Valence

What is 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.

The reality of algorithmic recommendation is something different, which is why it often falls short of expectations. When you think of discovering new music, you probably don’t think of a network of servers analyzing the listening habits of zillions of users, identifying patterns in the data to find other content that you might like.

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”, for example, would be impossible without a fundamental understanding of composers, genres, time periods, compositions, instrumentation, performers, and collaborations. 

Whether you have an extensive music collection you’ve built up over the years, or you’re just starting out, your own music collection is always just the starting point with Valence. Connect TIDAL, Qobuz and KKBox to your Roon account to reveal your own personal gateway to a new world of high-resolution streamed music, making new discoveries endless.

Learn even more about Valence on our features page.

How Do I Use Valence? 

Valence is available through our streaming service integration (TIDAL/Qobuz/KKBox). There are a few Roon features powered by Valence:

Roon Radio

To drive playback, You can choose to start Roon Radio at any time by navigating to an Artist, Album, or Track and choosing the Roon Radio playback option. This will kickstart Valence's algorithmic recommendation. 

Daily Picks

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Valence also powers Daily Picks, a fresh set of album recommendations that appears on your Roon Home screen each day. Where Roon Radio responds to a choice you make in the moment, Daily Picks works quietly in the background, using the music you already listen to as the seed for discovery. 

Each set is drawn from several kinds of signals. Some picks come straight from your recent listening, following the thread of an album or artist you've been playing lately. Others reach further back into your history to resurface a favorite you may have set aside and forgotten. When an artist you listen to puts out something new, Valence can surface that brand-new release and place it at the front of the set, so it finds you without your going looking.

And from any of these starting points, Valence branches outward into related music, drawing on Roon's deep metadata to connect artists and styles rather than simply matching you against other listeners.

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