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ozpodphot

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andy2808 said:
any songs you don't want on shuffle (comedy songs, interludes etc.) you can choose to remove from the shuffle:

choose your song(s)
click 'get info'
'options'
click the 'skip when shuffling' box

i know this would take a while but if grouped together by making a smart playlist you could then apply this to multiple items and delete the playlist (ive only got a 4GB mini so i can do this without taking too long :D)
hmmm. not getting very far. when I select "get info" for a single track, the "options" tab is available and I can check "skip when shuffling". However, when I seletct multiple songs, I can't choose the "options" tab. instead, I get the simpler "multiple song information" screen which doesn't have a "skip when shuffling" box. :confused:

this means that to get "skip when shuffling" onto each of the songs I don't want shuffled would mean individually selecting and editing >600 tracks.:eek: no way Jose!

so I'm back to using my "Random" SPL - which actually seems to be working out pretty well.
 

andy2808

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answering rockmyplimsoul's query , you will know if it is working on your ipod if when you select 'shuffle songs' on your ipod there should be less songs for shuffle than you have in your whole digital collection (i.e. say you have your 4 gb mini with 800 songs and you selected 50 'skip when shuffling' it should say '1 out of 750' not 800)

if not try updating your ipod after it or make sure if you have it on manual (like me) that you change the 'get info' only when in your ipod's collection not the main library.

(i've just checked now on my mini -it should work if done properly)


hope this helps. :)

(i'll be back at 7pm GMT :D )
 
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rockmyplimsoul

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ok, now i see the problem ... 'skip when shuffling' only works with the 'shuffle songs' function (i.e. the 'quick shuffle' from the main menu). it does not work with the shuffle/songs or shuffle/album playback setting. not very intuitive, and a shame that it has this limitation!
 

FePa

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I sync my 4gb Nano iPod with playlists. Since my iTunes library has 60GB+, I developed a method for listening to all my music on my iPod, and to have my playlists always updated with diferent songs. With this method I can create about 10 "genre smart playlists" to fit my Nano.

First I build a folder called "building blocks". Inside this folder I build a subfolder for each "genre smart playlist" I want to make. Inside each "genre folder" I have two playlists.

One is called "[genre] my rating":
rules "all"
genre is ...
my rating is greater than "0 stars"
limit to 100MB per least recently played

Second is called "[genre] playcount":
rules "all"
genre is ...
last played is not in the last 5 days
playlist is not "[genre] my rating"
limit to 200MB random

When "building block" are ready I make the correspondent "genre smart playlist" that I use to sync my Nano iPod. This playlist is:
rules "any"
playlist is "[genre] playcount"
playlist is "[genre] my rating"

This way I have a 300MB "genre smart playlist" that is always updated with diferent songs, in which some I like more (the songs I've rated) and come around more often, and the others are always fresh songs that haven't listen in a while or haven't at all.


Comments ??
 
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Orcin

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My Smart Playlist

I use a smart playlist that I call 101 KPOD-FM for listening while I commute and exercise. I named it that way to make it appear at the top of my playlists. I got the idea from the smartplaylist site but I didn't need anything quite so complicated as their example.

I create KPOD this way:

KPOD1:
Match all
Genre is not {whatever you want to exclude}
My Rating is greater than 3 stars
Time is less than 12:01
Last played is not in last 2 weeks
Limit 80 songs at random
Auto-update on

KPOD2:
Match all
Genre is not {whatever you want to exclude}
My Rating is 3 stars
Time is less than 6:01
Last Played is not in last 2 months
Limit 20 songs at random
Auto-update on

101 KPOD-FM:
Match any
Playlist is KPOD1
Playlist is KPOD2
Limit 100 songs at random
Auto-update on

This playlist is a good mix of my favorites and the occasional song that I haven't heard for a while. You can adjust the 80/20 ratio of song ratings and values of "date last played" depending upon your library size, quantity of top-rated songs, and how much you listen to the playlist.

I go with a shorter time on the 3 star list because I don't want to be stuck listening to a long but average song. (I found that I usually just skipped those when they came up anyway.) I don't include 2 star songs because I typically rate those as "ok in the context of the album but I wouldn't listen to it otherwise".
 

wka13

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this is ipod's main advantage when facing vision M: on creative's player one has to manually sort the songs and smart playlists is non-existant: that's the main reason why I quit ZVM for 5G
 

purerory

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SPL sans duplicate artists?

Hi there. I'm trying to set up a smart playlist, selected on the basis of a BPM range, sorted ascending by BPM (eureka! Ask iLounge covered how to sort within an SPL! Display the BPM column in iTunes, click on the column header to sort it, and it seems to work)

NOW being a picky former DJ I'd like to avoid duplicating the artist in the random set.

So far the SPL looks like this:

BPM is in the range 120 to 130
Genre is not Podcast
Last Played is not in the last 21 days
My Rating is not * *

Limit to 90 minutes selected by random​

Now "random" seems to be partial to songs I added to the iPod on a particular day. Since I typically added songs by artist, if an artist happens to have 3 songs that match the criteria, I get all three in one 90 minute set. What I'd like to do is add a fifth criteria along the lines of

Artist is not in the playlist BPM120-130 (i.e. recursive pl ref)

or somesuch thing. Anyone have any ideas?
 

dan.hutch2005

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Heres mine...

I used Party Shuffle a lot in the early days but got bored of that and started experimenting with smart playlists. This is my set up...

I have 7 Smart Playlists all inside a foler called 'Smart Shuffle':

1 Star - 10 tracks rated 1 star and not played in last 2 weeks, selected by least recently played
2 Star - 20 tracks rated 2 star and not played in last 2 weeks, selected by least recently played
3 Star - 30 tracks rated 3 star selected by least recently played
4 Star - 40 tracks rated 4 star selected by least recently played
5 Star - 50 tracks rated 5 star selected by least recently played
Recently Added - date added is in the last 2 weeks, rating is not 1 star, rating is not 2 star
Unrated - rating is no stars, not played in the last 2 weeks, playlist is not Recently Added

I play 'the folder' with random on, this set up rotates the music nicely while maintaining a 'randomness', favours higher rated music. One problem I had early on was that 1 star tracks were overplayed because I only had 12 in the whole library the 10 limit meant that tracks wre pretty such permantly in Smart Shuffle I fixed this by adding an extra condition on the 1 and 2 Star lists that the tracks must not have been played for 2 weeks.

Tracks added within the last 2 weeks stick thanks to 'Recently Added', however any new track that is rated 1 or 2 Star falls straight into normal circulation, as 1 and 2 star tracks are not allowed in 'Recently Added'.

The 'unrated' list ensures that if a track does not meet the conditions of the other 6 playlists it still gets into Smart Shuffle every 2 weeks. The success of this set up depends very much on ratings, if you have a lot of unrated music it won't work very well.

All 7 playlists require that: podcast is false; kind does not contain video or movie and only checked songs are selected. I prefer to keep videos out as most of the time iTunes is running hidden or behind something else so they would not be seen anyway - most have an audio equivalent too.
 

btr1976

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I'm not sure if this has been done before, or if there's an easier way to do it, but I recently made a ton of regular playlists, but most of my music didn't fit into any of them. So I had no way of knowing which songs were NOT in any playlist. I felt like every song needed a home, and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any.

So I created a smart playlist that basically says "playlist IS NOT" "playlist name" for all of my playlists. The result is a list of songs that are not in a playlist, so I can go through those and give them a proper home if need be. And sometimes they don't need a home, which is okay, so they just stay in the 'not in a playlist' smart playlist.
 
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I have the "ratings" smart playlists with 'live updating' on so that anytime I rate a song it will go into that smartlist.

_Maint - this is a maintenance list so that any song playing will go into this list when receiving 2 star rating. I use this when a song doesn't have album art or it doesn't play properly and needs to be re-imported.

*Delete - I give this a 1 star rating and call it 'Delete'. All songs to be removed from the iPod and iTunes. I don't like these songs.
Note: The symbols put them at the top of the playlist menu.

I made an 'All Music' list that has all of the songs in the library in it so that when I want to shuffle 'all songs' I can easily do so:

All Music
-size is greater then 0 mb and then excluded all I didn't want in that list:
--Genre does not contain audiobooks, podcasts, movies, music videos, etc.
--Composer is not PDF Documents

Other playlists are Zero playcount>random>excluding movie, music vids, etc. I either use random or one of the other options just to see what I will get, 50 count, live updating on, match checked songs only.

Some were standard playlists that I turned into smart playlists since I wanted to keep them. What I did was used the grouping category to make the smart playlists. I first highlight all songs in that playlist and use the 'grouping' section and put the playlist title in there. Then I make the smart playlist:
Grouping > contains > "I put the title of the playlist here"
Limit to is '1000' > selected by 'random', live updating on, matched checked songs only.

This also perserves the playlist in case I need to recreate it. I use this with playlists I like and want to keep. Any songs I want to add to any of these lists I just add that title to the gouping section of the tags.

I also use the composer & comments section of the song to add a playlist title so that I can add it to more than one playlist.
 

St Bonney

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I recently started to create playlists that contain music that was contributed to by certian artists. I list the names of the people who preform each song in the "Composer" field.

For example, a modern Green Day song would have a composer tag of "Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, Tre Cool", and in some cases, "Jason White".

Any songs by Billie Joe's secondary band, Pinhead Gunpowder, would be tagged as "Billie Joe Armstrong, Aaron Cometbus, (ect)".

Now, if I create a SPL with the condition "Composer" contains "Billie Joe Armstrong", I get all songs Billie Joe has contributed to.

This also works for any other band or band member who has contributed to multiple bands, or features in another artist's song.
 

jtr63

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Limiting artist appearances within a smart playlist

Is there a way of limiting the number of times an artist can appear within a particular smart playlist ? For instance, I have a "My top rated" style list of 50 songs. Is there a way I can prevent more than, say, 3 songs by a particular artist appearing within a playlist of 50 songs ?
TIA
John.
 

magtour

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I've been researching.. but to no avail.. I'm sure I'M doing something wrong, but could someone point me to the correct way to compile 4 playlists into 1 big playlist..

Here is how I've been doing it..

5 Star
my rating is *****
songs not played in last 2 weeks
limit to 300 songs
auto update

4 Star
(same as above, only with 4 stars)

3 Star
(again.. Same as above)

Top 25
(Itunes default)
songs not played in 5 days


* BEST *
match all
playlist is 5 star
playlist is 4 star
playlist is 3 star
playlist is top 25
limit to 500 songs
auto update



the * BEST * playlist keeps staying blank.. nothing gets input there.. but the other playlists are good to go..

Please help.

Thank you
 

FePa

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magtour said:
I've been researching.. but to no avail.. I'm sure I'M doing something wrong, but could someone point me to the correct way to compile 4 playlists into 1 big playlist..

Here is how I've been doing it..

5 Star
my rating is *****
songs not played in last 2 weeks
limit to 300 songs
auto update

4 Star
(same as above, only with 4 stars)

3 Star
(again.. Same as above)

Top 25
(Itunes default)
songs not played in 5 days


* BEST *
match all
playlist is 5 star
playlist is 4 star
playlist is 3 star
playlist is top 25
limit to 500 songs
auto update



the * BEST * playlist keeps staying blank.. nothing gets input there.. but the other playlists are good to go..

Please help.

Thank you
Just change "match all" to "match any". This way you'll have a playlist that sum all songs from the playlists above
 

magtour

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Thank you very much.. that seems to have worked..

and now I feel rather silly..

Thanks again.. I really appreciate your time
 

iBang

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Here are my favorites. Most of these playlists are great if you're constantly adding new music to your library:

... New Hotness // notice the dot & colons to bump these playlists to the top

Date Added is in the last 6 weeks
Skip Count is less than 4
My Rating is greater than 3
(Ordered by Date Added)

..: New Music

Date Added is in the last 6 weeks
Skip Count is less than 4
My Rating is not 1
(Ordered by Date Added)

.:. Shuffle All

My Rating is not 1
Podcast is false
(Ordered by Date Added)

.:: Shuffle [Hits]

My Rating is greater than 3
Podcast is false
(Ordered by Date Added)

Best of 2005

Date Added is after 12/31/2004
Date Added is before 12/31/2005
(Limit to 100 songs, ordered by Play Count)

Best of 2006

Date Added is after 12/31/2005
(Limit to 100 songs, ordered by Play Count)

Rewind: 1 Year Ago // basically what was on my New Hotness smart playlist ~1 year ago

Date Added is not in the last 11 months
Date Added is in the last 12 months
Play Count is greater than 35
(Ordered by Date Added)

Rewind: 2 Years Ago

Date Added is not in the last 23 months
Date Added is in the last 24 months
Play Count is greater than 45
(Ordered by Date Added)

Shuffle [LP] // LP stands for Least Recently Played

Playlist is .:. Shuffle All
Last Skipped is not in the last 1 months
(Limit to 1GB, ordered by Least Recently Played)

Ω Unrated / Defects // notice the omega sign to bump the playlist to the bottom.
// this playlist is based on the assumption that I rate every single mp3 I have. When I'm listening to my iPod and I hear a glitch, I reset the song's rating to 0 so I can refer back to it later.


My Rating is less than 1
 
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JeffASaul

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My weekly Sync

Here is what I use to Sync my 1GB nano weekly:

Essential
Grouping is Essential (I tagged a bunch of songs I always want on the iPod)
Match only Checked items
Check Live Updating

Sync List (match all rules)
Grouping is Not Essential
Genre is Not Podcast
Limit to 800 MB random
Match only Checked items
Check Live Updating

I then manually drag these playlist to the nano and iTunes replaces any songs it needs to. This usually leaves me about 50 MB a free space for a Podcast I regularly listen to.

If however, I buy a new CD or a bunch of news songs from iTunes, I create a playlist of these songs and and drag them to iPod first. Then Essential and Sync List. iTunes is now smart enough to realize that if either list contains a song that I previously put on the iPod, it will not add a duplicate to the iPod, rather will continue to fill the iPod until the list is complete or the iPod is full.

This is very useful when updating from a library that is larger than the iPod, since you are limiting to certian MB.
 

atreyu

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I've got a system that works great for me... most importantly, it keeps my music collection fresh. I've done some creative (IMHO) stuff with grouping & rating that makes it all work right.

First off, my ratings system:
5 star: a favorite song, welcome in multi-genre mixes ("crossover")
4 star: very good song, welcome in multi-genre mixes
3 star: good song if I'm listening to this genre, but doesn't rank as "crossover"
2 star: uncheck next time you sync... i.e. keep in iTunes, remove from iPod
1 star: yuck. delete this next time you sync.
0 star: unrated

I add identifying tags to tracks' "Grouping" fields, separated by a space. For example, a given track might have the grouping "Quiet NoShuffle" or "Christian Alternative." My grouping tags:

"NoShuffle" - never put these in a cross-genre mix. Comedy, spoken word, video, podcasts, classical, etc.
"Country" - I use this to group genres like Country, New Bluegrass, Alt. Country, etc.
"Christian" - groups genres like Worship, Christian Rock, Christian Pop, etc.
"Alternative" - groups genres like Adult Alt., Alt/Indy Rock, Electronic, Alt. Country, etc.
"Quiet" - music quiet enough to go to sleep to. For me, that's mostly New Age piano & some classical.

These ratings and tags feed my smart playlists. My heavy rotation playlists all start with a "." (period) so they're sorted to the top. These are all "Match All of the following rules" playlists. Here are some examples of my playlists:

.4+LP All LOP: Means "4 stars or better, low play, all genres, least often played"
- Grouping does not contain "NoShuffle"
- My Rating is greater than 3
- Last played is not in the last 2 days
- Limit to 300 items selected by least often played

.4+LP All LRP: Means "4 stars+, low play, all genres, least recently played"
- Grouping does not contain "NoShuffle"
- My Rating is greater than 3
- Limit to 300 items selected by least recently played

.4+LP No Country: to play for country-hating friends Also have a .4+LP No Christian.
- Grouping does not contain "Country"
- Grouping does not contain "NoShuffle"
- My Rating is greater than 3
- Limit to 100 items selected by least often played

.Quiet (must allow 0 star songs, as most of my instrumentals are unrated)
- Grouping contains "Quiet"
- My rating is not 1
- My rating is not 2
- Limit to 95 items selected by least often played

3+LP Country&Bluegrass (have similar "3+LP"s for Alternative, Christian, Jazz...)
- Grouping contains "Country"
- My Rating is greater than 2
- Last played is not in the last 2 days
- Limit to 200 items selected by least often played

Unrated All (also have Unrated Country, Unrated Christian, Unrated Jazz, etc.)
- My Rating is 0
- Grouping does not contain "NoShuffle"
- Kind does not contain "video" (don't need in other PLs, as my videos are all unrated)

I've found selecting a certain number of songs by least often played works better than saying "not played within the past 2 weeks." The latter method doesn't favor the song you last played 6 months ago over the song you last played 15 days ago, so your collection's more likely to get stagnant.

I use my .4+LP & 3+LP lists for driving, biking, etc., while my Unrated playlists get played mostly on train rides, etc. when I have eyes & hands free.
 
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