Totally Random Music without Audio Book CDs

[Astro_Digital]

I have a iPod Video 60Gig.

I listen to all my 5000 or so songs in shuffle mode.

I like shuffle never know what song is next.

I can mark my Audio Book CDs not to play in shuffle mode.

My question is why does it seem to me it always plays the same songs over and over again?

When is says there are 5109 songs does the songs select run from 1 to 5109 and are never repeated? Because I swear I hear the same songs twice?

I think because I use Audio Book CDs and I do not want to hear a 30 to 45 minute clip of some book while I listen to songs suffle is the only way to go. I want random play a classical track, hard rock, pop, or country so I do not use play lists.

I want everything except to any Audio Books played back 100% random with no duplicates.

Any alternative to shuffle I tried play lists build a list of everything exclude Audio Books but it does not seem to work?

[bwh79]

Read this. It talks about how iTunes/iPod's "random" isn't really that random after all, but also shows you how to get around it. It shows you how to set up a bunch of smart playlists to rotate your music on and off the 'Pod so you really do hear everything with minimal repeats. I've been using this system for only a couple of days now, but I really like it.

[Astro_Digital]

Ok I printed the beast 22 pages !!!!

Going to need a pot of coffee and awhile to get through this and people wonder why we give up and say. Yep lets just suffle.

From a what I gather what I want done is not uncommon.
Wish somebody just tell me what buttons to press so I can call it day?

After all iTunes and iPod supposed to be easy?

Wonder if iTunes 7.0 changes anything?

[Sparkee]

To skip your audio books when shuffle is on select them all in iTunes and click "Get Info". Set the "Skip When Shuffling" to yes.

[cjmnews]

Astro: Unfortunately Shuffle is not all that random. Nothing can really be done about it. The nested smart play list solution works well. I've been using it for months.

You can either put up with the duplicates that shuffle provides, or mix it yourself with smart playlists. The "easy" button is shuffle, and you don't like it.

iTunes and iPod are easy if you want to do things exactly they way Apple implemented. No one is saying you can't use shuffle.

iTunes 7.0 does not change anything. Mainly because shuffle didn't change.

Since you listen to both books and music you'll probably want to use the smart playlist option so you don't need to switch between shuffle on and shuffle off everytime you change from and to audiobooks. You can always leave it off.

Nested smart playlists are pretty cool. I use it and added my Christmas music in by altering 1 playlist. Now 10% of my music is Christmas.

[Astro_Digital]

I have started to play with Smart playlists so far too much work.

All I want is 5000 songs each equally weighted.

If a played the sequentually I would play song 1,2,3,4 etc... to 5000 take all number dump them in hat and play them back a random.

I seen nested playlist 5 Star Rated, 4 Star Rated, Not played in 7 days etc..

But I do not want a subset of my library I like all my songs.

People actually copy stuff to there iPod they never want to listen to?
I like everything on my iPod, just want to mix it up.

[bwh79]

Originally Posted by Astro_Digital

I have started to play with Smart playlists so far too much work.

Yeah, I guess it can be a bit of work. What I did was to take the second example from the document I linked in my earlier post. I copied each list almost exactly rule-for-rule, with some minor adjustments to the "last played" timeframe and the track counts, to adjust for the size of my collection vs. the capacity of my 'Pod. Each time I sync my iPod, I delete the contents of one playlist, copy another (smart) playlist into the one I just emptied, and then sync the bugger -- done! I'll admit, that's more work than simply plugging in the iPod and letting it do it's thing, but not by a whole lot. Stuff I've just heard gets rotated off my iPod, and stuff I haven't heard in a while gets put on. Songs I like more are allowed to come back a little sooner than the ones I don't love quite as much. With 5000 songs, I'm guessing you use a full-sized iPod, and not a nano. I do use a nano, so I don't have the option of just carrying around everything. This lets me hear all of my music without the work of rotating it myself, since I did all the work up front. Maybe it's not such a big deal for you if you can carry your entire library, but you still don't want the same songs showing up in "shuffle" all the time.

I seen nested playlist 5 Star Rated, 4 Star Rated, Not played in 7 days etc..

But I do not want a subset of my library I like all my songs.

People actually copy stuff to there iPod they never want to listen to?
I like everything on my iPod, just want to mix it up.

It's not so much a matter of copying songs you don't want to listen to, but some songs you really, really like, and wouldn't mind hearing every day, or every couple of days. Call those songs a 5. Other songs you still like quite a bit, but maybe not quite so much that you want to hear them as often as the other ones. Call those songs 4's. Most of the rest of the songs are songs you like, but like you said, just putting it on shuffle ends up playing the same stuff over and over. Call these songs a three, and they won't get played as often. Sometimes an album has a substandard song, or a "filler" track, or a skit, that you still want to hear in the context of the entire album, but you don't want it showing up randomly in shuffle mode when you're groovin to the music. Call these tracks a 2, and they will never be transfered to the iPod...unless you put them on the iPod. Sometimes you're listening to a track on the go and you notice that the file is corrupted, or the tag info is incorrect. Call these a "1" and they will be dumped into a special playlist the next time you update. You can then browse that playlist at your convenience and correct, re-import, or discard those tracks as you see fit.

Or else maybe that is too much work and you really do just want to play all 5000 songs in random order, without hearing any (or at least too many) repeats. When you select "Shuffle Songs" from the iPod main menu, it will put the tracks in a random (-ish) playlist, and play them in that sequence. As long as you don't play a track from any other list, it will go through this list from 1 to 5000 (or whatever) and not repeat any songs, but as soon as you play a song from another list (even if you just jump to that song from the "songs" or "artist" etc. list), it will clear the temporary shuffle list and when you shuffle again, things you've already heard can be put in the front again.

If you want something fairly still simple, but still kind of sharp (if not exactly "smart"), you can try this: Make a simple list that excludes songs you've played in the last x-number of days, so that when you play songs from the list they will always be "fresh". You can either play the list in shuffle mode, or else make the list do the shuffling for you.

Create a new Smart Playlist. "Match the following rule" should be checked, and the rule should be: "[Last Played] [is not in the last] [10] [days]". If you sync your entire library, then this is the only rule you need, but if you sync to a specific playlist, then you'll need to add the rule "[Playlist] [is] [<the name of your sync list>]".

You can change the time frame to fit your needs. This list will grab songs from your library, or from your sync list, but will ignore anything that you've heard too recently. However, if you just save this list as it is, then it will simply put the songs in the same order as they appear in the library, and we want some randomness, so there are a couple of options. First, you can just save this list as it is, and play it in shuffle mode. Make sure you set the shuffle off/songs/albums setting to songs, and don't just select "Shuffle Songs" from the main menu, as that will shuffle all the songs on your iPod and ignore the list.

The second option is to check the "limit" box in the playlist editor, and set it to say "Limit to [25] [items] selected by [random]." This will create a random block of about two hours worth of music. Every time you play a song, it gets kicked off this list, and a new one is randomly added to take its place. Skipping a song won't kick it off this list, but you like all your music, so you won't be skipping any songs, right?

You can check or uncheck "Match only checked items" as you see fit. The last step is to make sure that the "Live Updating" box is checked, or else this list will be created once and will remain static. You want the list to change every time a song is played, so you need to keep "Live Updating" on, and you need to make sure that if this list references another playlist (i.e. your sync list) that that list must also be on the iPod, as must every list referenced by that list, and every list referenced by those lists, etc. If you haven't been using smartlists, then your sync list (if you have one) is probably a standard playlist and this won't be a problem, but if for example your sync list is a smartlist that groups together a number of other standard lists, you must sync all those lists to your iPod as well.

When this list loads, it will ignore anything that you've played in the last ten days, or whatever time you choose. From the remaining eligible songs, it will choose 25 at random, and play them in the order they were chosen. When the list finishes (about 2 hours later, if your songs are as long as mine), simply open the list again and it will have 25 new songs in it. Or just forget about the limit and play the entire 5000 song list in shuffle mode. As songs are played, they will get kicked off the list, and will show up again in ten days to be shuffled through again.

[R.Rogers]

Originally Posted by bwh79

Or just forget about the limit and play the entire 5000 song list in shuffle mode.

Ok, what am I missing? How do I do that?

I've created a simple smart playlist (like Genre is X) and when I play it, it always plays the list sequentially.

If I choose shuffle off the main ipod menu, it shuffles the entire ipod.

[bwh79]

Originally Posted by R.Rogers

If I choose shuffle off the main ipod menu, it shuffles the entire ipod.

Yes, it does.

Originally Posted by bwh79

Make sure you set the shuffle off/songs/albums setting to songs, and don't just select "Shuffle Songs" from the main menu, as that will shuffle all the songs on your iPod and ignore the list.

The option you're looking for is under "Settings" from the main menu. After you turn shuffle on (either to "songs", which will shuffle individual songs, or "albums", which will play entire albums in order, but will choose the next album at random when the current one is finished), you then browse to the playlist and press play (or, if you want to choose the first song and then have the rest played at random, press the Center button to open the playlist and select a song. Press center again, or play, to begin playing the selected song, but the rest will still be played randomly).

[dcorban]

Originally Posted by Astro_Digital

When is says there are 5109 songs does the songs select run from 1 to 5109 and are never repeated? Because I swear I hear the same songs twice?

Ignoring any potential flaw or intentional programming by Apple, I wanted to point out that random shuffle doesn't mean "only play this song once a week". It means (theoretically) "pick a song at random and play". Random includes the possibility of playing multiple songs by the same artist in a row or even the same song within a short span of time.

[R.Rogers]

Originally Posted by bwh79

The option you're looking for is under "Settings" from the main menu.

Odd. It was set to off, when I swear it was set to on before.

Thanks.