Your Smart Playlist Ideas -- Post them Here

[chippe01]

Originally Posted by Germansuplex

Maybe someone can give me a hand. This is almost like a brain teaser that I have been unable to solve.

I have a smart playlist entitled "American Idol". In it is all tracks I have of live American Idol performances, as well as commercial albums by American Idol artists. For live performances on the actual show, I have the artist in the track name, and "American Idol" as the artist and album artist. For instance, "One - Elliott Yamin & Mary J. Blige" is the track title, and "American Idol" is the artist. The album is "Unreleased". Meanwhile, albums by Taylor Hicks, Ruben Studdard, etc. are tagged as you might imagine.

There is one small issue: I have a music video of the "One" performance I named above, tagged exactly the same way as the audio version. This pops up in the smart playlist, and I cannot figure out how to get it out without modifying the tag (which I don't want to do). Because there are several conditions that I need to have to keep all American Idol stars in this playlist (Artist is Taylor Hicks, Artist is Daughtry, Artist is Ruben Studdard, etc.), I must use "match any of the following rules", which means the
"Kind is MPEG Audio File" option is not going to work. Also, I really don't like using the comment field, and the grouping field is already used for other purposes. I guess what I'm saying is I want to do this without modifying any tags.

Anyone know of a way to get that music video out of the playlist without editing the tag? I'm sure it may be something elementary that's just flying over my head.

Why not just tag all the files the correct way - with the actual Track Title and Artist name and Album Name? Then, just tag the category for all these songs/videos as "American Idol".

You can then have a simple Smart Playlist:
Match ALL
Category = American Idol
Kind DOES NOT CONTAIN video

[Germansuplex]

I do have it tagged properly. All studio albums are tagged correctly, i.e. Song: Change Me, Artist: Ruben Studdard, Album Artist: Ruben Studdard, etc.

However, only the live performances that took place on the actual American Idol show are tagged with "American Idol" as the artist. I do this to keep all the live performances grouped together. I don't want to put "American Idol" in the grouping field (I'm assuming that's what you meant by 'category'?)because I use that field to separate full albums, singles, partial albums, unreleased albums and mixtapes from one another.

It's not a huge deal, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't an oversight on my part.

[hrynkiw]

What do you have to do to trigger a Live Update on the iPod?

I have a SPL with three tracks selected based on PlayCount=0.

In that SPL in iTunes, as soon as a track has completed, it disappears from the playlist and is replaced by a new PlayCount=0 track.

On my iPod, the three tracks play and it stops. (That's okay.) But isn't the SPL supposed to update after I exit it and return? Or do I have to open a different playlist, play something there, and then return to the original playlist?

I'm not getting a new set of tracks either way and I'm mystified. (I have a different SPL that *does* update, so I know it's possible.)

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by hrynkiw

What do you have to do to trigger a Live Update on the iPod?

I have a SPL with three tracks selected based on PlayCount=0.

In that SPL in iTunes, as soon as a track has completed, it disappears from the playlist and is replaced by a new PlayCount=0 track.

On my iPod, the three tracks play and it stops. (That's okay.) But isn't the SPL supposed to update after I exit it and return? Or do I have to open a different playlist, play something there, and then return to the original playlist?

I'm not getting a new set of tracks either way and I'm mystified. (I have a different SPL that *does* update, so I know it's possible.)

What are the exact rules for this list, just {Playcount IS 0}? There are some elements that you can set rules in a smartlist for that can break smartlists on the iPod. The four that I know of are referencing an iTunes folder as a playlist, using the podcast or video kind flags (as opposed to genre or the general kind), and using the {Last Skipped...} rule on 4G or older iPods.

[chippe01]

Originally Posted by Germansuplex

I don't want to put "American Idol" in the grouping field (I'm assuming that's what you meant by 'category'?)because I use that field to separate full albums, singles, partial albums, unreleased albums and mixtapes from one another.

I actually meant to say COMMENTS, I don;t know whay I said category. Either way, you can enter more than one item in the Grouping field.

But, as you want to keep the tags as they are, just exclude videos from the SPL.

[hrynkiw]

Hi Code Monkey, I'm a fan of your "Managing your iPod with Smart Playlists" document.

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

What are the exact rules for this list, just {Playcount IS 0}? There are some elements that you can set rules in a smartlist for that can break smartlists on the iPod. The four that I know of are referencing an iTunes folder as a playlist, using the podcast or video kind flags (as opposed to genre or the general kind), and using the {Last Skipped...} rule on 4G or older iPods.

Ah! The "Podcast" selector is probably the culprit.

Select-Podcast1
[Match] [all] of the following rules:
[Podcast] [is true]
[Album] [contains] [(title of Podcast1)]
[Play Count] [is] [0]
[Limit to] [1] [items] selected by [name]
[Live updating]

I actually have three of these, one for each podcast, and an aggregator SPL to combine them into a "Daily Podcasts" playlist. (Thus the "three" in my original posting.)

(After creating some trial SPLs without the "[Podcast] [is true]" selector...) The solution seems to be to just drop the Podcast selector, yes? Hm. I wonder why I bothered with the Podcast selector in the first place; the lists seem to build just fine without it.

I'll sync these new SPLs with my iPod, take the dogs for a walk (while playing the updated lists) and report back.

Many thanks for tip!

[Code Monkey]

Originally Posted by hrynkiw

(After creating some trial SPLs without the "[Podcast] [is true]" selector...) The solution seems to be to just drop the Podcast selector, yes? Hm. I wonder why I bothered with the Podcast selector in the first place; the lists seem to build just fine without it.

While you don't need to filter for podcast status in this case, just remember if you need to exclude podcasts in another list that iTunes automatically sets genre of podcasts to "podcast". That makes it easy to filter them without breaking live updating.

Glad the smartlist paper was helpful

[hrynkiw]

Originally Posted by hrynkiw

I'll sync these new SPLs with my iPod, take the dogs for a walk (while playing the updated lists) and report back.

Reporting back: Yup, it was the [Podcast] [is true] expression causing the problem. I deleted it from all three podcast selector SPLs and synced. I listened to all three podcast episodes while walking the dogs, exited the playlist, and when I went back in all three episodes had been updated. Dogs are happy, I'm delighted!

Code Monkey rocks. Again. Still.

[boxlunch]

I've started using the "my rating" field to sort my music, for the simple reason that I can update the rating directly from my ipod, and thus update smartlists while away from my mac.

I am faced with trying to keep 2GB's of fresh music on my ipod nano, drawing from my ~16GB library. So this is how I accomplished a nice music rotation.

First I set my ratings in iTunes on the songs that I want to sync to my nano:
* = stuff I don't ever want on my nano
** = downtempo stuff, good for listening at work or play on a stereo during social gatherings.
*** = britpop/mod stuff
**** = uptempo stuff, good for working out
***** = really uptempo/clubland stuff

Then I create live-updating smartlists (props to Code Monkey for his guide on this):

[Pheonix] - Match 4 or 5 stars, genre is Electronic, select by least often played, limit 75 items
[Chill] - Match two stars, select by least often played, limit 75 items
[Run] - Match four stars, select by least often played, limit 100 items
[Brit] - Match three stars, select by least often played, limit 75 items

[Fresh] - Match unrated, not heard in last 28 days, excluding genres I don't want, select by random, 100 items.

Now whenever I listen to the [Fresh] list, and I hear a track that I want to add into "regular rotation", I just assign it a rating between 2 and 5 stars based on what smartlist I want it added too, directly from my nano. Next time I sync my iPod, that track gets added to the "pool" that the smartlist (pheonix/brit/chill/run) draws from.

Flipside, I can also get rid of music from any of the first four playlists by changing the rating on the song. If I set it to 1-star, it will never sync to my nano again. If I set it to no-stars, the song will eventually be sync'ed into the [Fresh] playlist again.

Since each smartlist selects items by least often played, new stuff gets played more, while frequently played stuff gets to take a break. I now listen to my nano more often than i ever did my 3rd gen 20GB'er that had my entire library on it.

[jonesc42]

Hi,

I really haven't put too much effort into this, but I remember back in iTunes 6 or so, when you created a smart playlist for podcasts, you could just listen to random podcasts one after another. Is there any way to do this now? My podcasts always stop at the end. I can't skip a podcast, and everytime one is over I have to go back to the playlist and move down the list.

This isn't really a problem when I'm listening to something that's longer, but it has stopped me from listening to shorter podcasts (Writer's Almanac, Word of the Day, the Onion). I saw a way to at least remove the one's I've listened to, but is there anyway to keep it continuous/skippable.

Thanks!

[archurban]

I recently bought 5.5G U2 ipod which is 30GB. since I backup tons of songs, I don't really have time to listen to all. so just think about having fun with new ipod. I created shuffle smart playlist from 10GB music, 3 new movies, 3 TV shows episode, all photos, etc. I added sensitive options like play count, skip count, last time played, last time skipped, time limit, size limit..... whatever you want. after listening everyday, synchronizing ipod to itunes. old songs in ipod replace to new from smart playlist. it's big 30GB version of shuffle. so I could listen most of songs I have.

[Manuel Grabowsk]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

Glad the smartlist paper was helpful

Indeed it is really a good one, thanks!
I'm just wondering if you know about any other rules, that prevent a SPL from Live updating on the iPod than the four you already mentioned.
Because i have got some troubles with getting my quite compley SPL-system to liveupdate also on my iPod.
It's a 5.5G iPod, so it shouldn't be a problem that i'm using "Last skipped". But even in some sublists where "Last skipped" isn't used at all, i'm having problems.

To make one thing sure: It is NOT a problem to manage my SPLs within folders in iTunes, as long as i never refer to a folder when using the "Playlist equals to ..." rule, right?


One example of where it's not working although i think it should:
Following SPL preselects only Music:

MATCH ALL
Genre IS NOT 'Podcast'
Kind DOES NOT CONTAIN 'Video'
Genre IS NOT 'Hörbücher & Gesprochene Inhalte'
It has no limit and no sorting

(The last is the german term for Audiobooks)


And then to select the top 10 most played songs, that were NOT played or skipped during the last day:

Playlist IS the above one
Last played is NOT WITHIN THE LAST 1 days
Last skipped is NOT WITHIN THE LAST 1 days
Limit to 10, sort by playcount.

In iTunes it wonderfully works, but on the iPod it won't live update.


Any idea why?

[SilverTurtle]

I want to make a couple of playlists using the album year(s) as one of the criteria.
When I look at individual song info, the album year is displayed. When I go to create a new smart playlist I can't find anything in relation to the year.

I'm not sure if I'm just missing something really obvious or if it's really not there.

Any ideas?

[Germansuplex]

I would think it would just be "Year" "Is/Is Not/Is Before/Is After/Is in the range of"" "....."

I don't have iTunes in front of me, but that seems to be the pattern for other criteria.

[bwh79]

Originally Posted by SilverTurtle

I'm not sure if I'm just missing something really obvious or if it's really not there.

tencharmin