DaveJays Blog

The Ultimate iTunes Smart Playlist

MAR 1st 2007 • 1 Comments

I hate having to choose what type of music I want to listen to because it's in a constant state of flux. Just randomizing my music library isn't enough. I want the ability to control what percentage of what type of music is in the playlist I'm listening to. iTunes doesn't offer the ability to insert percentages in a smart playlist directly, but it's easily done by using multiple smart playlists together

Create a music only playlist

iTunes has become such a bloated application, it's no longer used just for music. All sorts of files are stored in there now. I believe this is due in large part to the ease of use that meta data has provided for organizing files (iTunes is the new Finder!). So before I begin the first thing I do is create a music only playlist. I have to tell it to leave out podcasts, videos, comedy routines, audiobooks, digital booklets, and anything else that isn't exactly music.

The Contributing Playlists

Below are some of the smart playlists I've created that I want to use in combination with each other

• Best of All

  This is probably my most used smart playlist. It basically contains all music that has a star rating of 4 or 5.

• Most Played

  Contains all files that have been played more than 20 times. I'm very picky about my playcount being accurate. If I accidentally leave iTunes playing all night I'll freak out, all those songs that now have an innacurate playcount!

• 5 Star Forgotten

  This simply contains all 5 star songs that I haven't heard in over 4 weeks. As soon as I listen to it, the playlist updates and the song disappears.

• Unrated

  Pretty self explanatory

• Never before heard

  Any song that has a play count of zero goes in here.

• Horrible Songs

  Contains all songs with 1 or 2 stars

Compiling the playlists together with percentages

I'm going to use 2% Horrible songs (give them a second chance), 20% Never before heard, 20% Unrated and 58% Best of All. Now decide on a size for the final playlist, basically this will determine how many songs you'll see in the playlist at a given time. I'm going to use 100 since it's easy to figure percentages with it.

Next, create a folder called "The Ultimate Playlist" and inside create 4 smart playlists, one for each percentage amount. The first playlist will be 58% "Best of All". Simply set the playlist to "Best of All" and then limit the number of items to 58. Then make sure to set "selected by" to "least recently played". This is important as it will keep the playlist updating. After a song is played, it will be pulled out and a new one will take its place.

Follow the same procedure for the remaining three playlists. 2% Horrible songs, 20% Never before heard, and 20% Unrated.

Now you should have a folder containing all the proper percentages of songs you want to hear. And the best part is, the songs for each playlist are the least recently played, so the playlist will not just play a hundred songs and then stop, it will play infinitely as it cycles through.

Using the playlist

If you're in iTunes you can play through all the songs by simply selecting the folder that was created earlier and playing from there. Also, what I've found really useful is to create this type of playlist for my 4GB nano. I take percentages of 3GB and then sync it to my iPod. But in order to sync to the iPod you have to create another playlist that contains the folder - you do this by simply selecting the folder under the "Playlist is" option. The folder appears under the playlists option there, but doesn't when you select lists to sync to the iPod, go figure.

And that's how you create the last playlist you'll ever need! I'm big on using ratings to classify my playlists, but you could just as easily use genre or any other tag you prefer. Let your imagination soar!

posted in: Apple | Technology |