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Ultimate Playlist
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I was trying to find the perfect mixed playlist... the kind you want to put on and just leave on shuffle for hours. Obviously, like many people, I have more 4-star than 5-star songs, more 3-star than 4-star, and so on. I also have a lot of 2 and 3-star songs I haven't listened to yet.
First I made a "Starting Point" playlist that excluded Classical, Opera, Audiobooks, etc. - any genres I don't want popping up in random playlists. I also exclude albums I've labelled under the grouping field as "Full-Album", albums you want to listen to end-to-end, not have mixed into random lists. Songs longer than 12 minutes are also excluded. Finally, I also excluded 3 bands who I have a LOT more music of than other artists - everyone probably has a couple artists like this.
I then made nine playlists, the first six selecting only from this "Starting Point" playlist.
1)
5-star songs
not heard in the last 3 days.
This comes to about 12 hours
2)
4-star songs not heard in the last 7 days
limited to 12 hours
selected by least recently played
3)
3-star songs
not heard in the last 14 days
limited to 3 hours
selected by least recently played
4)
3-star songs
with Play Count=0
limited to 3 hours
selected by random
5)
2-star songs
not heard in the last 28 days
limited to 1 hour
selected by least recently played
6)
2-star songs
with Play Count=0
limited to 1 hour
selected by random
The seventh, eighth and ninth playlists do not select from the "Starting Point" playlist. Instead, each selects an hour's worth of 3-5 star tracks from the 3 artists I excluded earlier, selected by least recently played.
My master playlist (which is the only one of these that I actually sync to my iPod) combines these 9 playlists.
My final playlist is about 34% 5-star, 34% 4-star, 17% 3-star (split between unheard and least recently heard tracks), 6% 2-star (split like 3-star), and 9% out of my favourite 3 artists. The music I like the most is refreshed most rapidly, the music I like the least won't be heard more than once a month.
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by dharmabum on Aug 04 | 8:00 am
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On The Go Radio Stations
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After tinkering for months with various iPod 'radio station' playlists, I've come up with an approach that - for me - works really well.
I have a number of SPLs, everything from 'Recently Added' to '80's' to 'Mellow Beatles' to 'Fast Rock Faves' - 25 to 30 in all. Each is limited to one hour in length, and has a 'not played in the last ___ days / weeks / months' for auto-refreshing.
When I want to build a radio station on my 'pod, I simply select as many relevant playlists as I like, and dump them in On-The-Go. For example, for the morning commute, I might go mellow, with 'Mellow Rock' + 'Mellow Acoustic' + 'Mellow Jazz' + 'Mellow Beatles'. For the evening commute, I might liven it up with 'Soul~Fast' + 'Dance' + '80's Faves'
Two advantages to this On-The-Go Radio approach:
1) My radio stations have some flexibility, and I can adjust them to my taste / preferences. Simply clear the On-The-Go playlist, and start over!
2) Gets around the problem of SPLs not updating on the iPod if they reference other SPLs. My radio stations - - based on sets of SPLs dumped into On-The-Go - - are always fresh, as the individual SPLs self-update. . .
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by Scott on Aug 01 | 8:00 am
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Chris Henley: Try this guy out. He has some great stuff. http://ott ...
Chris Henley: IS this site still running? ...
Elizabeth: Now, is there a program that will put these lyrics on your Ipod? That would be genius... :D ...
Sara S: Ah, I see your point now, especially with the running example. About the only workaround there would be to make ...
vaughnn: Sara, Thank you again for your consideration! ...
vaughnn: Good question Sara! I (usually) don't listen to the iPod with it in my pocket and little ear buds plugged into ...
Sara S: I don't think you're really reading what I wrote. Maybe I'm not explaining myself well. I didn't adovcate creating a single ...
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