Roon 1.8 Fall 2021 release

With our Fall 2021 release, you’ll see some great improvements to Roon, but the big news is that we’re rolling out the first of a series of fun web-based tools to our community of music fanatics. The goal of these tools is to let you contribute your expertise to Valence, our cloud-based data system, making the Roon experience richer for the whole community!

Art Director

Everyone benefits from better-looking artist photos and band logos, so we’ve created Art Director, the first in a series of fun web-based tools that puts Roon users in control of how artist images are shown in Roon. Using Art Director, you can adjust the positioning of artist photos, upload your own band logos and images, and vote for your favorites. By doing so, you’ll be helping the whole Roon community and making perfect artist images a reality.

How does Art Director work?

When you visit our new Valence page and select “Contribute”, you sign in with your Roon account and select Art Director. You’ll be presented with images from the Valence database that need your artistic eye. If you want to adjust images for a specific artist, just type their name into the search box. From there, you’ll see all of the adjustments contributed by other users, as well as any images that still need your direction.

Art Director allows us to be far more dynamic with the images used in Roon, giving us the ability to adjust photos to fit into specific shapes. For example, you can adjust the main image that is displayed at the top of an artist page, as well as their circular ‘avatar’ that is shown on the Artists page and within search lists. This means no matter where an artist image is displayed in Roon, it will always look fantastic. If you have a band logo or a photo of an artist that you love, you can also upload it to Art Director to be featured in Roon. 

You and the rest of the Roon community can also vote for your favorite image on an artist’s page. Just click on the heart next to any adjusted image; this is how Valence decides which images are shown in Roon. As the Roon community begins to vote and adjust artist photos, you’ll always see the best possible images in Roon, and they’ll constantly improve based on the efforts of our community.

Local image edits are still possible, but if you have previously spent time improving artist images in your own library, you can now make these changes in Art Director to update your library while improving the Roon experience for everyone.

To start contributing, just sign into Valence using your Roon account details at valence.roonlabs.com

Playlists by Roon

Our team lives for music, and it’s our goal to create the best experiences for other music lovers. In addition to Roon itself, we do this by collaborating with artists, our community, and with our own music team to bring you editorial content and playlists that we think you’ll enjoy. Over the past year we’ve worked with artists including Patricia Barber, Daymé Arocena, AHI, and Stephen Moccio to bring you exclusive interviews and editorial, as well as producing weekly playlists with a particular genre or theme. 

Up until now, the playlists we have created have only been available on TIDAL and Qobuz, and haven’t been accessible in Roon. In our latest release, you can now access everything our music team has curated, directly from your Home screen on both streaming platforms.

Smarter search

Back in the summer, we released the first of many updates to improve how you search for music in Roon. In this update we’ve taken the next step and completely overhauled the search function to make it easier than ever to find the music you’re looking for.

Now, when you search for music in Roon you’ll see more accurate and concise results (with fewer inaccuracies!), especially when it comes to your library content. Roon will be able to detect when you’re searching for classical music, presenting composers and compositions first. We’ve also overhauled text filtering across the app, for more consistent handling of special characters and punctuation.

The updates we’ve made to search this year are just the beginning. Search has been a top priority for us this year, and led by our data team, it will continue to be a focus into 2022 and beyond.

Rock-solid streaming

We’ve completely overhauled Roon’s buffering and caching infrastructure for playing streaming content. The new implementation is designed to be less demanding when interacting with your network and internet connection, making streaming music both more stable and less intensive on your Roon Core. This should minimize playback interruptions from TIDAL and Qobuz, as well as making it possible for people with slower internet connections and networks to have a better and more reliable experience while using Roon. It will also ensure your Roon Core is more resilient to latency issues caused by Content Delivery Networks (CDN) and the geographic distance from your source.

Easier volume limits

We’ve redesigned the Zone Settings screen so it’s even easier to set volume limits that prevent your music from getting too loud. The new design also makes it easier to configure auto-sleep functionality and other settings for your audio devices.

Other new improvements in this release include: improved iOS lockscreen control implementation, new cover art on playlist screens on mobile devices and added the album type to artist’s “Recommended albums” for easier browsing of main albums, singles, and EPs. You can see a complete list of improvements over on our Community post.

We want to thank our subscribers for everything you have done to help us improve Roon and grow our amazing community this year – we couldn’t have done it without you!

We hope you enjoy the new update and if you have any questions or need some support , you can reach out to our dedicated Customer Success & Support team via our Help Center or head over to our Community and join in the discussions with thousands of other Roon subscribers.

Take your Roon content to services around the world with Soundiiz

My name is Thomas and I’m the co-founder of Soundiiz, a French startup created in 2013 with my friend and co-founder Benoit.

You may be asking yourself, “what is Soundiiz?”.

It’s a handy tool to manage your music streaming services in one place, allowing you to connect and move your music collection between more than 40 services.

While we support a lot of music streaming services, many of our users have local media files and music collections that they have curated over the years. And, it’s in this context that Roon was introduced to us, thanks to our users, as powerful software to handle a local music collection.

I met the Roon team a while back and we decided to collaborate as we saw so many synergies between our respective communities. Many Roon listeners are streaming their music with the help of Roon’s support of Qobuz and TIDAL. For a Roon subscriber, the ability to export their music collection using Soundiiz, is a step forward in empowering the listener to feel like they “own” their collection.

We are proud to work with Roon, and to be a part of this new export feature that all Roon members can now enjoy.

Now, let’s see how easy and fast it is to export a personal playlist created in Roon to a music streaming service of your choice.

First, you need to open the playlist you want to export in Roon. Then, select the playlist option “Export” using “…”.

You will see the option to export a Soundiiz CSV file. Click on “Save to desktop”.

Next, go to the Soundiiz website and create an account* if you don’t have one. Once connected, select “Import playlist” in the top right of the interface.

*Use code “ROONVIP” at checkout to get 15% off the Soundiiz Premium subscription.

Choose “From File” and pick the CSV file you have previously saved to your desktop.

Confirm the tracklist and the playlist configuration (title and description).

Finally, select the music service where you want to import this playlist and… it’s as simple as that!

In a few minutes, your playlist will be available on your chosen streaming service and ready to be played! If some elements don’t match (they might not be available in your chosen streaming service, for example), you will be able to see and download a list with details of the elements found vs not found.

We hope you find Soundiiz useful for managing your playlists! Visit
soundiiz.com to find out more.

By: Thomas Magnano, Co-founder of Soundiiz
Guest contributor to Roon Blog.


Roon 1.8: September 2021 Release

In our latest 1.8 release, we’re rolling out one of the Roon community’s most requested features: native control of Roon from your phone, even when the screen is locked. Alongside this, we’ve made it even easier to compare different versions of your favorite albums in Roon and expanded Roon’s exporting functionality.

Native control of Roon from your phone

You can now access essential controls natively from your Android or iOS* device without going into the Roon Remote app. Now playing information, volume, and pause and skip controls can all  be controlled from your phone.

Adjusting volume this way controls the level of your audio gear connected to Roon, and respects the volume limits you’ve already set in different zones. This latest update also includes support for your mobile devices physical volume controls, so you can change the volume of your music without even looking at the screen.

On iOS, we’ve also implemented the much-requested gesture support for navigation so you can now swipe from the left or right edge of your phone screen for easy back and forward navigation.

*iOS Beta only: to use this feature, go to your Settings in Roon Remote and enable ‘Lock Screen Controls’. Find out more

Compare versions of your favorite albums

Roon’s album page has always featured a “Versions” tab where you could find other editions of an album, including those from your own music library, TIDAL, and Qobuz. In our latest update, we’ve completely redesigned this view, making it even easier to compare versions in your library and beyond. Whether you’re looking for an expanded edition with bonus tracks or want to listen to an even higher-quality version, Roon lets you do this in a couple of clicks.

Take your Roon content to services around the world

We expanded and improved Roon’s exporting functionality, so it’s easier to copy media out of Roon, or to export detailed information about your music to Excel.

For those of you who enjoy listening to your playlists on multiple streaming platforms, we’ve also worked with our friends at Soundiiz to make it easier to export playlists and other content from Roon to various music services. Our new Soundiiz export mode generates a custom CSV file for any playlists, favorites, or library content you select, which can easily be uploaded to Soundiiz and synced to TIDAL, Qobuz, or nearly any other streaming service. 

Try Soundiiz Premium 

To get access to all of the Soundiiz features, including the ability to transfer all of your playlists to different streaming platforms at once and to keep all of your playlists synced between different platforms, use code “ROONVIP” at checkout to get 15% off the Soundiiz Premium subscription.

Since the success of Roon 1.8 release in February, we’ve received tons of great feedback from our community which we have been using every day to make improvements to how you use and experience Roon. In fact, since 1.8 we’ve made almost 150 bug fixes and improvements to Roon, and this release is no exception.  

New improvements include: a new “Date Modified” sort feature for your playlists, faster loading of your Daily Mixes, improvements to the search autocomplete user experience, high-resolution playback on supported Sonos devices and shuffling of tags that now includes playlist content from outside your library. You can see a complete list of improvements over on our Community post.

Without our community’s input, feedback and support, Roon wouldn’t be where it is today and for this we are truly grateful. If you have any suggestions, questions or you just want to come and say hi, you can contact our dedicated Customer Success & Support team via our Help Center or Community.

Roon 1.8 Summer Release

Our aim has always been to make it as simple as possible for you to find the music you love and play it on all of your audio gear. That’s why in our summer release, we’ve pushed the boundaries of Valence even further to improve how you search and discover music in Roon. Valence combines the expertise of our community with modern data science and machine learning to deliver a music player that understands your listening preferences like no other.

In the latest update to Roon 1.8, we’ve implemented some exciting new features, including personalized daily mixes, intelligent search, and a totally new TIDAL interface to improve the way you discover and listen to music in Roon.

Your Daily Mixes

Some days you want a little extra inspiration in the morning. For TIDAL and Qobuz users, every day Roon will deliver you six new Daily Mixes designed to give you something new to explore. Each playlist is themed on an artist from your listening history and includes 25 picks from artists you love and some you have yet to discover.

Created using a completely new Valence algorithm, the genres and artists in your playlists will change daily but you can expect a wide variety of music that reflects your library, listening habits, and what you’ve been playing lately.

To make it easy to find music to suit your mood, we’ve named each mix after a “headliner” artist featuring music from them and similar artists and genres we think you’ll find interesting. 

Find a playlist you enjoy? Save it so you can listen to it later. 

Evolving search

Over the last year, we’ve doubled the Roon team to over 50 people across five continents, which allows us to be more ambitious in the scope and number of engineering projects running in parallel. One great example is search, which is now being improved on an ongoing basis by our data team. This release features the first of many planned search developments: an improved user interface with predictive auto-complete.

Previously, when typing a search, Roon would auto-complete using only words from your library, but now it matches people and music across all known artists, albums, tracks, genres, composers, and compositions. 

Valence plays a big part in helping Roon make the right suggestions to you – predicting what you’re looking for as it’s being typed – whether the music is in your library or not. By clicking on any of the recommendations, you’ll get taken directly to what you are looking for, making it easier and faster to get to the music you want to play. 

Your core now preserves your search history with your profile, so it’s easy to get back to the music you were looking for, even if it’s on a different day or device. 

All-new TIDAL experience

We’ve worked closely with our friends at TIDAL to design a completely new TIDAL experience in Roon. The page has been redesigned to include many of TIDAL’s latest features and content, including top charts, TIDAL staff picks and latest MQA playlists and more. As well as all of this, TIDAL’s popular “Mixes for you” feature is now available for you to enjoy in Roon!

We hope you enjoy the new update and look forward to hearing what you think. For more information on the new release, head over to our Community

Roon 1.8 preview (5 of 5)

An experience tailor-made for you

Whether you’re just starting with Roon or you’ve been building a listening history for years, our new updated Home screen gives you an all-new visualization of your listening habits.

You’ll see a calendar view of the last few weeks of listening, along with charts of your top genres, artists, and albums. These charts can display the last week, month, year, or all time, and you can drill down for even more detail.

We’ve also added quick links to our Community, so you’re always just one click away from support from us and our music experts.

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Classical music reimagined

We understand that not all music fits into the artist-album-track mold of popular music. That’s why we’ve come up with a completely new visual style and information layout for classical music, designed to make it easy to find the recordings you’re looking for.

Our new Composer Discography view lets you browse albums by composer, and you can Focus to find performances by conductor, performer, form, period, and more. Interested in recordings of Martha Argerich performing Chopin? Maybe a Nocturne? How about von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic performing the Eroica? In just a few clicks, Focus will get you there.

Valence recommendations for art music are extraordinarily nuanced; you’ll never see a suggestion to check out Haydn because you’re listening to Mozart. You’ll find notable compositions by composer, top conductors of composers’ works, and best-known performers of compositions.

Many Roon users are avid collectors who have assembled their music libraries over years of listening. In classical music as in other genres, Roon 1.8 shows you the recordings in your library first, but then also provides a bridge to the world of streaming music. The ability to instantly compare hundreds or even thousands of performances of your favorite compositions is unique in the music world.

On Monday, we’ll take a look at how Roon 1.8 is personalized for you!

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Focus: far beyond “search”

Roon’s Focus feature has long been a powerful way to filter and sort the albums in your library using Roon’s extensive metadata. Our real aspiration has always been to make the power and flexibility of Focus available in more contexts.

To accomplish that goal, we redesigned Focus to combine multi-criteria filters with sort and text filter, creating a unified interface that’s available virtually everywhere in Roon. Now you can Focus on tracks on an album, artists in a genre, albums in an artist’s discography, or collaborations among artists.

The impact of this new design on classical music (and composer-based browsing in other genres) is profound. It’s now possible to Focus on compositions by period, instrumentation, and form, and to sort them by title, popularity, and composition date. You can now also browse albums which feature works by a composer.

While Focus once let you filter and sort the music in your library, it now extends to all the streaming music available on TIDAL and Qobuz, giving you a truly 360-degree view of artists and composers – whether you have their complete discographies in your library or not.

Tomorrow, we’ll be sharing a preview of the new features designed specifically for classical music!

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Context & meaning, powered by Valence

When you think of discovering new music, you may think of reading a great review, or finding that you love the opening act at a concert. You might imagine a conversation with a friend – maybe one who really knows their music history or stays on top of new releases – who happens to know what you like, too.

You probably don’t think of a network of servers analyzing the listening habits of zillions of users, using collaborative filtering to identify patterns in the data and find other content that you just might like. That’s the reality of algorithmic recommendation, though, which is why it often falls short of expectations.

Valence does more than compare you to other users. It uses Roon’s deep metadata as its foundation, providing context about music and connections between the people who compose, perform, and produce it. Next, it considers your listening history before filtering for the results that are most popular, but only among listeners who are experts in that genre.

This multidimensional approach is what gives Valence recommendations meaning. The very idea of “Top performers of works by Johannes Brahms” (or any of the examples in this post) would be impossible without a fundamental understanding of composers, genres, time periods, geography, compositions, form, instrumentation, performers, and collaborations.

Tomorrow, we’ll be sharing a preview of the new browsing tools available in Roon 1.8!

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A completely new look & feel

We’ve rolled out the latest version of Roon, which is so big that we’ve put together a series of feature previews to show off its highlights. Today, we bring you a peek at Roon’s completely new look and feel.

Roon now has a fresh new visual design that takes its inspiration from the concept of the museum – an airy, neutral environment in which to display things of beauty. You’ll see your music right where you want it: front and center.

True to our founding principles, we don’t think of music as data, and we don’t think it should be presented as if it were. We took cues from classic music magazines, using bold typography and innovative layout to bring music to life.

All this beauty is much more than skin deep. With our latest innovations in data presentation, Roon is now easier and more engaging to use than ever. More on that tomorrow!

Introducing Roon 1.8

Welcome to an immersive new music experience. A new look, new intelligence, and new features, designed for the community of experts that call Roon home.

A completely new look & feel

Roon now has a fresh new visual design that takes its inspiration from the idea of the museum – an airy, neutral environment in which to display things of beauty. We also took cues from classic music magazines, using bold typography and innovative layout to bring music to life. Along with innovations in data presentation, Roon is now a joy to use.

Context & meaning, powered by Valence

Roon goes far beyond the “algorithmic recommendations” you’ll find in mass-market streaming products. Using its deep metadata and an understanding of over 100,000 expert listeners from Valence, Roon now surfaces and suggests music with uncanny sensitivity and insight.

Focus: far beyond “search”

Roon’s Focus feature has long been the most powerful way to explore your own music, but now it goes beyond your library, giving you a 360º-view of artists, genre, performers, and composers. Filter and sort virtually any music in Roon by performer, producer, composer, label, and a wide variety of other parameters.

Classical music reimagined

The way you explore classical music is different; that’s why we’ve come up with a completely new visual style and information layout, designed to make it easy to find the classical recordings you’re looking for. Valence identifies relationships between composers, conductors, and performers – and helps weed out the no-name releases – so you can find well-regarded performances of any composition.

An experience tailor-made for you

Valence now makes suggestions based not only on context (what you’re looking at and what you’re listening to) but also on your taste. Right on Roon’s brand new Home page, you’ll see a dashboard which lets you explore your listening – both the fine-grained history of the last few weeks, and the statistical view of your listening over time.