Smart Playlists for Dummies
OK, I have finally reached the Point of Know Return and accepted the fact that all of my music (100G+) will not fit on my 80G iPod. Informed by a thread by Katrina and others on the eMu messboard (which I can't find at the moment), I am attempting to manage the iPod using Smart Playlists. My goal is to "cycle out" music I have listened to recently, and "cycle in" tunes I haven't heard for a while. I'm doing this by having 2 "cycle out" playlists (one jazz and one everything else). These lists choose a random sample of tracks I've recently listened to (except for recently added albums, and few other exclusions)...Of course, these playlists are not copied to the iPod. I like this, because it lets a wider range of (possible) music to be included on the iPod.
First, when I told iTunes to copy only selected playlists (ie, all but the "cycle out" lists), I found to my surprise that about one-third of my music was not copied to the iPod! The problem, I soon realized, was that these songs were not on any playlist...therefore I was telling iTunes I didn't want them on my iPod. I solved this problem by creating a new playlist that includes all of "My Music"...excluding the two "cycle out" playlists.
*Now* I am running into problems related to the presence of other playlists in my library. I have always enjoyed having lots (dozens) of playlists, "smart" or otherwise, with different genres, artists, etc. But the way I have the system set up now, any song that is on any playlist will be synced to the iPod...even if it is one one of the "cycle out" playlists. This limits the selection of songs that are "eligible" to be cycled off the iPod. If you follow my drift.
Can you tell I'm not a computer scientist? I realize this is a long post by an idiot, signifying nothing, but I just wonder if I am overlooking a cleaner solution to this problem. I do realize that I can just delete some of the playlists, although some are not so easy to re-create if I ever want them back. I also realize I could manage the iPod manually, but I like being able to sync, play counts, etc. I further realize that there is a 160G iPod out there, which I will probably get when the time comes. On the other hand, I ask myself if I really need to carry several months' worth of music with me every day...???
Anyway, I'd be interested in any ideas on my setup, as well as learning how others are dealing with their insanely excessive amounts of music.
First, when I told iTunes to copy only selected playlists (ie, all but the "cycle out" lists), I found to my surprise that about one-third of my music was not copied to the iPod! The problem, I soon realized, was that these songs were not on any playlist...therefore I was telling iTunes I didn't want them on my iPod. I solved this problem by creating a new playlist that includes all of "My Music"...excluding the two "cycle out" playlists.
*Now* I am running into problems related to the presence of other playlists in my library. I have always enjoyed having lots (dozens) of playlists, "smart" or otherwise, with different genres, artists, etc. But the way I have the system set up now, any song that is on any playlist will be synced to the iPod...even if it is one one of the "cycle out" playlists. This limits the selection of songs that are "eligible" to be cycled off the iPod. If you follow my drift.
Can you tell I'm not a computer scientist? I realize this is a long post by an idiot, signifying nothing, but I just wonder if I am overlooking a cleaner solution to this problem. I do realize that I can just delete some of the playlists, although some are not so easy to re-create if I ever want them back. I also realize I could manage the iPod manually, but I like being able to sync, play counts, etc. I further realize that there is a 160G iPod out there, which I will probably get when the time comes. On the other hand, I ask myself if I really need to carry several months' worth of music with me every day...???
Anyway, I'd be interested in any ideas on my setup, as well as learning how others are dealing with their insanely excessive amounts of music.
Comments
If you tell us some examples of exactly what criteria you want to use to include or exclude, we can probably tell you how to go about it.
Some basic smart playlist rules:
- there's no combining AND and OR criteria - it's either all AND or all OR
(e.g. you can't say last-played > 6 weeks AND (jazz or classical) - instead you have to combine playlists like playlist = (cycle-in-jazz OR cycle-in-classical) )
- smart playlists that reference other playlists won't remain dynamic on the ipod unless those other playlists are also synced - you will notice these when you sync your ipod because they'll be marked with a "!"
(you can't say "100 subset of OTHER-SMART-PLAYLIST" and have it be dynamic unless you also sync OTHER-SMART-PLAYLIST)
Often the smart playlist you "want" will be a combination of other smart playlists that do different aspects of your selection goal. My 'master' playlist joins other playlists that separately grab "tracks I haven't heard in a while", "favorites", "recent additions that haven't been heard in the last few days", etc. All those playlists must be synced along with your master playlist so that the master remains dynamic while on the ipod, even if you never want to play those individual playlists.
"Cycle Out Jazz" is simply genre=jazz played within the last 2 weeks, but not added within the last 3 months. (So Jazz I've heard recently doesn't sync, unless it's new.)
"Cycle Out Pop" is genre=not jazz (also not classical, plus a couple other things), not played within the last 3 months, not added within the last 2 months (I think). This is limited to 4 GB, which I can increase as I need to save more space.
Neither of these depends on any Smart Playlist. However, there is another Smart Playlist, called "Music," which is everything in my library, minus the two "Cycle Out" playlists and another Smart Playlist ("Shuffle"), which goes on my 1G Shuffle for the gym. All of these are Live Updated. I need this or else anything that's not on any playlist won't get synced.
So, in short, everything syncs to the iPod except the two Cycle Out Playlists. The one hitch is that songs that happen to be on any other playlist will sync, even if they are on a Cycle Out playlist. This is my cross to bear, I guess...I am deleting/trimming down some playlists that are easily re-created, for that happy day when I can justify buying the 160G iPod Classic.
As you may infer, I listen to a lot of jazz...pretty much all day. My Shuffle playlist for workouts is fun, because it includes 1G of everything BUT jazz and classical...so I'll get Rock/Pop, Country, Latin, World, etc. It also includes a "skipped within 1 week" parameter, so that any songs I skip get knocked off the list next time I sync.
"cycle in jazz" = date-added in last 3 mos AND last-played not in last 2 weeks AND genre=jazz
"cycle in pop" - date-added in last 2 mos AND last-played not in last 3 weeks AND genre != jazz AND genre != classical AND genre != 'couple other things'
It's not clear if there's stuff you want to fill the remainder with if there is any, but I have something called "not heard in a while" which covers not-new stuff:
- last-played not in last 12 months (limited to N songs)
If you wanted to skew that in ways that random selection would not do, you could parcel it out genre-wise.
Then you might have a 'master' that simply does a union of those playlists above (and unspecified others, if applicable)
I also use playcounts in my playlists, so that new stuff pops up more frequently up to pc=3, then drops off at least until 6 months later, after which it can come up again randomly.
That way my "dozens of playlists" work for me. As mentioned, about one-third of my music was left off when I just synced to those playlists. The trick, it seems to me, is to have my "Music" playlist include everything minus however many gigabytes I don't have room for on the iPod.
Having said all that, it is sort of working the way I'm doing it now...isn't it? I realize the "Music" (master) playlist can't live update on the iPod. But it can do so in iTunes, ie, remove the songs that are on the "Cycle Out" playlists. When I sync, those songs go off the the iPod.
Or am I missing something? At any rate, I'm going to try this...Still interested in hearing how others manage their music library overflow.
That's the great thing about smart playlists in general - even though a lot of cumulative thought has gone into the playlists I sync to my ipod, when I sync it, I do no work at all, since I know it'll DTRT, and continue to do so whenever I play it too.
Suddenly I see there is a check box to "automatically fill free space with songs." Now they tell me!
Dang I had a post all typed out and somehow, didn't post it.
Anyway.
Just add more criteria to the playlists you sync to your ipod.
Playlist is not "Cycle Out Jazz"
Playlist is not "Cycle Out Pop"
Does that do it?
What's this mean? Are you talking about a newer ipod that has
Not too cluttered - all the playlists I add to my nano 2nd gen (which doesn't have video capability) I add a line for Media Kind is Music. That way, no music videos or badly-tagged podcasts get put in the playlist.
Of course playlists should be as complex as needed... but in this case, if he ever stopped using those playlists, then he'd have to change all the other playlists. You'll almost certainly never have to worry about "media kind" values changing.
I have this Fresh Mix playlist that Micko over on eMusic suggested, and it doesn't change until I do so.
Also - all I have to sync is Fresh Mix. I checkmark that off in itunes, and it automatically puts the dependent playlists on the ipod.
Also, subsidiary playlists are never synced automatically (the music is, of course). Unless you are checking every single playlist that contributes to music being synced (the proper method), your dependent playlists will be "dead" once on the ipod.
To clarify, if you have playlist X = (playlist A OR playlist
Many playlists, smart and otherwise...just stuff I like to listen to. If I ever decide I want to take some of these off the iPod, I can just uncheck them. These include Recently Added Jazz (genre includes jazz, date added within last 3 months) and Recently Added Pop (genre does not include jazz, date added within last 3 months.) Together, all of these add up to about 20 GB.
Now, two new playlists:
Music Jazz: genre includes jazz, last played is not in the last 3 weeks, date added is not in the last 3 months. This one is limited to 40 GB, selected by less recently played.
Music Pop: genre does not include jazz, last played is not in the last 2 weeks, date added is not in the last 3 months. This one is limited to 20 GB, selected by less recently played.
I also have a "Shuffle" playlist, which is 1 G of "not jazz" music that goes on my Shuffle for workouts (and not on the 80G iPod). There is also some Classical, which I manage by checking and unchecking. I've never done much with ratings...if it didn't rate at least 3 "stars," it wouldn't remain in my library for long! I am toying with the idea of using ratings to denote tempo or mood...although I suppose I could use groupings if I wanted to do that, couldn't I?
Thus my iPod has all of my recently added music, plus some favorite playlists, plus a selection of jazz and other music that I have heard less recently. When I sync, music I've just heard goes off the iPod and is replaced by fresh tunes. I do think this is better than the "Cycle Out" approach...the one disadvantage is that there is no way to see what music does not sync to the iPod. I've had lots of addictive fun playing with this, and I'm sure I will tinker more in the future...Especially timely with all the new Warner/Rhino stuff!
Regarding what's not on your ipod, I make an 'ipod all' playlist that's a union of all the playlists I sync, and I have a 'not on ipod' playlist which is 'not in "ipod all"'. You could do that with one 'not' playlist, but I happen to sync my 'ipod all' playlist (so I can shuffle the whole ipod but get the advantage of live-updating ).
I don't use ratings typically - instead I use them as limited database tagging (much more desirable than 'grouping', which is text-based. I really hope iTunes adds tagging proper some day). 5 stars for my favorite artists (which I grab a random subset of in a smart playlist). 3 stars for "stuff my wife likes/tolerates", so I can easily access a subset of music for her. 1 star for "uncheck later" in the lib. 2 stars for "needs mp3gain". I select 1 & 2 during ipod listening for later lib changes.
edit: Re-reading this, I didn't describe the way gtkpod works accurately. You don't sync, you save changes. The smart playlists, dumb playlists, and the tracks are all "on" the iPod. If you eject the iPod, everything disappears until you plug it back in again.
What I think (for now at least) I would maybe like is a solid core of "important" albums - stuff that I return to and just want to be on there and available when I wake up in a hotel somewhere a long way from my PC and want to listen to it again. This core might be 20-30 GB. Then another chunk of stuff that would cycle on and off on the basis of something like 'not heard recently' plus mix of genres (like some of the examples discussed above). Then some space for "recently downloaded". That would probably meet most of my needs. One reason I've been manually syncing is wanting that stable core not to be touched.
So the question is that first item - what's the smartest way of creating a stable core that iTunes would leave on my iPod until I explicitly ask for it to be removed? And that would be sure to sync whole albums? Some possibilities I have thought of that might be a bit easier than creating some kind of super playlist with lots of specific artist/album names:
1. rate all of those albums 5 stars and no others (I do not generally use the rating system for actual listening purposes, so would not much mind using it artificially) and then create a smart playlist based on "album rating" and sync it. I am guessing that those files would then stay on the Touch until I changed their rating on the PC, right?
2. Use the "grouping" field with some kind of tag identifying favorites - I have made no use of the grouping field to date, but now that I read up on it I can see other uses I might want to put it to (e.g. making it proxy for something I've always wanted - subgenres)
3. Use the "comments" field and add a comment like "keep" and build a list from it. Might be a bit more labor intensive than 1 but it leaves the star system more functional. (I have recently begun using the "comment" field to record record label to enable me to build playlists by label, both on the PC and on the Touch - especially useful for something like Audio Gourmet with their 15 minute EPs all in a similar genre, also for remembering which netlabel I got something from)
Does anyone else use automatic syncing but keep a fixed (until deliberately amended) core? How do you do it? Are there other ways I am not thinking of? (Reading these posts it is clear to me I am a beginner with smart playlists...). Have you found frustrations further down the road with any method you have used? New limitations it introduces?
Thanks for any tips.
For your "Core," what you really want is a dumb playlist. Just make a playlist of all the albums you want to keep all the time, and make sure that list copies to the iPod. Then no matter what you do with smart playlists, those albums will always be there...even if they (all or in part) cycle into or out of the smart playlists.
On my 80 G iPod, I have several playlists of music that are always there. Say 30 G's worth (it is actually a little more complicated than that, but for simplicity's sake). Then I have a Jazz smart playlist (say 30 G) and a Pop smart playlist (say 20 G) that cycle in and out. I also tend to listen to whole albums, and there's an option to shuffle by album rather than song.
You can also create dumb playlists that don't go on the iPod, but get used as the basis for smart playlists that do. Eg, I could have a dumb playlist of all 50s jazz (say 10 G's worth), then create a smart playlist to choose songs from that list that go on the iPod.
I haven't done anything with ratings. I'm thinking of using groupings to denote labels, but haven't gotten far with that yet.
Of course, as I noted, such playlists appear to be broken anyway. It might be ipod-model dependent though, I don't know. It's not hard to check - go into a playlist-referencing smart playlist that ignores recently played songs, play one, back out and play another song or playlist, then go back to the first - see if the just-played song is gone. It should be, but for these referencing playlists, it's now broken on my nano 2g.
How does one get the smart lists to pull albums rather than just individual tracks? Am I right in assuming the selected by > album option means it will pull the fist X albums alphabetically? (which is not so good) At the moment I'm going cold on using smart list again because it seems like they're mainly useful for mixes of individual tracks. Am I missing something?