Optimizing My iTunes Playlists
So I've been kinda annoyed with iTunes lately, playing all the same stuff over and over, or crap I really don't have moods for. Seriously, if I have to listen to Limp Bizkit one more time I'm going to smash this thing. Most of my music is listened to at work so I need something fresh, new and interesting. I found a great article that helped get me started with something a little more fun to listen to: http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2005/08/itunes_smart_playlists/index.htm.
I used most of the playlists setups here with a few tweaks (just 'cause I'm picky like that). The playlist that I listen to is a conglomerate of a bunch of smaller playlists, like the links and is constantly being tweaked. Hopefully I've gotten to a stable release for this article. So here's how I put it all together.
I'm finding that if you don't rate your music it's very limiting. I have songs that are "okay" but I don't really like listening to them most of the time (and refuse to delete music). So, first, let's create a playlist that takes all the songs I have that I haven't rated. This will make sure that at SOME point I rate them so they either show or don't show in later playlists.
Playlist - Not Rated
This playlist has a few criteria to prevent stuff from other lists getting into it (iTunes U/Podcasts) but the important one is the first one: If the Rating is less than one star. Since I put music I don't really like at one star, anything less than this means I haven't rated or heard it yet (or since I started rating my music at least).
The next playlist is a collection of stuff I don't get to hear very often.
Playlist - Not Often Played
This playlist has music I haven't heard in a WHILE! By a while I mean six months... I have almost 2000 songs so I've got lots to choose from. Again, I want to make sure I'm not listening to crap that I don't really want to. I'm including that it's got to be greater than one star to make this list. I'm subtracting anything from playlists that aren't really music (books, iTunes U and Podcasts).
Okay, so now we've got some music that's stuff I want to listen to and that I haven't heard in a while. So, let's add all my recent purchases into the mix. I bought it... so I wanna hear it played!! It's just something shuffle doesn't get done reasonably.
Playlist - Recently Added
So I don't really buy a LOT of music... but when I do I usually get 2 or 3 albums at a time. Since it's not a constant download-fest I've set this up to be within the last year. Although I bought it, I don't ALWAYS want to be listening to the same stuff, so the second line gives it a week before it's played again. Again, don't let me listen to crap I don't want to hear right now so make sure it's bigger than one star. The last three lines are to make sure it doesn't come from any other lists I don't really care about.
Alrighty - so we've got music I wanna here, music that's not been played in a while and new stuff I've bought. Not bad... but what about all those songs that I LOVE and WANNA here a lot?! Alright, calm down - we can add those.
Playlist - Top Rated
So this one's pretty easy, it's anything with four stars or higher. Although I like them, let's give them a BIT of a break so the others can shine through. I've made sure that I give 2 days between these songs just so they don't dry up.
The next list is kinda a link between some of these and the master playlist...
Playlist - Fresh
This guy's a biggie. I want to make sure that everything I hear is within a reasonable time frame. I've added a rule to make sure it's about a month old but not from any of the "I don't care" lists like books and the like. I've made it grab from all the playlists above and again, re-iterated that I don't want to hear one star songs. I've also limited this to about 1000 songs.
So now it all comes together. Here's the final list that I actually play:
Playlist - Jays Smart PL
So all I do here is grab all the above playlists and set it to match ANY songs from ANY of these playlists. Unlike the above lists, this doesn't match ALL criteria, it's any of the items that are in any of these playlists.
I hope that this helps someone out there - please be sure to check out the URL at the top of this post and check out his version. Grats are in order as it's the one that set me on the path here. There's very little changes that I've made from what's already been done so please check it out first.