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[damian_pentney]

I'm in the process of 'digitising' my music selection and I'm new to MC and struggling to get to grips with Smartlists etc. Please don;t chew me up for asking newbie Q's because I've tried hard to to find the answer in the Help manual and Forum

here's what I am trying to acheive. I want to mimic what my current CD changers do.....when I press the random button, a cd is selected at random from the entire library and then a random track is selected from that CD. Ie a random track is selected from my entire library...... and continues infinitum .

If I try doing this with NetRemote using my entire library as the 'playlist', then it obvisouly doesn't work well (i've read why). I can work out simple random smartlists that are limited to a certain number of tracks. But what I really want is a smart list (or something equivelant) with a limited # of tracks that removes each track played in that 'session' and automatically adds a new track to the list in it's place by selecting the new track at random from my entire library (preferably without repeating a track already played in that 'session'). Ie effectively a smartlist that contains no more than x tracks that automatically and randomly works it way through my whole library without any manual intervetion along the way.

Can this be done ?

[marko]

Can this be done ?

Currently, no.

Once a smartlist has returned its results and you play them, those results are sent to the "playing now" list, which is static. The originating smartlist will not produce a new set of files unless you refresh it manually, and the new list won't start playing unless you specifically ask it to.

You need to come at this from another angle. I'm thinking things like....
If the smartlist is going to return a set number of tracks, then add another one as the last one is played, then the original list does not contain enough tracks. Why not start off with a list that's big enough from the get-go?

How long is a typical session?
You could create a smartlist that plays all your music at random, but never include anything that I listened to in the past 12 or 24 hours. If that sounds plausible to you, just say so and we'll help you make it so. You could even create a windows shortcut that would launch MC and start playing this smartlist if you liked. There are very many possibilities open to you, and I'm pretty confident that you could close enough to your goal to make you happy.

-marko.

[mark_h]

And if your smartlist selects entries based on their 'last played' status you can pretty much ensure that no track is repeated until all other tracks have been played.  Lots of options.

Mark

[johnp]

I am having similar struggles, trying to at least refresh the "Smartlist" from Girder so I at least get a new list the next time I ask for it.  Is there a way to automate this task?

Thanks.

[HTPCnut]

mark_h / marko --

I'd really like to get your help/input with creating a smartlist as you've described - but I have no clue how to start.

Can you give me some pointers, please? I'm very new to MC12, but this sounds like something I'll definitely need going forward. Nothing is worse than having to hear the same songs repeated after some hours into the session already...

Where would be the best place to start(reading)?

Thanks!
A.
   

[johnp]

Creating Smart-lists is the easy part.  To get started just look at some of the "stock" smartlists to see how they are set up.  Basically, you have filter criteria and modifiers that can be applied to your library from there use your imagination.

Most Smartlists start out by defining the media type (usually audio) then are folowed by a filter like genre is or is not one thing or another.

This is followed by a modifier that state limit the length of the list to 8 hours or something like that.

I would also suggest opening the help file and searching for smarlists, read through the most relevant results to answer your questions.  The help files really are pretty good.

[mark_h]

I am having similar struggles, trying to at least refresh the "Smartlist" from Girder so I at least get a new list the next time I ask for it.  Is there a way to automate this task?

Thanks.

You could try this:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\MC12.exe /playreplace treepath=Audio

Eg, run MC with the above option - this will cause MC to start with the new playlist you've pointed at...  If MC is already running it will simply replace the playlist.  Treepath can point to any item in the tree, but if you use subtrees you will need to include those, eg treepath=Playlists/...   In my case, Audio (the top entry in the tree) is configured to call a smartlist defined elsewhere, which keeps things very simply.

Mark

[johnp]

Thanks,

Actually Matt answered my question in another thread and it works perfectly.  At least as far as refreshing the Smartlists goes

See this thread http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=45209.0

As far as trying to not have duplicates, maybe you could get the desired results by adding a rule that says:

"Playlists" "is not any" "Recently Played"  I have a random "play random library selections for 8 hours" smartlist that is configured as shown in the attachment that I think when coupled with the refresh trick in the other thread, will do most of what you want.