Settings - Audio Files - Roon Settings

Roon integration requires quite a few modifications to the audio settings. The biggest issue is Roon's handling of the credits or roles metadata kept in the Involved People and Musician Credits fields. Roon has thousands of predefined roles and will only recognize those roles. Further, it does not differentiate between Involved People and Musician Credits. Note that as of the Roon v1.7 release, it parses more field types than it did in the past. However, it has been found that its parsing of its own format in PERSONNEL items achieves the best results.

The Combined Credits Editor can be used to sanitize credits so that they are palatable for Roon. However, the metadata must be encoded appropriately in the audio files. The Settings-Audio ID3, MPEG-4 and FLAC/OGG audio setting panels each have a setting called Use Roon encoding for Involved People and Musician Credits. When this setting is checked, the reading and writing of credits operates differently. Yate will make every attempt to keep credits in the section in which they were entered or in the section designated in the Combined Credits Editor. If you do not have this setting enabled, none of your credits will display in Roon. When set there are audio specific changes made:

ID3: Roon known credits are saved to a TXXX frame named PERSONNEL. When non Roon Credits are found, they are written to a TXXX frame named InvolvedPeopleYR and the standard ID3 frame for Musician Credits (TMCL). This is to insulate the information from Roon's (as of v1.7) parsing of the IPCL, TPCL, TMCL and TXXX:INVOLVEDPEOPLE frames.
FLAC and OGG: Roon known credits are saved to a PERSONNEL comment. Non Roon credits are saved to the default write mappings for Involved People and Musician Credits. If Involved People is mapped to INVOLVEDPEOPLE, INVOLVEDPEOPLEYR will be used as an alternate. If Musician Credits is mapped to PERFORMER, PERFORMERYR will be used as an alternate. This is to insulate the information from Roon's (as of v1.7) parsing of the INVOLVEDPEOPLE comment. Further, PERFORMER is a valid Roon credit. You should not create mappings for PERSONNEL as this is done out of bounds of the mapping system.
MPEG-4: Roon known credits are saved to a PERSONNEL ---- atom as opposed to Yate's standard mappings. Non Roon Involved People credits are saved to an INVOLVEDPEOPLEYR ---- atom. This is to insulate the information from Roon's (as of v1.7) parsing of the INVOLVEDPEOPLE ---- atom. Non Roon Musician Credits are saved to the standard Yate mapping of MUSICIANCREDITS ----.

In order for the Use Roon encoding for Involved People and Musician Credits option to take effect, files must be saved with the option on.

I've changed my mind, how do I get my credits back to normal? Each setting applicable to Roon is followed by a Read Only option. If you enable the Read only option, Roon formatted metadata will be read correctly when a file is loaded. However, Yate standard encodings will take place when the files are written. Once again, you'll have to save the files for anything to change. As a convenience the Roon - Read Only item on the Settings - Audio - Common - Application presets menu can be used to change all settings applicable to Roon to be read only.

There are four other non standard credit associations, that we've encountered.

The first is that Roon always expects the Original Release Time metadata in a UDTI named ORIGINALRELEASEDATE. You must make the following changes:

ID3: You must set the Use Roon Mapping for Original Release Time option on the Settings-Audio-ID3 panel. Note that this option also has an associated Read only option in case you want to restore your metadata to the non Roon association.
FLAC and OGG: You must manually map Original Release Time to ORIGINALRELEASEDATE or ORIGINALDATE in Settings-FLAC/OGG Mappings and use the 1 button to make it the default write mapping. Depending on when you first installed Yate, one of the previous mappings may not be the default. Note that the change is not automatically made if you use the Roon application preset.
MPEG-4: Same method as with ID3

The second is that Roon always expects the Release Time metadata in a UDTI named RELEASEDATE. You must make the following changes:

ID3: You must set the Use Roon Mapping for Release Time option on the Settings-Audio-ID3 panel. Note that this option also has an associated Read only option in case you want to restore your metadata to the non Roon association.
FLAC and OGG: You must manually map Release Time to RELEASEDATE in Settings-FLAC/OGG Mappings and use the 1 button to make it the default write mapping. Note that the change is not automatically made if you use the Roon application preset.
MPEG-4: Same method as with ID3

The third exception is in the detection of Remixer metadata in ID3 based files. Roon does not see the common use mapping but reads a REMIXER UDTI instead. If you want to use the Remixer field you have to set the Use Roon mapping for Remixer option .... which also has an associated Read only option.

The fourth exception is in the detection of Lyricist metadata in ID3 based files. Roon does not see the common use mapping but reads a LYRICIST UDTI instead. If you want to use the Lyricist field you have to set the Use Roon mapping for Lyricist option .... which also has an associated Read only option.

With the exception of the FLAC mapping of Original Release Time to ORIGINALRELEASEDATE (or ORIGINALDATE) and the FLAC mapping of Release Time to RELEASEDATE all previously discussed Roon settings can be made by selecting Roon from the application preset control on the Settings-Audio-Common panel.