 |
Alternative to iTunes auto-selection
|
 |
| |
There's been a lot of chatter on this and other sites about how iTunes will automatically choose which songs to put on your iPod when your entire collection won't fit. I've come up with a shareware app, Playlist Blender, that essentially gives the user more control over that process.
It's an interface that allows you to combine playlists in whatever proportions you desire in a master playlist of whatever size you desire. You can save and recall master playlist documents, so it's easy to create different playlists for different occassions, say one for your workout and another for your commute.
Playlist Blender also gives you a degree of boolean control that iTunes smart playlists don't currently allow.
I think I've worked out the start-up bugs that early users may have experienced, thanks to the help of SmartPlaylists.com's David Bills.
If you want to try it out, or just get more info, go to www.visi.com/~bwareham/playlistblender.html
Let me know what you think.
|
|
Japester's Administrative Suite
|
|
| |
Following is the complete suite of smart playlists I use to maintain my library. All are prefixed with the bullet character to keep them at the top of the list of playlists, which makes them easy to find in iTunes.
• Temporary:
I use this for songs that are going to stay only for a short time. These are mainly MP3 previews of albums I've downloaded to see if I like the music, or albums lent to me by a friend. These are deleted regularly after one or two listens.
Temporary songs are defined by "• Temporary" in the genre tag. The playlist is as follows:
Genre - is - • Temporary
On the iPod, I can select a temporary track by browsing by genre. This gives a list of artists, then sublists of albums. This is a lot neater than using a smart playlist to find them. As I'm not keeping these tracks, the genre tag can be considered irrelevant.
• To Be Checked:
When listening to a song on the iPod, I rate it one star under the following conditions:
-I don't like it and want to delete it
-I realise the tag information is incorrect (eg. I'm listening to a hard rock smart playlist and it's not hard rock, there's a misspelling in one of the tags, etc.)
-I've just discovered more information about it, eg. the composer or original artist
-The quality is low and needs to be re-ripped.
After synching my iPod every day, I click this playlist and handle any songs that come up. If you don't address the songs in this playlist soon after you've rated them, you may forget why you did so, so it pays to do it every day, if possible.
The playlist is simple:
My Rating - is - 1 star
• To Be Converted:
I rip at 128kbps AAC. I leave MP3s at whatever quality they came in. Sometimes I rip from AIFF files, like when I rip the music from a DVD.
This playlist shows me any songs that are in AIFF format, as they are only in the library to be ripped. I don't keep massive AIFFs around to chew up space on my iPod. I can select all the songs that come up here and choose Convert Selection to AAC from the Advanced menu. You can see the progress just like on a CD. Once you've completed the ripping, you can select all the songs and press Option-Delete to send them all to the trash.
Kind - contains - AIFF
• To Be Rated:
Many people have a variant of this. Mine is thus:
Match - all - of the following conditions:
Last Played - is in the last - 1 - months
Play Count - is greater than - 0
My Rating - is - [blank]
Genre - is not - • Temporary
Use of this playlist is simple: click it in iTunes and rate any songs that come up. Do it regularly and you won't have any unrated songs for more than 1 month.
I hope this gives all of you a set of useful tools.
|
|
by japester on Feb 19 | 8:00 am
|
|
|
|
|
