I am new to Roon and so far it’s been a completely frustrating experience. Coming from using Logitech Media Server/Logitech Touch/iPeng, which is easy to use, Roon has been almost unusable to me; it feels like the Borg has taken complete control of my music collection. Admittedly, I don’t have much patience for programs/devices that aren’t user friendly and get frustrated quickly.
One major frustration is the way Roon seems to handle genres. For example, with LMS/iPeng, if I choose the genre Easy Listening, it will only show/play tracks I have tagged Easy Listening, just as I would expect. With Roon, it seems to ignore my track tags and play any tracks from any album associated with Easy Listening even though the track it’s playing is tagged with a different genre (i.e. Pop/Rock, Dance, etc).
I have gone in the settings and turned off “Show Roon Genres” and turned on “Show genres from file tags”, but that made no difference.
Is there a way to set Roon to only use my genre tags (I hope I’m using that term correctly)?
Roon currently only assigns Genres to albums and artists. They are currently working on expanding the metadata capabilities for the next major release. However, I don’t know if genre by song is part of that.
If you want to use genres from your file tags, you have it set up properly now. Roon will just assign those genre tags to the album.
With the settings set to not show Roon genre tags and show my tags, I’d expect all those genres that are not included in my tags not to show. Perhaps I’m still not understanding how genre tags are used?
Thank you. I appreciate the help as I’m feeling a bit lost with this program.
BTW, for reference I’m using a Salkstream III Roon Ready music streamer that I just purchased and using the Roon app on my iPad mini 2 to control it.
Ok, can you toggle off Show Genres from File Tags, so that both are off? Then there should be no genres showing. I want to make sure there isn’t some sort of bug, where it’s not using your tags. I see that the player uses a 64bit Linux OS.
Also, can you also post a screenshot of your Settings > Storage tab. I want to see if you’re using a watched or organized folder(s).
Well, everything looks perfect. One last thing is to turn on use Roon Genres. When you do, do the genres that show match exactly with the genres that show before when you had it set to Use Your File Tags?
Finally, is it possible that the genres that are showing when you have it set to Use Your File Tags are actually in your file tags? For example, one song might have Dance and another song might have New Wave, etc? I believe that would give the results we are seeing.
Sure enough there’s a line of “Style” info. I guess Roon is picking this up as genre info. Apparently iPeng ignores “Style” info when playing music by genre (it’s just using the “Genre” tag info). Is the a way to get Roon to ignore “Style” info and just use the “Genre” tag in the file? Or is there a way to delete “Style” info completely from my files (en mass if possible since I have over 4500 files!)?
Yes, from what I read, Style is also picked up as a Genre tag. As far as I know, there currently isn’t a feature in Roon that allows you to control what Roon imports as Genre (ie. Ignore Style).
[quote=“James_Kirkman, post:9, topic:12185”]
Or is there a way to delete “Style” info completely from my files (en mass if possible since I have over 4500 files!)?
[/quote]load all your albums into puddletag or mp3tag and delete the style tag, then in Roon Select all albums from the album browse (select one, then change the selection to select all) and force a rescan. The style metadata will be removed.
I’m not familiar with those programs so I’ll have to do a little research on how to use them. Is one easier/better than another?
Also, my music is stored on the music streamer (Salkstream Gen III Roon Ready). I have a backup copy on my laptop (Windows 10) that’s been running Logitech Media Server. I guess I would load one of those tag editing programs on my laptop, edit the tags, then reload the files onto the streamer? Does this sound right? It seems like loading the files from the steamer into the edit program on the laptop or desktop computer would take a long time since it has to go through the local network?
Computers are not my forte, so please forgive my ignorance of such stuff.
[this all assumes you are running a windows computer, as mp3tag is a windows program]
install mp3tag from here (and it handles many file types, FLAC, AAC, OGG, WAV, AIFF, etc., not just mp3). http://www.mp3tag.de/en/dodownload.html
After installing, then open (run) program. In “Directory” choose the top directory of your music files (i.e., all the music file subdirectories are underneath this top directory). Then EDIT > SELECT ALL FILES. Then right click on the files in the window on right and select “extended tags” from the menu that pops up. Then you should see one of the tags showing as “STYLE” with value “keep”. Click on this style tag field, then click the large red X just to right of tag field listings. This will delete the STYLE field from all your files.
I have nothing useful to add to this thread but wanted to comment that Bronski Beat is awesome! Small Town Boy brings back so many memories. Even without Jimmy Bronski was good. I have all their cassettes. Man I’m old!
I’m [quote=“garym, post:14, topic:12185, full:true”]
[this all assumes you are running a windows computer, as mp3tag is a windows program]
install mp3tag from here (and it handles many file types, FLAC, AAC, OGG, WAV, AIFF, etc., not just mp3). http://www.mp3tag.de/en/dodownload.html
After installing, then open (run) program. In “Directory” choose the top directory of your music files (i.e., all the music file subdirectories are underneath this top directory). Then EDIT > SELECT ALL FILES. Then right click on the files in the window on right and select “extended tags” from the menu that pops up. Then you should see one of the tags showing as “STYLE” with value “keep”. Click on this style tag field, then click the large red X just to right of tag field listings. This will delete the STYLE field from all your files.
[/quote]
Thank you!
I’ll give it a try this evening.
I do see that dbpoweramp (I use it to rip CDs) lets me delete the Style tags, but only one album at a time. I experimented with deleting the Style tag on the Bronski Beat album and this is what Roon shows now
Run dbpoweramp “Batch Converter”, choose the top directory holding your music files. Select “convert” from the menu. Then in the “CONVERT” popup box, choose “convert to”, ID TAG UPDATE. Then click on the “Deletions” tab, then “single field”, then in dropdown menu next to “single tag” type or select STYLE. Then at bottom of popup, select CONVERT. This will remove the STYLE tag from all your files.
