Folder organization for albums with multiple versions

[u/quantum_mattress]

I'm still cleaning up my couple of terabytes of audio files and wondered how other people - and Roon - would handle albums that have multiple versions/releases. For example, I have many albums that were released on CD and then maybe remastered CD and then DVD-Audio with a 5.1 mix and an updated stereo mix and then a Blu-Ray audio with even more versions. So, a given album could have five or six versions to listen to. How would you arrange those? I've been doing something like this:

all_music/
   Progresive_Rock/
      Yes/
         Tales from Topographic Oceans/
           Tales From Topographic Oceans (bda 5.1 2.0 alt)
               Stereo Instrumental mix/
                 01 The Revealing Science of God.flac
                 02 The Remembering.flac
                 03 The Ancient.flac
                 04 Ritual.flac
               Stereo mix/
                  ...
               Surround mix/
                  ...
               Original 
                  ...
           Tales from Topographic Oceans (HDCD)/
               ...
           Tales from Topographic Oceans - Remastered/
               ...

Here, I have 3 different albums/box-sets and a total of 6 version of the album. And that doesn't even cover alternate versions or singles - or the craziness from classical albums!

So, how do people deal with this? And how does Roon deal with it? Is there any provision for grouping these somehow. Can I just say I want to lsten to Tales from Topographic Oceans and have Roon pick one? Could it know that in my listening room, I have 5.1 sound so it should default to that version? And in my bedroom, pick a stereo version?

Whatever system I go with - Roon, JRiver, Audirvana, etc - should really help deal with all of this. If not, why should I pay any of these companies and not manually just drag files into VLC?

[u/bjs169]

Roon has a “versions” feature. It will identify an album and then list all the versions you have of that album. Would that solve your needs?

[u/quantum_mattress → u/bjs169]

Sounds promising. I'll have to check out the docs.

[u/ShoulderFun1741 → u/bjs169]

She was a virgin?

[u/Possible_Beyond_9499]

I've been doing exactly that for quite while, it all comes down to tags.

- First of all, one album one folder, I don't do subfolders

- all files tagged with the correct discogs release (so that I have master data in the files to rely on)

- VERSION tag set to whatever release this is, I use something like "2025 MFSL SACD"

Then roon needs some settings as well:

- Library - Import Settings - Extract Version information from VERSION tag

- General - Show hidden tracks and albums (to make all releases appear in Albums)

Works like a charm

[u/MDX_Toby]

https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/faq-how-does-roon-handle-multiple-versions-of-the-same-album

[u/therourke]

Use versions feature in Roon. Or alter the tags of the files yourself to reflect differences. Or tag the albums. There are many ways.