ROON and huge classical collections

[Musicophile]

And if the match doesn't succeed, then Roon uses the metadata in the file. I realise that some people will make recordings and not bother about metadata, but that's their problem, not mine or Roon's.

 

My collection has about 30% of "albums" that Roon can't identify - podcasts, personal recordings, single track recordings made from long-disposed of LPs and the like. Those all have metadata that I've curated, and so now they are seamlessly handled in Roon.

 

Well, even better. I'll certainly watch this space. So far I haven't bothered with Roon as Qobuz isn't supported and the lack of added value for classical music. If they get batter on this, maybe it's worth trying out.

[wouterk]

Roon works fine for me with about 1100 mainly classical albums. I rip albums into separate folders. Roon software sees a good pace of development. I am looking forward to seeing Beethoven as artist disappear. Then again you can do meta data editing quite easily.

[gcoupe]

So far I haven't bothered with Roon as Qobuz isn't supported and the lack of added value for classical music. If they get batter on this, maybe it's worth trying out.

A couple of things here. First, it does seem to be true that Qobuz is better than Tidal for classical and jazz offerings, although, by how much is a bit fuzzy, and certainly not helped by the fact that Tidal's search engine sucks. Secondly, it takes two to tango, and although Roon have made overtures to Qobuz, the latter seem confused as to whether they want to proceed or not, judging by the mixed messages I've seen.

 

At the moment I have a cheapo, low-res subscription to Tidal - primarily as a means to listen to new performances and music. BTW, Roon knows about "works" and "performances", which is something I've not seen in other music systems.

 

If I hear something I like, then I'll purchase a hi-res download from Qobuz or whichever download service offer the best deal.

 

Lastly, Qobuz metadata is dreadful. Every album I've downloaded, I need to go in and edit the metadata to bring it up to a quality that I'm happy with.

[craighartley]

I don't want them to improve classical metadata handling. That would still require me to go back and re-tag thousands of files. All I want is a file browser - apparently that is too hard to ask for.

 

Why? You don't have to use their metadata so why would you need to re-tag yours?

[Musicophile]

A couple of things here. First, it does seem to be true that Qobuz is better than Tidal for classical and jazz offerings, although, by how much is a bit fuzzy, and certainly not helped by the fact that Tidal's search engine sucks. Secondly, it takes two to tango, and although Roon have made overtures to Qobuz, the latter seem confused as to whether they want to proceed or not, judging by the mixed messages I've seen.

 

At the moment I have a cheapo, low-res subscription to Tidal - primarily as a means to listen to new performances and music. BTW, Roon knows about "works" and "performances", which is something I've not seen in other music systems.

 

If I hear something I like, then I'll purchase a hi-res download from Qobuz or whichever download service offer the best deal.

 

Lastly, Qobuz metadata is dreadful. Every album I've downloaded, I need to go in and edit the metadata to bring it up to a quality that I'm happy with.

 

I didn't mean to start a Qobuz vs Tidal vs Roon discussion.

 

Qobuz indeed apparently has the best classical and Jazz selection, but I've never compared myself.

 

I use Qobuz mainly because of the great Sublime offer, which gives you significant discounts on their high-res purchases, so if you buy enough the subscription basically pays for itself.

 

And whether anybody's metadata is good or bad doesn't really matter to me, as I systematically retag any new purchases anyhow.

 

Plus it really works great with Audirvana.

 

That said, when Roon gets better on classical I'll certainly try it again.

[firedog]

Why? You don't have to use their metadata so why would you need to re-tag yours?

 

b/c he hasn't tagged his files at all

[fragoulisnaval]

IMHO, it is pointless to discuss without proper tagging of our files. Everyone here understands the importance of it, but mainly everyone has his metadata to his personal standards and how he, as an individual, wants to have his music organized. It is the alpha and omega of digital music. The better the metadata, the more ways you have to explore and organise your stuff. I have over 8000 albums and not a single one is lost. File browser is taking too much time to find what you need and it cannot do combinations through various albums, unless you have all the collection in one hard drive....

 

Let's face it. Without proper metadata, you are finished. The extent of metadata depends on the quality you want your music library to have.

[craighartley]

b/c he hasn't tagged his files at all

 

So why doesn't he want them to improve their metadata, recognition and handling of classical music?

[Musicophile]

So why doesn't he want them to improve their metadata, recognition and handling of classical music?

 

If I read him correctly because It's a lot of work (and to be fair, it is) and he's happy with his folder system.

[craighartley]

If I read him correctly because It's a lot of work (and to be fair, it is) and he's happy with his folder system.

 

If he has a logical folder system he can generate basic tags automatically from that and then Roon will fill in the other info (in Roon, not in his tags).

[zackthedog]

Look, if I've collected a bunch of shared 78rpm rips, and assembled them in a folder named "Albert Coates 78s" and Foobar finds them without any problem, why should I pay for software that doesn't? Because honestly, accurately tagging a 200,000 song library of obscure music that is not in any music database is a royal pain. And that's not unusual for collectors of older recordings.

[lucser]

I think also that tagging your music files is very important. Actually is the most efficient way to keep it organized and more important that the media player of your choice could find it/filtered easily. Long time ago was a problem as each media player has his own interpretation of tags and use them in many different ways so the users were encountering big issues when they switch from one to another. Nowadays most of them (there are few exemptions), have a unified approach and switching from one media player to another is no hassle anymore. I was using lately Itunes, Audirvana,VOX, KID3 (tag editor), XLD (format convertor) and had no issues at all with the proper tagged files.

Not same could be said about folder solution. While I keep also this very well structured and organize (File types->Genres->Artist->Albums or tracks), this is my particular way to do it, other people choose other structures. It is difficult for a media player to be able to cope with all user's ways of organizing their files and folders. Also the information stored in this structure is very limited and could be placed at any level in the Folder structure.

Those being said I'm also on the opinion that a serious Media player must use the Tags in a meaningful way and provide, based on that, different features to let the user to filter/display his library content (e.g. by artist or by genre or by year ....). For file browser any OS is giving their own so you can use them even if I find this as very peculiar way of enjoying your music! Why to provide another one?

It is also true that tagging require some effort. If it is done in time (each time when you add content to your library) then is going unnoticed. If you wait until your library increase then the work of course will be annoying and boring. The good thing is that much more information could be stored and later be used in far more flexible and different ways.

The good news (actually not for everybody but for the ones that are not aware) the Tag editors nowadays are quite good at auto tagging. So for the ones that use a consistent logical structure of folders and a meaningful file naming, many tag editors allow you to define a rule of deriving the tags from your folder file structure. At least the main ones as Artist, Album Artist, Album Name, Track Title, Year or even Genre. Is fairly easy and not so time consuming. Then only small touches could be done in time but with a small amount of effort your library will be better organized and easier to be used with almost any serious media player. I forgot to say that in the end your files and folder will be in the same structure as before so what is to loose?

This of course if you don't have in principle something against file tagging. Give it a try. Make a test duplicating some of your folders somewhere on disk and use a freeware Tag editor of your choice (I've used MP3TAG (is working also on other file types than MP3, KID3 on MAC or others).

[austinpop]

With 1.3 just released, is there any indication that classical music handling has improved?

 

I too have a collection of ~1000 classical albums, tagged in my own "peculiar" way, but using MinimServer UPnP/DLNA, I can find stuff pretty easily. Sure, I'd love the "magic" of Roon's rich content, but I suspect more than half of my albums wouldn't even be matched by Roon.

 

Is there a step-by-step guide on how to repair albums that Roon couldn't identify?

[jhwalker]

With 1.3 just released, is there any indication that classical music handling has improved?

 

I too have a collection of ~1000 classical albums, tagged in my own "peculiar" way, but using MinimServer UPnP/DLNA, I can find stuff pretty easily. Sure, I'd love the "magic" of Roon's rich content, but I suspect more than half of my albums wouldn't even be matched by Roon.

 

Is there a step-by-step guide on how to repair albums that Roon couldn't identify?

 

I've never had any trouble with any of my 1,600+ classical albums, but 1.3 does have settings, by tag, to use your tags, use Roon's tags, or find the "best" tag.

 

I've chosen to use my own tags 100%, and have never had any issues with any of my albums.

[wdw]

I've never had any trouble with any of my 1,600+ classical albums, but 1.3 does have settings, by tag, to use your tags, use Roon's tags, or find the "best" tag.

 

I've chosen to use my own tags 100%, and have never had any issues with any of my albums.

By "tags" are you referring to the metadata? Was using A+ and Yate as a metadata editor and was slowly getting my library into shape so I could search by composer, (last name, initials, then dates) but Roon overides these ebtries so when searching this morning for Beethoven in 1.3 I had three or four fields

Beethoven

Ludvig v Beethoven

Beethoven, L......etc...you get the message.

So it is a mess.

Waiting for A+ 3.0 and will likely move back.

Roon is software for pop, rock, rap and jazz......perhaps I haven't spent the appropriate amount of time with it but its primary selling point is metadata and it isn't working for me.

[firedog]

By "tags" are you referring to the metadata? Was using A+ and Yate as a metadata editor and was slowly getting my library into shape so I could search by composer, (last name, initials, then dates) but Roon overides these ebtries so when searching this morning for Beethoven in 1.3 I had three or four fields

Beethoven

Ludvig v Beethoven

Beethoven, L......etc...you get the message.

So it is a mess.

Waiting for A+ 3.0 and will likely move back.

Roon is software for pop, rock, rap and jazz......perhaps I haven't spent the appropriate amount of time with it but its primary selling point is metadata and it isn't working for me.

 

You can select all or some of your albums in Roon and tell it to use your tags instead of it's database.

[wdw]

You can select all or some of your albums in Roon and tell it to use your tags instead of it's database.

 

I have repeatedly read posters making this claim but only imagine they have never tried this route. It is absurdly slow and, as far as I can determine, a file by file edit process. Maybe an easier solution is documented in the non-existent user's guide

[craighartley]

I have repeatedly read posters making this claim but only imagine they have never tried this route. It is absurdly slow and, as far as I can determine, a file by file edit process. Maybe an easier solution is documented in the non-existent user's guide

 

Not a claim but a fact. It's very quick in my experience and works fine. Are you sure your metadata is edited consistently? I have large Classical library and no problems letting Roon use my metadata.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[jhwalker]

I have repeatedly read posters making this claim but only imagine they have never tried this route. It is absurdly slow and, as far as I can determine, a file by file edit process. Maybe an easier solution is documented in the non-existent user's guide

 

In Album view, select all albums, select Edit | Metadata preferences, make choice. Took exactly 1 second to return control to the desktop for all 1,671 albums in my collection.

 

You can tell there is processing going on in the background after the change (saving changes), but it's not slow or difficult.

[wdw]

In Album view, select all albums, select Edit | Metadata preferences, make choice. Took exactly 1 second to return control to the desktop for all 1,671 albums in my collection.

 

You can tell there is processing going on in the background after the change (saving changes), but it's not slow or difficult.

this is straightforward? where is the composer field, etc? am I missing something?

[jhwalker]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]33084[/ATTACH]

this is straightforward? where is the composer field, etc? am I missing something?

 

I get they are not giving you direct access to every single tag, but where you have access, choosing options is quite straightforward, yes.

 

I have my own way of doing things, too (for example, I use the "last name, first name" convention for all my composers), but given Roon gives you very quick (much quicker in version 1.3 than in 1.2!) full text search, it's just as easy to type in "Mussorgsky" (for example) in the search field and almost instantly get every album in your collection where tag "composer" contains "mussorgsky".

[wdw]

I get they are not giving you direct access to every single tag, but where you have access, choosing options is quite straightforward, yes.

 

I have my own way of doing things, too (for example, I use the "last name, first name" convention for all my composers), but given Roon gives you very quick (much quicker in version 1.3 than in 1.2!) full text search, it's just as easy to type in "Mussorgsky" (for example) in the search field and almost instantly get every album in your collection where tag "composer" contains "mussorgsky".

Thanks for your thoughts. When I type in, say, Beethoven, in the search field I retreive roughly half of any Beethoven and have a list of, as written in this thread, Beethoven, Ludwig....et.al.....

In the screen shot I show why are there a multitude of totally vague flags and largely useless choices to flag (issue date...hello!) but not a simple... check for "use my metadata"?

[jhwalker]

Thanks for your thoughts. When I type in, say, Beethoven, in the search field I retreive roughly half of any Beethoven and have a list of, as written in this thread, Beethoven, Ludwig....et.al.....

In the screen shot I show why are there a multitude of totally vague flags and largely useless choices to flag (issue date...hello!) but not a simple... check for "use my metadata"?

 

Understood - there was discussion on the Roon forum about these metadata options, and there were many requests to let users choose exactly *which* tags they would keep, and which ones they'd prefer the Roon data, etc. - thus the choices by tag, not as a group.

 

I agree it seems to me a good option would be to "use my metadata" wherever it exists, and use additional Roon tags (if desired) only where there is *no* current content.

[craighartley]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]33084[/ATTACH]

this is straightforward? where is the composer field, etc? am I missing something?

 

Those are Album tags. You wouldn't want a Composer tag to apply to a whole album, or you'd be stuck in the frequent case of mixed composer albums.

 

I agree you should have the choice of using your own Composer for metadata when editing a selection of tracks ('edit tracks'), but I haven't had the chance to use 1.3 yet to see if that's possible.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[firedog]

I have repeatedly read posters making this claim but only imagine they have never tried this route. It is absurdly slow and, as far as I can determine, a file by file edit process. Maybe an easier solution is documented in the non-existent user's guide

 

No and no.

 

Don't have to do file by file edit. Just select your albums and tell Roon to use your tags.

 

user guide: https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_User_Guide