[Justin Uthadude]

I am curious how other people assign ratings to the tracks in their library; not the labels or tags, but the rating. I use MediaMonkey as my library manager and tagger and organizer. It has a field for 1-5 stars. I’m wondering how other people use this star system (or some other way of rating the tracks). I’m looking for a better way to use this rating. Right now it’s:

5 stars - cuts I could listen to all the time (used for 'favorites' playlists)
4 stars - other songs from albums I like (I wanna hear more . . . )
3 stars - for posterity (I might like this song/album later, but don't delete)
2 stars - good song but needs to upgrade format (ie, it’s mp3)
1 star - sucks, but someone might want to hear it at a party

Any suggestions?

 

[fuseboxx]

I'm not a song kind of person. I'm an album type of guy.

I rate lots of albums - currently 1263 rated on rateyourmusic.com - but songs? Nah...

Oh... to answer the question: Basically a 10-step system... .5 to 5 stars in increments of half a star.

 

[Orcin]

5 = essential
4 = important
3 = irrelevant
2 = objectionable
1 = useless

 

[moogoob]

10 IF a band is worth listening to
20 THEN their albums get put into playlists
30 ELSE keep band in library if I ever change my mind
40 END

(Someone will come by and tell me how this code will never compile, I can feel it.

)

 

[Uncle Erik]

I've never use ratings. Some songs I'll love for awhile then burn out on. Others grow on me. It just takes too much time to shift ratings.

 

[bungle]

I don't bother to rate anything. I don't see much use. If I want to rate something poorly, why even keep it? I choose what to listen to based on my current mood, not how highly I thought of it at one point. Ratings for the purposes of Amazon or whatever are useful (though very difficult), but that's for communication with others, not myself. Plus, which axis or dimension are the ratings? Overall? For a particular purpose? Some music would get a higher rating if choosing for working out versus playing at a party versus chilling with a beer. I don't know of any organizer with multi-dimensional ratings, nor would I be likely to bother with the extra work. I'd rather take advantage of something like Amarok's automatically collected data and make a custom playlist. You could choose songs you've played a lot but not lately (old favorites), or newly added songs that haven't been played much (forgot you got it), etc. How many times you've listened to a song (objective) is probably a better indicator of how good you think it is than some rating you've assigned (subjective). (I realize some difficult or complex works might not fit this mold, as they are hard to get through or whatever.)

 

[krmathis]

My rating system is simple -> keep in mind which albums/tracks I like.
I never use the one built into my player...

 

[Justin Uthadude]

The effort to rate and update is what's kept me from using this up until now. From your responses, it doesn't look like anyone else uses it either. Guess I just thought it was something of value that I didn't understand and wondered what other people used it for. The only 'rating' I have now is an auto-updating playlist called "recently added".
.

 

[Lou Erickson]

I don't use a rating system. I sort of page through the albums or artists until something strikes my fancy, then I press play. If nothing leaps out, I shuffle the whole mess randomly and "next" past unintersting tracks. What I define as uninteresting changes a lot as time passes.

 

[suba3333]

Contrary to the responses so far I am a heavy user of ratings, I use them to build my not-so-random playlists (based on ratings and least recently played date) to cycle through my library of about 5,400 tracks (hardly ever listen to whole albums of which I have very few anyway...I prefer to delete tracks I do not like).
Tracks I like the most I rate 5, then in obviously descending order 4 and 3 stars. I listen mostly to music on my iPod so I use 2 stars for tracks I am not sure about whether to keep and, finally, 1 star for tracks destined for deletion at the next sync. Zero rating I give to tracks I do not particularly like or dislike but they might have some sort of significance; historical, sound quality or whatever.

 

[falis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've never use ratings. Some songs I'll love for awhile then burn out on. Others grow on me. It just takes too much time to shift ratings.

I'm the same way. Never even occurred to me to rate songs or albums. I favor the latter. Old fashioned, I guess.

My usual approach is to assess what kind of thing I'm in the mood for, then go and grab the media containing it.

- Ed

 

[Currawong]

When I listen to new music, I give 3 stars to whatever I will want to listen to again. 2 stars for whatever sounds good, but I'd probably skip it if it was in one of my random playlists. 4 stars are for anything more than just good, and 5 are for only the best of the best amazing songs. 1 star used to be for anything I don't like, but I just don't rate them now most of the time. Trouble is, I burned out on my 5-star songs, and just about everything in my 3 or more star playlist.

 

[fuseboxx]

Everyone's rating systems should be based on Godfather quotes, imho.

5 stars : "Gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."
4.5 stars : "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."
4 stars : "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."
3.5 stars : "We'll get there, Pop. We'll get there."
3 stars : "Now we're talking business."
2.5 stars : "Women are more dangerous than shotguns."
2 stars : "Do you know how naive you sound,Michael?"
1.5 stars : "Look how they massacred my boy."
1 star : "Oh, Paulie? You won't see him no more."
0.5 stars : "You're out, Tom."

 

[buddhashenglong]

No system. If I can't remember how much I like a song, I obviously don't like it.

 

[ChroniCali]

Who needs ratings? I only listen to good songs.