Smart Playlists.com

Cross Referencing

This it just a little tidbit of info that might be kind of self evident to some of you out there, but i tend to find rather useful, so why not share?

I remember there being a debate about whether or not iPods have live updating- I believe the conclusion of that discussion was that they do, but it is sometimes constricted when playlists use each other (which is all of my playlists...)

So the problem which needed solving was having playlists i already heard on a different playlist showing up on another playlist when i switch (this is all happening in between syncs by the way)
My solution to this was to make one of my main playlists, fresh (very similar to KPOD) include a


Playlist -> Is Not -> Genre Mix

(Genre Mix is my other main playlist)
This took care of those two, and then i used all my genre specific playlists, rock, classical, jazz, funk, etc. have


Playlist -> Is Not -> Genre Mix
Playlist -> Is Not -> Fresh

to keep those staying different from the rest of the pack.

by genEric on Jan 15 | 8:00 am

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Random Genre CD's

So, not having an iPod, but having a huge library, I like to have mix cd's in the car. When I can, I like to make them so they flow just fine. However, lately I've been letting iTunes do it so I get a fresh approach. This is the smart playlist solution I've come up with for doing 'genre mixes' with my favorite songs:

Playlist #1:


Genre -> is -> Rock
My Rating -> Is greater than -> ***
Limit to -> 77 -> Minutes -> Selected by -> Random

Name this playlist: "CD Rock Mix 1"

That's all well & good, but when I want to make another Random Rock CD & I do not want any of the songs from the first mix, I do this:

Playlist #2:


Playlist -> is not -> CD Rock Mix 1
Genre -> is -> Rock
My Rating -> Is greater than -> ***
Limit to -> 77 -> Minutes -> Selected by -> Random

Name this: "CD Rock Mix 2"

This way, I can continue to make mixes in the Rock genre that will not have the same songs in them. Each time I make a new playlist, I just be sure to select "Playlist is not..." and include all the other playlists.

by healy on Jan 09 | 11:14 am

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Top 10 of 2004!

It is that time of year when everybody is making their top ten lists. I was thinking about doing my own, and I wondered if I could come up with a SmartPlaylist that would do it for me.

I decided that the criteria would have to be the highest rated and the most played of the year, so from there it was easy:

Year  = 2004
My Rating = *****
Limit to 10 songs selected by Most Often Played.

It isn't perfect, but worth a look!

by synecdoche on Dec 25 | 2:33 am

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My "Daily Mix"

I listen to my iPod at work almost all day long. I have hundreds of CDs ripped to iTunes, and my song ratings roughly follow a bell curve. I wanted a good mix of music that properly accounted for my tastes (playing lots of 4- and 5-star songs), yet automatically kept a good rotation instead of playing the same songs over and over.

So, here's what I started with:

Baseline - Excluded a bunch of genres, like Classical
Daily Mix 5 - Playlist is "Baseline", and My Rating is 5
Daily Mix 4 - Playlist is "Baseline", and My Rating is 4, and Last Played not in the last X days, limited to Y minutes. I made Y about the same as the total number of minutes of the "Daily Mix 5" playlist, and I made X = (total number of minutes of all 4-star "Baseline" songs) / Y.
Daily Mix 3 - Playlist is Baseline, and My Rating is 3, and Last Played not in the last X days, limited to Y minutes. Here I made Y a small fraction of "Daily Mix 4", and I computed X the same way.
Daily Mix 2 - Playlist is "Baseline", and My Rating is 2, and Last Played not in the last X days, limited to Y minutes. Here I made Y a fraction of "Daily Mix 3", and I computed X the same way.
Daily Mix - (This is the smart playlist that I listen to.) Playlist is "Daily Mix 5", or Playlist is "Daily Mix 4", or Playlist is "Daily Mix 3", or Playlist is "Daily Mix 2"

Then, I decided I wanted to hear more songs from the 1980's. So, I cut the Y of "Daily Mix 4" and "Daily Mix 3" in half, and I added a three new smart playlists:

80's - Year is from 1980 to 1989
Daily Mix 80's 4 - Playlist is "Baseline", and Playlist is "80's", and My Rating is 4, and Last Played not in the last X days, limited to Y minutes. I made Y the same as I had just made "Daily Mix 4", and I computed X the same way as the others.
Daily Mix 80's 3 - Playlist is "Baseline", and Playlist is "80's", and My Rating is 3, and Last Played not in the last X days, limited to Y minutes. I made Y the same as I had just made "Daily Mix 3", and I computed X the same way as the others.

Then I added "Daily Mix 80's 4" and "Daily Mix 80's 3" to the "Daily Mix" smart playlist.

I also adjusted "Daily Mix 4" and "Daily Mix 3" to also say 'and Playlist is not "80's"', so that exactly half my 4- and 3-star songs are from the 80's and exactly half are not. Without doing this, you'd probably get a variable percentage (greater than 50%) of songs from the 80's, which maybe is what you'd like.

It's a little complicated, but I love it! Giddyup!

by James on Dec 08 | 3:38 pm

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Movie time

As a big-time movie nut, I have a fairly large soundtrack collection, which becomes even more fun by mixing it up on my iPod. A smart playlist that auto-selects tracks with genre set to 'Soundtrack' is therefore obvious. But in order to make movie music time even more fun and surprising, I've added a 'movie' tag to the Comments field for tracks from other CDs (pop, rock, folk, classical) that feature prominently in movies: everything from Simon & Garfunkel's 'Mrs. Robinson' to Bach's 'Toccata and Fugue'. I've also given 'movie' tags to the tracks from concert CD's that were also well-known films (such as Woodstock, The Last Waltz, Stop Making Sense). Therefore:


Match any of the following components:
Genre is Soundtrack
Comment contains movie
Live updating (on)

It's movie time! Enjoy.

by Dr. Strangelove on Dec 07 | 8:00 am

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	Bentomlin: Simple... you just have to browse all the rock music you have and select them all, then just change the ... Mar 20, 05 \| 7:24 am dmk5n: I used to burn CD's for my car as well until the player broke. I pulled out the stereo and ... Mar 19 \| 10:52 am vertigo25: I like this a lot. I had never thought to match a smart playlist to anothe smart playlist. Very clever ... Mar 18 \| 12:41 pm Olf: ...OR you could make a Smartlist that looks like this: Playlist - Is - 30 songs for the gym Limit to - ... Mar 16, 05 \| 10:56 am dfbills: I never feel bad adding another bump to the ratings system threads. ... Mar 14 \| 3:40 pm davepmiller: I'm not clear on the linux connection, but just to be clear, I think this is an issue with all ... Mar 12 \| 3:19 pm genEric: Yeah, this is the unfortunate problem of using linux ipod. If i want to use any linux features I ... Mar 12 \| 2:15 pm

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