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[Vocalpoint]

I am currently updating our library to enhance MC's ability to select more relevant and popular (to us) - songs from the library when using Smartlists. Specifically trying to ensure that our classic rock smartlists get a nice balance between established "hits" and deeper album cuts that have stood the test of time and sound like "hits" when they come up in rotation.

I see there is a field called Track Rating vs the main Rating field.

I have use "Rating" exclusively here to track "popularity" based upon Billboard chart data. Like so

5 Stars = Song peaked @ #1 on several charts I track
4 Stars = Song peaked between 2-10
3 Stars = Song peaked between 11-20
2 Stars = Song peaked between 21-39
1 Star = Song either hit exactly 40 or is an album track

The issue I have with this system - is with something like Kid Charlemagne. Never charted. Never attained any chart position. Would like it to come up in regular rotation in my classic rock smartlists - but due to it's current "Rating" of 1 star - I never hear this song as much as I would like to. Same goes for 1000 other songs that are excellent album cut candidates.

So I am thinking that Track Rating might fill the bill. I could leave "Rating" using my current standard of 1 star and make the Track Rating = 5 stars. Then any smartlist using Track Rating could start pulling these excellent album cuts in addition to any songs that already have a high rating based on the current system.

Anyone else doing something like this? Or a different system?

Appreciate any comments.

Cheers!

VP

[blgentry]

A few comments:

A.  [Track Rating] does not exist in my library.  So I'm pretty sure it's not an included field.  No problem though, you can certainly use custom fields.  I do.
B.  If you're working with a custom field, be aware that MC has a 10 stars rating also that you can use.    Just make your field an Integer type with an edit type of Ten Stars.  That might give you more flexibility in ratings.  Or it might be too complex.  Just some info for you.
C.  I would personally not choose to use top 40 ratings as my main ratings.  I like to assign my own.  But I can sort of understand your motivation for doing so.  If I was going to do this, I would probably have put that into a different field like "Top 40 Rating" or something.  Again, nothing wrong with what you did.  It's just unusual for me.
D.  I've considered adding a field called "Album Pick".  The purpose of this field would be to identify stand out album tracks.  So that, at a glance, I could see which album tracks *I* personally like the best.  It would be a check box field, since it's a very "on or off" kind of thing.  You could even filter views based on it if you wanted to.  It could certainly be used in smartlists.

Brian.

[Vocalpoint]

A.  [Track Rating] does not exist in my library.  So I'm pretty sure it's not an included field.  No problem though, you can certainly use custom fields.  I do.

Hmm - I must have added this myself at some point

C.  I would personally not choose to use top 40 ratings as my main ratings.  I like to assign my own.  But I can sort of understand your motivation for doing so.  If I was going to do this, I would probably have put that into a different field like "Top 40 Rating" or something.  Again, nothing wrong with what you did.  It's just unusual for me.

Agreed. When I started down this road - I wanted an easy way to see key tracks from any album. And I have this excellent book by Joel Whitburn "Rock Tracks" that ids pretty much every cool track from albums from 1981-2002 with a nice summary of classic rock tracks in a separate section. So I used this book as way to ID all the key tracks and then I used the chart position to establish a rating system.

But as I now have found out - this system is not useful for album cuts with no chart position at all.

I've considered adding a field called "Album Pick".  The purpose of this field would be to identify stand out album tracks.  So that, at a glance, I could see which album tracks *I* personally like the best.  It would be a check box field, since it's a very "on or off" kind of thing.  You could even filter views based on it if you wanted to.  It could certainly be used in smartlists.

Right now - album cuts are always 1 star - but that is showing it's drawbacks as mentioned above. Even an Album Pick field would not work for me as it would assign equality to any album cut on a given record. Say I have a record with 4 album tracks I like - but only two of those tracks I want to hear more often. Having all 4 items with an "Album Pick" checked would not give proper promotion to the songs I want to hear more often. I would just get all four tracks coming up in equal rotation.

I use a "chart" identifier "Album Tracks" coupled WITH the rating field that nicely carves out the key cuts and allows me to use Rating (with Mix) in a smartlist to play those key cuts I want to hear more often

I am probably going to have to ditch my ratings based on chart position for sure. Because there are a lot of records that actually hit #1 that I would never want to hear again in this lifetime. Having those tracks sitting with a 5 star rating and coming up again and again in a smartlist is a pain.

Cheers!

VP

[blgentry]

Well, here's another idea then.  How about a multi-level rating system like this:

[Hybrid Rating] is your top level rating.  It is a calculated field.  [Hybrid Rating] takes the value of [Rating].  *Unless* [My Rating] has a value for the same song.  In which case it uses [My Rating] instead.

So [Rating] still drives most of your ranks.  But you can use [My Rating] as an override.  So you can bump tracks up or down based on personal taste, but still use [Rating] as the base.

Of course the names for the fields I chose are just what came to mind.  You could use anything you wanted.  The key idea is the two level Rating system, which is a lot like the [Album Artist (auto)] ---> [Album Artist], [Artist] relationship.

It's easy to define a filed like [Hybrid Rating].  It would be calculated data with a definition something like:

firstnotempty([My Rating],[Rating])

Just an idea.

Brian.
                 

[AlanDistro]

I use ratings to help build smart playlists for shuffling. Most of my playlists are smart playlists and automatically won't play 1 and 2 star rated tracks. That way I can make a playlist like "80s Pop" and it'll pull everything released between 1/1/1980 and 12/31/1989 that is also tagged with "Pop" in the genre field, and then only grab the 3, 4, and 5 star tracks that fit the above criteria. Throw that baby on shuffle and I'm good for an enjoyable afternoon of listening. I manually rate tracks based on my preference, not on charts or sales, that way I'm hearing music I enjoy - music I love regardless if it's a single, deep cut, or b-side.

[Vocalpoint]

I use ratings to help build smart playlists for shuffling. Most of my playlists are smart playlists and automatically won't play 1 and 2 star rated tracks. That way I can make a playlist like "80s Pop" and it'll pull everything released between 1/1/1980 and 12/31/1989 that is also tagged with "Pop" in the genre field, and then only grab the 3, 4, and 5 star tracks that fit the above criteria. Throw that baby on shuffle and I'm good for an enjoyable afternoon of listening. I manually rate tracks based on my preference, not on charts or sales, that way I'm hearing music I enjoy - music I love regardless if it's a single, deep cut, or b-side.

Based on this discussion and my extensive rework of many tracks - I am now bailing on ratings based on chart position and moving over to ratings as decided by me

VP

[blgentry]

Based on this discussion and my extensive rework of many tracks - I am now bailing on ratings based on chart position and moving over to ratings as decided by me

Congratulations on your decision.

If you have any idea that you might want to use these chart based ratings in the future, you should copy them to a new field. Something like [Chart Rating].  As I'm sure you know, you can copy these all in one shot, with very little effort.  So, if your work there has value, it's pretty easy to save it for later use/reference.

Brian.

[Vocalpoint]

If you have any idea that you might want to use these chart based ratings in the future, you should copy them to a new field. Something like [Chart Rating].  As I'm sure you know, you can copy these all in one shot, with very little effort.  So, if your work there has value, it's pretty easy to save it for later use/reference.

I have several additional custom fields that store the peak chart value etc so if I need to see where a song landed or use that in a query - that data remains.

I was just finding that over the months - the family was complaining about how MC was rolling certain smartlists.

It would of course favor ratings per the smartlist criteria - but pull tracks that only an old rock chart hound like me could like. Just because some track in 1991 hit #1 on the Mainstream Rock charts in Billboard - does not mean it's relevant to anyone in 2016 - especially those of the "wife" and "child" variety

Hence the library update to better reflect more relevant material so people are not hitting "next" on J Remote all the time.

VP

[jgreen]

IMO a "rating" is your own opinion of a track, video, etc.  Usually if not always this is because you either know the song or have listened to the song, and know whether you like it. 

In my case I started upgrading three- or four-star songs because I discovered that I was listening to them as much or more than five-star songs.  I set an arbitrary level of plays at which point I upgrade the rating of a track.  But other than that I don't let any external factor influence the rating, which IMO ought to be your own opinion and nothing else.

The OP seems to be looking for song suggestions and trying to implement a ratings approach.  I think a custom field that rates according to top-40 airplay, and other custom fields of a similar nature, can be used as a source of suggestions for playback.  I also think that an "artist rating" field is useful for suggestions, but some of my favorite artists have recorded some appallingly stinky songs--so again I wouldn't let it influence my core rating of a song.       

[ferday]

This guy has his rating down to a science

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100596.0

[Vocalpoint]

This guy has his rating down to a science http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100596.0

The big issue I see with that system is that it assumes one will actually play everything in the library - else how will it ever attain points.

And then there's this:

"All you need to do is rate your songs as you listen to them and then it will take shape"

Unfortunately - we don't hang out in front of the computer and certainly do not have time (or inclination) to "rate" as we listen.

I already know how bad Black Sabbath Vol 4 is along with a bunch of other albums in the collection that need to be removed

For us - if we hit an eighth of our library on the regular basis - that would be wayyyyy too much time on our hands

Me - I am taking the easy road:

5 star songs: Tracks that we (The family) want to hear a lot

3 star songs: Tracks we want to hear once in a while for color

1 star songs: Album tracks (that will probably only be enjoyed by me)

VP

[jgreen]

VP, to me those look like playlists, not ratings. 

[Vocalpoint]

VP, to me those look like playlists, not ratings. 

Sorry - what I meant was - this is how I will be setting up our ratings - per song. A song can get 5 stars, 3 stars or 1 star.

Simple and to the point.

And yes - once every song is properly "rated" - then they can become part of a smartlist.

Cheers!

VP