Smart Playlists

[kamcma]

How do those of you with large libraries use Smart Playlists to take advantage of all the music you have? I come here all the time to get ideas for new albums to get but I would also love ideas to help me get more out of the albums I do have. I think this thread could be a great collection of shared knowledge about how to generate really clever smart playlists. Being the Head-Fi / computer audio enthusiasts that we all are, I'm sure proportionally more of us than the general public have all of the metadata in our music programs filled out correctly, so we can really used smart playlists to our fullest advantage.

Specifically I'm using iTunes, but if other programs have Smart Playlists please share your ideas, too. I'm sure the metadata used by all the music playing programs is similar.

Here's a little bit about how I do things:

As a base for almost everything, I have a smart playlist called "Regular Music" that sorts out everything I wouldn't listen to on a regular basis. It sorts out classical music, holiday music, anything with the word "Intro" in it (which are mostly short, spoken tracks on live albums), etc. All subsequent playlists are built of this one by using the requirement that Playlist = Regular Music.

From that base playlist, I build all my other smart playlists.

One of my favorite ways to listen to music that I'll share incorporates the new Genius feature of iTunes 8 and my iPhone. Because all of my files are Apple Lossless and I can't fit much on my iPhone, I have a playlist called "iPhone Playlist" that I source from "Regular Music" and limit to 10 GB selected at random. I sync that playlist to my iPhone. When I'm on the go, I glance through my iPhone and play the first song that strikes me, and from that song have the iPhone generate a Genius playlist from what is in my iPhone. Great way to hear a random but sensible selection of music from my library. I also have a requirement in that iPhone playlist that it not include songs that have been played in the last month, so whenever I listen to a song on my iPhone, it will get kicked off next time I sync. Helps to keep the music selection fresh.

So what awesome smart playlists does everyone else have?

 

[ezkcdude]

MusicIP. Get the iTunes plug-in.

 

[kamcma]

I use OS X and that looks to be Windows only, so it doesn't help me, but it certainly might help others. Although, at this point, that looks to duplicate Genius functionality, no?

Anyone else have clever smart playlists to share?

 

[blessingx]

This is only indirectly related, but since you're on OS X and using iTunes I suggest you use some of Doug's Applescripts. The managing playlists area may be of some help.

 

[ezkcdude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kamcma /img/forum/go_quote.gif I use OS X and that looks to be Windows only, so it doesn't help me, but it certainly might help others. Although, at this point, that looks to duplicate Genius functionality, no? Anyone else have clever smart playlists to share?

MusicIP has been around for a long time. It's algorithm for creating mixes is much better than Genius. MusicIP actually performs acoustical analysis of your music library, while Genius relies on information collected from user listening habits. Also, Genius will not work for songs that are not sold by iTunes - MusicIP works for any song or audio file in your mp3 library.

If the plugins don't run on OS X, you can download the MusicIP Mixer, instead. It definitely runs on OS X - I'm running it right now on an iMac. Actually, I have been using MusicIP for years with SlimServer to create mixes for my SqueezeBox. It's fantastic - and it's free. You should at least give it a try.

 

[progo]

Ahh I almost would like to have smart playlists.

Amarok has by default only a few: 50 random songs from my collection, favourites, ever played, etc. It has somewhat limited capabilities to create customized playlists. I don't care, I search for an album and I play it. It's a bad way to rediscover some music I've forgotten, but hey.

 

[moogoob]

I use them in iTunes, sometimes. Most of my playlists are the standard "dumb" type (organised by artist), but for music I'm constantly adding to (OverClocked ReMix - Video Game Music Community, Dwelling of Duels, internet radio channels) I'll use smart playlists. "top 70 most played" lists are kinda fun to keep around too.

 

[Gurck]

Not sure how on topic this is... I've never used playlists. I generally prefer listening to full albums. I use FooSune, Sune's foobar2k setup, modified slightly for my own tastes. Clicking on a genre in the genre tab opens up an artist listing in the artist tab, clicking on an artist brings up all their albums in the playlist tab. Very efficient and works perfectly for my tastes. Though I do have a singles directory that I sometimes load up and turn on shuffle for.

 

[krmathis]

/me love Smart Playlists.
I currently just have two of them. One showing tracks added the last week, and the other one showing recently played tracks.

 

[kamcma]

Bump

 

[Computer Blue]

The only smart playlist I've ever used is a random by album one for my ipod. I dont have enough music in my library (yet) for them to be really useful.

 

[poo]

I use them for many things...

1 Great way to split file types and bitrates for various reasons (lossy vs lossless for example).
2 Best way I've found for my preferences to fill certain iPods (7.5Gb of recently added mp3 for example so I can fill my Nano with recently found music that I am considering buying). Also use random album fills sometimes.
3 I have a wireless 'bedroom rig' that runs via iTunes which I set up various playlists for (based on fields like genre & recently added).

All depends really, but the more I use smart playlists, the more uses I find for them.

 

[bowraboy]

I have a playlist for work that includes -

2 hours rated 3 stars least recent played
3 hours rated over 3 stars random
1/2 hour unplayed
1/2 hour played once or twice
A podcast playlist that includes-
all very short unplayed least recently added podcasts
1 medium length unplayed least recently added podcast
1 long unplayed least recently added podcast
1 mac related unplayed least recently added podcast

I push play in the morning and that's it for the day.