Random playback is not random enough

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Ironwright
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2012 12:31 pm

Random playback is not random enough

Post by Ironwright »

When using the intelligent playback feature with a large music collection (26,000+ tracks) the random playback function isn't as random as I would like. It has a tendency to pick three songs from one category of music and three songs from another and alternate them.

For example right now my playlist is Flogging Molly- Salty Dog, The Theme from Conan, The Pouges- Sally MacLennane, From The Nightmare before Christmas sound track - What is this, The Tossers - Siobhan, Matrix Reloaded - Trinity dream.

So its alternating Irish punk with movie sound tracks right now. The other day it was alternating Rockabilly with Industrial music. It does this very frequently. To fix this, I think you would need to add the ability to filter by category to your most excellent filter set up.

This also brings me to my other feature request. It would be great if tracks could be "weighted" for random selection. That way songs you're currently sick of could be set to zero and not be selected for the playlist, and songs you really love could be set at a higher value and played more often. In that fashion you could also set holiday music to zero in the off season and turn the selection frequency up during the holiday.

Thanks for a wonderful piece of ware. It's the only player I use, even if I can't pronounce the name.
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anonbeat
Posts: 2048
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:47 pm

Random playback is not random enough

Post by anonbeat »

Please read in the manual the section about Player Filters.

Basically you can define in the Allow Filter which tracks can be picked and in the Deny Filter which ones will not get selected.
For example you can define a Dynamic playlist with Genre=Jazz rule and set it to the Allow filter. Then select the 'Latest Played Tracks' playlist as the Deny filter. This will make the player to dont repeat recently played tracks.
Oldbwl
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2012 2:45 pm

Random playback is not random enough

Post by Oldbwl »

When I look at the Filters all I get in the options are "All/Best Rated/Last Played/Recently Added"
I checked the preferences and cannot see a way there to for example set a single Genre.
I am using version 0.3.5- Ubuntu 12.10. I presume that an upgrade is required to a later version?
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anonbeat
Posts: 2048
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:47 pm

Random playback is not random enough

Post by anonbeat »

What is listed there is the playlists you have created. If you want some other specific options you need to create a dynamic playlist to cover your filters. Once the filters are created it should show up in the filters.
Oldbwl
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2012 2:45 pm

Random playback is not random enough

Post by Oldbwl »

Thanks anonbeat - that worked perfectly.
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