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Thank you iTunes 4.5...
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iTunes 4.5, and most of you know, finally have us 'Playlist is' and 'Playlist is not', which lets me do something I've been wanting to do for quite some time. It does require two playlists, but hey, they're both useful.
Playlist #1: Everything Checked
Bit Rate is greater than 0 kbps
Match only checked songs
I picked bit rate because it's one of the few fields you can count on to always have data in it. Basically, it's a 'select everything' field.
Playlist #2: Everything Unchecked
Playlist is not Everything Checked
And, of course, make sure that 'Match only checked songs' is unchecked.
There you go, you now have a playlist of everything in your collection that's not checked. Mind you, this would be easier if Checked and Unchecked were playlist criteria but this does the job.
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by Unseelie on May 19 | 8:00 am
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Smart playlists that truly follow your mood
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With thousands of tunes in your iTunes library or in your iPod, it's high time to consider using it as the radio you've always looked for: the one that delivers only tunes you like, and that fit your mood in a unheard of way. The idea is to extend objective parameters provided by iTunes, like last played time, genre, etc. with subjective parameters like warmth, violence, restfulness, modernity, whatever you want. Then, you build smart playlists upon these parameters, regardless (or not) of genre. iTunes will mix your songs in sometimes unusual ways, but always relevant, and sometimes quite stylish!
For example, a "Soft" playlist contains all tunes that are both warm and restful; the "Well Awake" playlist contains tunes which are not restful, and not too violent; "Pop" playlist contains tunes which are popular but not too much main-stream; "Pop++" contains only (assumed) mainstream popular tunes, etc. I'm happy with a system of tagging which works quite well after months of usage.
For each dimension, I give a note to each tune, within "irrelevant," "not at all," "yes," and "yeah, definitely." Those four steps seems to be enough. And more steps would make smart play list hard to design. For example, let's take violence. I add in the comment (the grouping field may be preferred) of each tune "Violence-," "Violence=," or "Violence+," depending on its violence. Violence- means calm, Violence= means violent, and Violence+ means ultra violent (God knowns that some songs are). If a song is not tagged Violence, it is considered not violent, and not calm, let's say, normal. Here are examples, on a few tunes that many of you may know:
Miles Davis - Flamenco Sketches : Modern=, Pop=, Rest=, Violence-, Warm+
Louis Prima - Just A Gigilo / I Ain't Got Nobody : Modern-, Pop+, Warm=
JS Bach - Goldberg Variations : Modern-, Pop=, Rest+, Violence-, Warm+
The Beatles - Sgt Peppers - A day in the life : Modern=, Pop=, Trip=
Deep Purple - Speed Kind : Modern=, Pop=, Violence=
Massive Attack - Protection : Warm-, Modern=, Pop+, Trip=
Einsturzende Neubauten - Negative Nein : Modern=, Pop-, Rest-, Trip=, Violence+, Warm-
With two conditions maximum, you are able to precisely target your tunes:
Something violent but not too much? Comment contains "Violence=".
Something violent, even very violent? Comment contains "Violence" but not "Violence-".
Something which is not violent? Comment doesn't contain "Violence=" nor "Violence+".
Something which is not violent and not calm? Comment doesn't contain "Violence".
Now here are a few of my smart playlists :
Melancolic: any genre, tune is Warm-, not Violence+, not Violence=, not Rest-
Good mood: any genre, tune is Warm+, not Rest+, not Violence+, not Pop-
Soft: any genre, Warm but not Warm-, Rest but not Rest-
Pop: genre is not jazz, not classical, tune is Pop, but not Pop-, Modern but not Modern-, not Trip+, not Rest, not Violence-, not Warm-.
Junkie: genre is not classical, tune is Trip but not Trip-, not Violence+, not Rest-
Not archived on CD: tune is Archive-
This may look over-complicated - and it is a little. When Apple gives us the ability to really play with the iTunes database, things will change. I also admit that I spent a long time tagging tunes. Some albums are easy to tag, but those which contain very different songs require more time to be well tagged.
Anyway, now my iPod is my favourite companion within the non-humans -- it never fails giving me what I want to hear. This is completely new to me -- like, er, I live in the XXI century?
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by lagroue on May 07 | 8:00 am
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Best Friends Mix
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Some of the biggest influences on my musical tastes in my life have been my friends -- there is so much music I first got into because it was played in their cars, at their houses or parties, on trips we took, in movies we saw, or in school together. As such, I find it a lot of fun to add my mates' initials to the comments category of songs that remind me of them, and then play the following playlist ...
Comment - contains - ABC [initials]
Last played - is not in the last - 1 mo.
Limit to - one hour
Selected by - highest rating [or just random]
Live updating
... whenever I'm away and miss that particular person, or alternately, whenever they're over visiting. Putting a Year range can also add a twist, and jog some memories.
Note: also works for ex-girlfriends, though not highly recommended :P
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by nyorker on May 05 | 8:01 am
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