tell Roon to group them as their file paths suggests?
Several factors can cause such problem. The most common ones:
contradictive metadata of the files not matching roon´s own data
contradictive track or disc numbers
folders names and files in folders not matching the albums
albums being identified/scanned not in one go but partly on multiple occasions
With your files, No. 1 and No. 3 seem to be applicable. iTunes has presumably mixed up composer and main artist and an album with different main artists is confusing roon. Easiest ways to fix this:
use a proper tagging tool such as MP3Tag and correct metadata of all tracks
Mark all fragmented parts of one album in roon and go to ´Edit > Merge albums´. If track number are correct, things fall into place automatically. If not, use ´Edit > identify album´ as a second step.
It looks to me as if you have the composers’ names in the primary artist fields. This will result in roon (and almost any music player) treating each of them as a separate album. Generally, for tracks to be an album, the album title and the album artists must be the same for each of them. Because the original metadata system (not roon’s) did not account for classical music properly, the artist field was often used for composers. Easily fixed with almost any tagger such as MP3TAG, Picard, etc.
Album artist needs to contain the same consistent metadata to work as one album. You need to have each composer and orchestra etc in the album name separated by a, e.g Igor Stavinsky, Modest Mussorgsky.
Track artists should be individual composers.
Album title should be composer:work / composer:work of the album title as yours is done don’t have one so the former applies.
Shouldn’t be the Album name just a (consistent) title (like here “Viola music of Schubert, Schumann, Bruch, Enesco”? Composer, artist and orchestra go somewhere else I’d think…
Thanks for the link, @Geoff_Coupe. I will read through it.
If my file tags (due to the composer/artist swap) disagree with Roon, can’t I just remove them all and let Roon do it’s magic? (This way I could apply the change to all files in my library and don’t need to worry about Classical vs other genres.)
Go to settings>library>import settings: And change things to Prefer Roon.
This might solve your problem without needing to wipe your tags.
This assumes Roon can identify your albums but you could end up with less editing to do.
After you change any of those settings Roon will do a rescan or something to that effect. It can take some time.
If you end up needing to edit your tags: Do you have artist or album artist tags in a different field? Asking because some tagging apps will let you swap a field for another and in bulk.
I use Meta on MacOS and it does this.
So for example you’d select all your files, hover over the Composer field, click and select Compose Tag and a drop down appears. You’d select Artist (as I think your artist field is populated with Composer) and it will move all those to Composer.
Then you’d do the same thing to move wherever you have artists into the correct place.
It also has an undo if need be.
Others might be able to suggest an app with similar features for Windows if that’s what you use.
If you need to start over again there’s a few tagging apps that will scan your files and automatically add tags.
Picard does this. It’s free and cross platform.
It’s not the most intuitive app but it generally works really well once you get the hang of it.
Um - I don’t think any of this is necessary, and indeed might confuse things.
Unless the Label has released an album with the composer’s name in the title (e.g. Mahler’s 5th Symphony), I’ve never found it necessary to go through my local album metadata and add composers into the Album Title.
And Track Artists should be set to contain the performers, not composers (unless, of course the composer is also a performer, e.g. Leonard Bernstein conducting his opera Candide). Composers have their separate Composer metadata tag.
I do say or the title if it has one, a lot don’t. This is also the way MusicBrainz recommends to have classical all set out. So if multiple works on one disc separate them by different composers and works or use the title if it has one like other albums. As Roon uses MusicBrianz for ID this has got my albums to be recognised better along with all the other ways they recommend to have it all set for classical. I did say in his case that name is fine but you obviously all skipped that bit. He will need album artist to be consistent this so the biggest thing missing won’t any album being split in Roon or other apps I find.
Yes, I know that Musicbrainz recommends that the composer should be included as a Track artist, but frankly, as has been discussed in this forum before, this is braindead. There is a composer tag, and why Musicbrainz doesn’t seem to be aware of this and use it is beyond me.
I suspect that Roon’s import algorithms for Musicbrainz metadata are more complex than they should be to deal with Musicbrainz’s idiosyncrasies.
