Smartlist question

[cbraunsdorf]

I'm fascinated by all the ways Media Center allows you to slice and dice your playlists using the Smartlist rules. But I've come across one type of playlist I'd like to create and I can't seem to figure out if there's a way to use Smartlists to do it.

You know how radio stations often have "Block Party Weekends" where they play blocks (usually 2 or 3 songs) from different artists? Well, I'd like to create a playlist in this style. But it appears that the "Limit" modifier applies to the entire playlist - there doesn't seem to be a way to pick, say, Beck, Wilco, and REM, and limit the playlist to only 3 songs from each of them.

Do any of the MC experts out there have any thoughts on how to achieve this?

Thanks!

[ashawley]

Hmmmmm.... a challenge! I see a number of MC9'ers biting at the bit on this one. :)

Let's see, how could you do this. Well, off the top of my head you could do it in a somewhat manual fashion. If, the songs you wanted to hear from each artist where songs you knew in advance. Like let's say you wanted to make a "Best of Artists" playlist that had 3 songs from each Artist, but you knew which 3 you wanted. You could create a new Custom Field, call it "Best Of" or whatever. Then enter Yes/No values in this field for all your tunes.

Then, you could create your smartlist and use this field where it equals "Yes" and it then sort by Artist and it'll play your Artist Blocks.

Make sense?

Now, if you don't always want the same songs to be played, meaning you want 3 random songs from each artist...well, I've got to tinker to figure that one out.

Somebody'll probably come along with a more elegant idea though...

Adam

[cbraunsdorf]

Hmm...that's a good idea. What would be great would be the ability to create a smartlist with, say, 10 artists and then indicate that you 1) only want songs ranked 4 or 5 by those artists; 2) that you want no more than 3 songs per artist; and 3) That you want the list sorted by artist. That would be a true smartlist since it would adapt to your changing music collection.

It's a great application anyway - the ability to set up this kind of smartlist would just make it that much better :)

The interesting thing is that I posted this same message on the Media Center Interact Forum last week and didn't get a single response!

[TimB]

Originally posted by cbraunsdorf
The interesting thing is that I posted this same message on the Media Center Interact Forum last week and didn't get a single response! Dont' be disheartened about this, sometimes there are so many messages that postings get lost in the noise. I'm never shy, if this happens to me I either just repost or post to the thread saying "any ideas?". ;)

-=Tim=-

[ashawley]

Originally posted by cbraunsdorf
Hmm...that's a good idea. What would be great would be the ability to create a smartlist with, say, 10 artists and then indicate that you 1) only want songs ranked 4 or 5 by those artists; 2) that you want no more than 3 songs per artist; and 3) That you want the list sorted by artist. That would be a true smartlist since it would adapt to your changing music collection.

It's a great application anyway - the ability to set up this kind of smartlist would just make it that much better :)

The interesting thing is that I posted this same message on the Media Center Interact Forum last week and didn't get a single response!

Well all of those things are possible, except I just can't figure out the limit to 3 songs per Artist.

Must....geek....out..... ;)

I'm thinking that the "% of hits" limiter has to come into play here somewhere.....

Adam

[Phil Lee]

I've thought of a way of doing it but it involves a lot of smartlists. First create a smartlist for each artist with a limit of 3 tracks. For example:

Artist: Genesis Limit: 3 tracks
Artist: Fleetwood Mac Limit: 3 tracks
Artist: Peter Gabriel Limit: 3 tracks

You can then create a smartlist that will play all these smartlists:

Playlist: 3 Peter Gabriel Tracks, 3 FM Tracks, 3 Genesis Tracks

[cbraunsdorf]

Cool. That's an interesting idea. So create a smartlist comprised of other smartlists? Since there's probably a core group of artists that I would want for these types of mixes, that could work.

Thanks!!

[cbraunsdorf]

The recommendation to make a smartlist composed of other smartlists to achieve the blocks of music by different artists effect works well. There's only one thing about it that's frustrating - to have true blocks of music , the only possible sort is by artist and that always sorts in either ascending or descending alphabetical order. So, my "block party" smartlist would always start with the A (or Z artists). I thought there might be a way to sort by playlist and then randomize the order of the playlists (e.g., if I have a Beck playlist, an REM playlist, and a Wilco playlist that comprise my Blocks smartlist, I could order the smartlist by playlist), but I can't seem to make it work. I would be great to mix it up so that sometimes the order is Artist 1 (3 songs), Artist 2 (3 songs), Artist 3 (3 songs) and other times it's Artist 2 (3 songs), Artist 1 (3 songs), Artist 3 (3 songs).

[CooleyJ]

Hey everyone,

I was wondering if there is a way to create a smartlist that would create the songs most played IN THE LAST WEEK. I can't seem to think of how to do this.

The closest I can get is a smartlist that selects the top 20 most played songs [total plays] that have been played at least once in the last week. As I've hopefully made clear--this isn't exactly what I want.

Is this possible?

Thanks,
Justin

P.S.
Yeah, I am a newbie, but I think I've done all the requisite homework: read the MC help guides, read Adam's help guide, searched the forums. TIA.

[ashawley]

You'd just make a smartlist that has a rule of:

last played data <=10080, sort: number play -d.

It'd be something like that...

Adam

[CooleyJ]

Hmmmm....

I'll give that a try, but I think that that smartlist is going to give me pretty much what I was trying to avoid--I think its just going to give me a list of songs with the most all-time plays that have been played at least once in the last week.

I'm starting to think what I was looking for may be impossible--it would probably require MC9 to not only keep track of number of plays, but record the date of each play individually--probably not possible.

Hmmmmm.....

Thanks,

Justin

[ashawley]

You're right, that's what it's going to give you. A list of the songs with the highest played values that have been played in the last week.

Adam