Playlist Creation

[philbowell]

I used to use this method I found on Andy Budd's blog. But when I moved to iTunes 7 they all broke for some reason and I haven't had time to sit down and reset it all up.

[weldon]

I've been using a very similar method since 2004, based on this post at iPodLounge. The key for me has been to define a "music only" playlist that filters out the audiobooks, lecture stuff, children's music, etc. and then use that as the basis for a number of others. The smart playlists that I use most often are...

• new music (sorted by most recently added)
• Hot 100 (most played in the last few weeks), Top 100 (highest rated and most played and least skipped), and
• Unplayed Parade (built from two playlists, songs not recently played sorted by least played ever, and songs not recently played sorted by highest rating and playcount. I then select 500 random items from those two lists to create a parade of all-time favorites and new music that I haven't heard recently.
• I also have playlists for every decade from the 60's to the 00's. Everything before that is in the "oldies" playlist.

Works great.

[philbowell]

Interesting setup Weldon, I might have to give it a try. The only trouble is I recently tried to create a music only playlist and kept getting videos and podcasts appear in it each time I added/changed/altered a rule. Would you mind posting your settings/filters for the music only smart playlist?

[divigation]

Add the following rules:
'Kind' -does not contain- "video"
'Genre' -is not- "podcast"
That should take care of both your videos and your podacsts popping up. If you have podcasts outside of the podcast genre, tag them in the comments with podcast and then exclude that as well.

[weldon]

divigation explained almost exactly what I do. I just add several more genres to the "is not" list to filter out kid's music, spoken word, lectures, audiobooks, etc. I also have "kind does not contain movie" to catch a couple video podcasts that have "Quicktime Movie file" as the kind.

[philbowell]

Thanks guys, it worked! I can't work out what I was doing wrong last time, obviously I was making it too complicated. Now I can set up my music playlists again!

[weldon]

I just ran across an audio podcast of a lecture that didn't fit my other rules, so I figured out you can also set "podcast is false" to include audio files that are not podcasts (or exclude podcasts depending on your POV).

[nicks]

Thanks Weldon - I was trying to make some playlists based on those things, but couldn't remember what you told me a couple weeks ago.

here's a couple great posts about playlists setup as well

[philbowell]

Ah, the first one of those links you posted was what I used to try and create my music only playlist. Using that method I managed to keep getting things sneak through everytime I altered or added a rule. Weldon's approach is far more effective. Not to rubbish the 43F way for those reading, just wanted to share my experience.

[Yuiichi]

Thanks for all the great suggestions and links guys. I really need to start reading these and start trying them. 1 problem with that is the fact that I haven't turned on my PC for a couple of days (and don't plan to for a while), and all of my music is on it. Oh well.