Creating a master playlist

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topcattim

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I'm trying to create a playlist that draws in songs from other playlists, without duplicating the songs when they get copied to my phone.
Imagine I rate an average song as 3 stars, a good one as 4 stars, and a superb one as 5 stars.
I have smart playlists that favour my 4 and 5 star songs onto my phone. In other words, I have maybe 40% 3 stars, 30% 4 stars, 30% 5 stars. That way, most of my songs on my iPhone are ones I know I really like, but there's enough variety in there so that I can find myself listening to other "ordinary" ones as well.
Now imagine I fancy just listening to my favourites, in other words my 4 and 5 star songs. No problem, on iTunes, I just create a smart playlist which is composed of my playlists for 4 stars and 5 stars.
But when I copy that "favourites" playlist to my iPhone, the songs get copied twice: once when they were copied across as a member of the 4 star or 5 star playlist, then once more when they get copied across as a member of the favourites playlist (which just draws from the 4 star and the 5 star playlists).
This fills up memory space, and annoys my slightly obsessive mind.
Is there a way to teach iTunes not to copy the song across twice, but instead to allow my iPhone to play the "favourites" playlist without that duplication?
 

cjmnews

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Actually the tracks are only copied once and listed multiple times. You will see them in your favorites, custom playlist, recently played, songs, albums, artists, etc.

Don't worry, you are not taking up more space by having them listed in multiple places.
 

topcattim

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Actually the tracks are only copied once and listed multiple times. You will see them in your favorites, custom playlist, recently played, songs, albums, artists, etc.

Don't worry, you are not taking up more space by having them listed in multiple places.
Ah, that's helpfully reassuring. Thank you.
But it does have the effect that if I'm playing songs in alphabetic order by name (rather than randomly), then the same song gets played twice, and it does bother my desire for neatness. Is there any way I can suppress that double listing?
 

cjmnews

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Are you 100% positive that you only have 1 copy of that song?
Generally when I see this there are 2 copies of the same song. Especially when you source it as described above (I have similar playlists).

A single copy of the song can't be both 4 and 5 stars. Nor would it appear as a 4 or 5 star song more than once. I have accidentally purchased a couple songs twice, and this is what causes the duplicates.

In iTunes, sort the playlist alphabetically see if there are 2 entries next to each other. Right click the first, choose Show in Windows Explorer. Repeat for the second one. Now you can see if they have different albums, or different track names (with a 1 added if they are identical) and determine if the entries are pointing to different tracks or not.
 

topcattim

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Are you 100% positive that you only have 1 copy of that song?
Generally when I see this there are 2 copies of the same song. Especially when you source it as described above (I have similar playlists).

A single copy of the song can't be both 4 and 5 stars. Nor would it appear as a 4 or 5 star song more than once. I have accidentally purchased a couple songs twice, and this is what causes the duplicates.

In iTunes, sort the playlist alphabetically see if there are 2 entries next to each other. Right click the first, choose Show in Windows Explorer. Repeat for the second one. Now you can see if they have different albums, or different track names (with a 1 added if they are identical) and determine if the entries are pointing to different tracks or not.
Sorry, I wasn't quite clear with what I said. They weren't appearing twice on iTunes, only on the phone when iTunes copies the playlists across. From what you said, they weren't copied across to the phone twice, but they were indexed twice; so when I set it just to run through the songs, it played a duplicate one twice (i.e., if it was indexed across once as a 4 star song, and then indexed again in the "highlights" playlist which is composed of 4 and 5 star songs).

But I say "were" as I just tried to reproduce the problem so I could screenshot from the phone to show you. But it's not happening any more. Honestly, it really was duplicating beforehand, but doesn't seem to be doing so now. I have no idea what's happened to sort it, but the good news is that it's sorted. Thanks so much for trying to help me!
 

cjmnews

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Yes if it is listed in 2 playlists you can get duplicates in the mixed playlist.
I handle this with excluding songs in Playlist B that are in Playlist A. I don't think you could do this. I would say your mixing playlist has a flaw pulling from a mixed source (Favorites) and original source (4* playlist) at the same time. It should only pull from the mixed source.
 
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