# Editing --- ###### [[User Guide|Roon User Guide]] > Editing and Grooming Your Collection > Editing ## Introduction This article discusses Roon's editing functionality, and also provides context and background about why editing in Roon is different than many other applications. If you're going to edit your library in Roon, we encourage you to read on for an overview. <br> ###### Jump to: - ### [Editing In Roon](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#Editing_In_Roon) - ### [Metadata In Roon - The 3 Layer Editing Model](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#3_Layer_Editing_Model) - ### [Identification](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#Metadata_Identification) - ### [Types Of Edits](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#Types_Of_Edits) - ### [Editing Albums And Tracks](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#Editing_Albums_and_Tracks) - ### [Other Kinds Of Edits](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#Other_Edits) # Editing In Roon ### Roon Understands Your Music Roon was built from the ground up to be the most powerful way to manage your music library. Every track in your library is automatically matched to Roon's rich, interlinked metadata. This allows Roon to model your library with a level of depth and accuracy that's not possible in other systems. Roon has a deep understanding of the music in your library, which opens up all kinds of possibilities as your music is imported and displayed in app. Understanding what makes Roon different will allow you to take full advantage of what we believe is the most advanced music management application ever. ### What Makes Roon Different At launch, Roon was largely focused on users who want their files automatically identified and managed. It quickly became clear we needed to do much more to meet the needs of users who want to exert control over how metadata is displayed and experienced in the app. Since then, editing features have continually been added, and as of Version 1.3 the vast majority of metadata in Roon editable. Why did it take so long? Roon's understanding of your music goes way beyond what you see in most other applications. If an album is listed under the wrong artist in another app you just edit the text, but Roon's understanding of your albums goes way beyond a simple piece of text. Each artist, performer, composer, and producer in Roon is a detailed multi-dimensional person -- edits need to tap into that power, or the whole system falls apart. For example, Roon can distinguish whether a given album was released by [this Bill Evans](http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bill-evans-mn0000764702) or [this one](http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bill-evans-mn0000074005), which is important when you're browsing a Composer's compositions, or all the Jazz albums a given sideman played on. And by understanding the people involved in each album, Roon can ensure [this album](http://www.allmusic.com/album/think%21-mw0000647104) shows up on James Brown's page, even if it was actually released by _The Famous Flames_. ### But my file tags are already perfect! We believe you! But even perfectly groomed file tags can only take you so far. Roon is build around a rich [[Object Model|Metadata Model]], where entities like Albums, Tracks, Artists, Composers, and Compositions stand as equals. Compared to our approach, file tags lack in richness simply because the labor required to replicate this level of richness is impractical. And file tags lack in expressive power because they make it more and more difficult to represent information each time you take another step further away from the track. These distinctions are described in greater depth [here](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Vs_Tags). # 3-Layer Editing Model Roon automatically tries to identify every track and album in your library. Once your content has been matched to our database, detailed metadata will be retrieved for not just the tracks or albums but for every performer, composer, producer, and artist involved in the recording. This information is stored in your Roon database, unlike other applications which may overwrite the information in your file tags. This information is populated into three layers: - Edits - Roon Metadata - File Tags First, file tags are extracted. These tags are stored in their own layer, and are used to identify the music in your collection. When an identification is successful, Roon’s rich metadata is retrieved and populates the Roon Metadata layer. By default, Roon displays data from the top-most layer that’s present. This means that edits you make override Roon’s metadata, and that by default Roon’s metadata overrides the information from your file tags. Version 1.1 introduced the notion of **metadata preference**. By selecting “Prefer File”, you are telling Roon to flip the order of the two bottom layers like this: - Edits - File Tags - Roon Metadata This means the information from your file tags is displayed. Metadata preferences are set up on a field-by-field and object-by-object basis, offering extreme flexibility. You can prefer local data on an album-by-album or track-by-track basis to fix isolated problems, or you can set preferences for your entire library (see [Bulk Edits](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#Bulk_Edits) below). # Metadata Identification So much of Roon's power comes from accurate identification, and it's one of the most complex parts of our system. Once an album is matched to our database, not only do you get detailed credits, composer data, release date and label information, and genre, but all this information is updated once a week to retrieve new metadata and correct errors. When this works, all your music is cross-referenced by the musicians, composers, production staff, and labels involved in the release. That's why editing the album identification is almost always the best place to start. #### When To "Identify" An Album The most important time to use the Identify feature is when an album is unidentified, meaning Roon has not matched the album to our database at all. You can find unidentified albums by looking for the "Unidentified" text on the Album Details screen like this: <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/5942e654-ee6f-4ce3-8bd7-a53e1d24025e.png'/> You can also use Focus to find unidentified albums, by navigating to the Inspector on the far-right. Click Identified, then click the word "Identified" a second time -- it will go red, meaning you're only viewing albums that are **not** identified, like this: <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/855d9260-ec89-4a1e-ba4a-56c37b490ce5.png'/> There are times when you may want to use Identify for albums that Roon has matched. This may be because you have a different version or edition of the album, or because Roon has misidentified the album. <br> #### Identifying Your Albums You can Identify albums by clicking Edit on the "3 dots" menu, or by pressing `CTRL/CMD + I` on Windows or MacOS. <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/d41f740a-17a7-4d57-8ae1-4609059d51c7.png'/> On the Album Editor screen, choose Identify Album, and Roon will look for a match. Choose your album from the list, and make sure the tracks match up. In some cases, Roon will have metadata for an album, but no track timings. Because we don't have track timings to match up these albums will not be matched automatically, but you can still get good metadata by confirming the track titles and making the match. Most importantly, this ensures you'll get updated metadata when our coverage for this album improves. In other cases still, Roon will have metadata for an album, but no track information at all. Again, automatic matching isn't possible, but in this situation, you can still benefit from Roon's album-level metadata which will be used in conjunction with your own track metadata. #### Editions Many albums have been released in different formats, pressings, and masterings over the years. In many cases, Roon will have distinct information for each edition, which you can retrieve using the Identify feature. Cycle through the various editions using the arrows highlighted below: <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/658ddfd6-0d6c-43cb-882d-0ba5f338491e.png'/> Then, make sure the track titles (and timing, when available) match up, and save. That's it! <br> # Types Of Edits Broadly speaking, there are two types of edits you can make in Roon: - **Display Edits** - these are edits of text displayed in Roon, and done using Roon's 3 Layer Editing Model. For example, you might edit an album title to use what appears in your file tags, as opposed to what Roon retrieved automatically. - **Link Edits** -- Roon's powerful metadata engine generates links that connect the music in your library. For example, a composition in Roon is going to be linked to one or more composers. If a composer was missing or erroneous, you might edit that link by adding an additional link, or by removing the erroneous link. ## "Display" Edits Display Edits have been part of Roon since version 1.1. Because the metadata that Roon retrieves automatically is stored in its own "layer", it's always possible for text-based fields to fall back to the information stored in your file tags, or to any edits you type in by hand. You can edit Albums, Tracks, Artists and more by clicking edit on the "3 dots" menu: <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/d41f740a-17a7-4d57-8ae1-4609059d51c7.png'/> When editing albums you'll want to click over to the _Edit Fields_ tab: <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/ab84d992-0ae1-4ff5-92ea-03765aaa9366.png'/> In this screen shot, you can see that Roon has retrieved an album title _Rarities Edition: The Velvet Underground & Nico_ whereas the file tags simply refer to the album as The _Velvet Underground & Nico_. You can choose from either field, or type your own edit into the Edit field at right. You can also press the Copy button <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/19f0d980-8167-4c91-a001-e6fe7ff916c1.png'/> to copy the currently selected value over for editing. Just like you can set any text field to either the Roon metadata layer, the file tag layer, or the edit layer, you can also select multiple albums or tracks and set metadata preferences for all of them at once. For more information about this, see [Bulk Editing](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#Bulk_Edits). For some fields, you can set Library Preferences, so that everything in your collection always defaults to your preferred metadata. This is great for fields like Genres or Import Date, or for text fields where you've done a lot of grooming (like album or track titles). For more information visit [[Library Settings|Library]] ## "Link" Edits Roon's advanced metadata model is built around "objects", not text. That means that you can have multiple people in your library named Bill Evans, each with their own rich biographical data: where they were born, what albums they played on, which songs they've composed, who they were influenced by or collaborated with, and so on. Roon is built around the connections between people and the music they're involved in, and so changing these connections goes beyond simple text edits -- you actually need to change the links. Some examples of "links" in Roon: - An album's Main Performer - A track's Primary Artist - A composition's Composer - An album or track credit #### How To Add or Remove Links Editing links in Roon is similar to editing text fields. You can click the "three dots" button on any Track or Album, or you can select multiple tracks or albums to add or remove links to all of them at once (see [Bulk Editing](https: below). <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/d41f740a-17a7-4d57-8ae1-4609059d51c7.png'/> When editing, you'll first choose who you want to link (or unlink). <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/54220878-6c81-428c-b111-d337d921c7b6.png'/> From this screen you can choose from among all the performers and composers in your library, or you can create new Artists in your library. Note that you should only create a new artist if you're sure the person doesn't already exist in your library, as artists you create will not generally get extended metadata unless they are associated with an identified album or composition. If you are adding a Primary Artist to an album, a Main Performer to a track, or a Composer, just click save and you're done! If you are adding a credit, the next step will be to pick a role. Roon has an [extended list of roles](http://kb.roonlabs.com/Credit_Roles) to choose from, and you can [let us know](https://community.roonlabs.com/t/im-having-a-problem-with-roon-where-do-i-report-it/2185/5) if there's anything missing. For more details, see Editing Albums and Tracks below. # Editing Albums and Tracks Like most metadata in Roon, you can edit albums and tracks by clicking the "3 dots" button <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/d41f740a-17a7-4d57-8ae1-4609059d51c7.png'/> <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/03487c20-fd78-4a1e-8952-8424c5c81d8b.png'/> ## **Album Edits ** There are a number of ways albums can be edited in Roon. These include: - **Track Grouping** - Editing the track list to add or remove tracks, or merge multiple albums or discs into a single album - **Album Grouping** - Group multiple editions of the same album into a set (like the stereo version and the 24/96 High Res version) - **Main Performers and Album Artists** - Editing the artists credited with releasing the album, or the name of the artist as listed on the cover - **Editing Fields** - Editing the album's metadata, or the metadata of the tracks included in the album - ** File Scanning** - Forcing Roon to re-scan, re-identify, or re-analyze your album - **Deleting An Album** - Permanently deleting the files from your hard drive or from your streaming library favorites <br> ### Track Grouping Roon works hard to make sure all your tracks are properly grouped into albums, so they can be identified. If you're finding that your multi-disc sets are being split up, you may want to look over your folder structure or tags to figure out why, as [described here](https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_How_can_I_ensure_multi_disc_sets_and_box_sets_are_identified_properly%3F). If you need to add missing tracks to an album, or merge multiple discs into a single album, there are a few ways to do this. #### **Merging Albums** If you can see the two or more discs that need to be combined into a single album, start by [selecting them both](https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_How_do_I_select_songs_or_albums%3F_What_can_I_do%3F). <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/7ee4a89d-c0a8-4588-b365-b75066067cc7.png'/> Then, click edit, and from the Album Editor, choose Merge Albums. <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/32d59d35-0f92-4912-b713-082e707b3d67.png'/> On the next screen, you can confirm the tracklist and disc numbers, and save. #### **Grouping Tracks Into Albums** If you need to group a number of tracks into an album, you can do that from the Tracks browser. Just [selecting all the tracks on the album](https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_How_do_I_select_songs_or_albums%3F_What_can_I_do%3F) and click Edit in the selection bar, then choose Group Tracks. If needed, you can also enable the Paths column in the Tracks view, like this: <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/e101d012-108d-4e62-bd37-e091a1f722b6.png'/> Then you can use the Path column on the far-right to filter for the path of your files. <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/744c84d1-8a4a-4232-a470-d84c3591b371.png'/> Finally, [select all the tracks on the album](https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_How_do_I_select_songs_or_albums%3F_What_can_I_do%3F) and click Edit in the selection bar, then choose Group Tracks. <br> ### Album Grouping If you have more than one version of an album (such as the original vs the remaster, or the CD Quality vs High Res), Roon can group them together, making it easy to track the various editions and pick a favorite. <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/aa90d327-7abd-418b-9c7e-4e4cfbf357c5.png'/> Albums with similar titles and track lists will be grouped together automatically. You can also manually group albums by selecting them both and choosing _Group Alternate Versions_. More details on this functionality can be [found here](https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_I_have_multiple_versions_of_the_same_album%2C_but_I_only_see_one_album_cover._Where_are_the_other_versions%3F). <br> ### Main Performers and Album Artists Roon's handling of albums is built to understand subtleties that many other applications gloss over. For example, consider the case of groups like _James Brown & the Famous Flames_ or _The Miles Davis Quintet_ -- both of these groups released albums, but are they distinct from James Brown or Miles Davis, respectively? More importantly, when you're browsing these seminal artists, do you want the albums by these groups to appear? Roon handles these distinctions by crediting albums in two distinct ways: - **Album Artist** is the name on the album cover. In the two examples above, this would be _James Brown & the Famous Flames_ or _The Miles Davis Quintet_. This is a text field, and like other text fields it can be modified with a "[display edit](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#_quot_Display_quot_Edits)". - **Album Main Performer** is one or more links, that ties the album to the person we would generally credit as being the album's artist. By ensuring your album has a link to, say, James Brown or Miles Davis, you can ensure this album is included in the artist's discography, without losing the context that this album was originally released by a group. When an album's Main Performer and Album Artist differ, you will see both names on the album page, like this: <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/bfddff39-90db-46ae-8ee9-74fb4702f19a.png'/> Note that if Roon does not have sufficient metadata about the Album Artist, the link will not be active. <br> ### Editing Fields A wide variety of album level metadata in Roon can be edited. This includes typing in edits by hand, or simply falling back to the file tags in place of the metadata Roon has retrieved automatically. For more information, see the sections above about "[Display Edits](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#_quot_Display_quot_Edits)" and "[Link Edits](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#_quot_Link_quot_Edits)". <br> ### File Scanning and Deleting The Album Editor screen also gives you a number of ways to re-scan your files, under the **Your Files** section. <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/39f4b1a7-e236-44a6-8169-ae8d05ba481f.png'/> If you're having trouble picking up changes you've made to your files tags, these options may help. The _Your Files_ section also allows you to delete the album from your hard drive. Note that this does not simply remove the album from your library -- **if you choose to delete the album in Roon, the files will be permanently removed from your hard drive, or will be removed from your favorites on the streaming service.** <br> # Other Edits ## Bulk Edits Most album and track edits can be performed on more than one item at a time. For example, you might want to add a genre to 5 different albums, or you might want to add a composer to 3 different tracks. To edit more than one item at a time, start by [selecting one of the items](https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_How_do_I_select_songs_or_albums%3F_What_can_I_do%3F). You can do this by right-clicking or long-pressing on the item. Select additional items by clicking them, or choosing "Select All" from the command bar: <img src="https://community.roonlabs.com/uploads/default/original/2X/6/64e6bcb98841c1fee9608c4dc8099e467ab7a6e0.png" width="426" height="147"> Once, you've chosen the albums or tracks you want to edit, click Edit: <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/b1dadf27-a2a6-443c-846a-7f05df4e7d29.png'/> On the Track or Album Editor Popup, you will be able to make two kinds of edits: - **Metadata Preferences** - make [Display Edits](https://kb.roonlabs.com/Editing#_quot_Display_quot_Edits) by choosing to prefer either Roon metadata or metadata from your file tags - ** Edit fields** - change metadata for the selected content, either by editing fields or adding/removing links <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/c724ab94-ab6b-45ab-988b-c345a3eb11d2.png'/> In this screenshot, you can see that **3 tracks are being edited**. You can also see that these 3 tracks are being edited to use the title from their file tags, as opposed to Roon metadata. You can see that an edit has been made, as denoted by the green check mark on the right. Click the checkmark to clear the edit, or click Save at the bottom of the Track Editor to save the edit. Note in addition to editing multiple albums or tracks at once, you can also set Library Preferences, which will ensure that certain data from your file tags is always used. ## Merging People and Compositions Roon's metadata model allows for complexity and subtlety that's not possible in other systems, such as the ability to have two artists with the same name. However, as good as Roon's metadata is sometimes we get bad metadata from our metadata providers, or errors crop up in our handling of that metadata or in our understanding of your file tags. One of the most frustrating issues that can crop up is duplicate entries for Artists, Performers, Composers, and Compositions. It's great when Roon is sensibly handling two different people named Bill Evans, but when you have two entries for _the same_ Bill Evans, they will need to be merged. To merge two Artists, Performers, Composers, or Compositions, start by [selecting them both](https://kb.roonlabs.com/FAQ:_How_do_I_select_songs_or_albums%3F_What_can_I_do%3F). You can start selecting people by right-clicking or long-pressing on one of them. <img src='http://roon-kb.s3.amazonaws.com/bb82b770-9074-4571-9a90-427e51702be5.png'/> Once you've selected the two people or compositions you want to merge (as pictured above), just click Merge Artists in the top-right. <br>