Smart (random) playlist - how to make it truly random?

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elasticmedia

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I have made a smart playlist that grabs 4.5 gigs of music; I call that playlist "send to ipod."

When I update my ipod, I don't get the feeling that itunes creates a new set of songs in that smart playlist. In fact, it seems that the songs are the same. Once I have created that playlist (which did create a random collection) it seems that the playlist is finished and will not update. Am I correct?

I am guessing that to do what I want, I would have to create a new smart playlist each time I want to randomize the ipod. My formula for the smart playlist is "select 4500 mb of songs 'least recently played' " but this appears to create a static list.

thanks!
 

TheDoctor

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As long as your library is above 4.5Gb, iTunes should be updating the list.

The easy way to check is to watch the iPod update. It will delete all *bumped* songs before importing the replacements, so you should see your total iPod song count diminish and then grow again as the copy part of the sync takes place.
 

studogvetmed

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You need to clear the playlist each time, or add a time limiting exclusions such as "Last played is not in the last 2 days or something"

Live updating on the iPod means that it changes when something new regarding the rules to the playlist becomes available. It doesn't mean it will rerandomize each time the playlist loads.

You can clear a playlist by right clicking on it and selecting clear, it will then grab a new subset of songs.

Stuart
 

TheDoctor

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His list is already limited to 4.5 GB of "least recently played" music.

I have a similar smart list called "Hardly played" which I limit to 2500 songs. At the moment the list does not contain any songs that have been played more than once.

If I pick a song in it and play it, as soon as it finishes the play count for that song goes up by one and it dissappears from the list.

So elasticmedia's list *should* be updating itself according to the rules that he has set.

The eassiest test is to play a song from it in iTunes, when the song finishes it should be removed from the lsit.
 

elasticmedia

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Thanks for the ideas about using Clear inside the smart playlists.

I am still struggling with 350 albums I imported using apple lossless in the the PC itunes. I would like to convert a set into LAME mp3s but it hasn't worked yet. I tried using the "import with LAME" plugin but got an "input error - unable to find source" message. Of course I could see and play the songs stored on the PC itunes folder just fine on the mac, that message notwithstanding.

What would be great if sme folder actions script could be made so that a duplicate of your library would be always in synch so you have a full fidelity, uncompressed library (for home) that has a mirror compressed library for an ipod. Somewhere there might be an applescript?

thanks,
Jim
 
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