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[ProblemChild]

Having now reached the point where my (mostly) music will not fit onto my IPOD, I've run into some questions about how to
select which songs to sync onto my IPOD and which to skip. I've mostly just winged it in the past, choosing to sync 'All Audio', then checking
off the playlists I wanted to use on the IPOD. Now it's a different story. I've always wished I had more control over how to view and manipulate
the content of my IPOD and now it's particularly frustrating.
The way I've understood it, to pick the songs I want sync'd to my IPOD, I can:
  1. select 'all audio', etc., and/or
  2. create playlists/smartlists containing the songs I want, then checkmark those lists.
One of my problems, however, is that sometimes I don't actually want a new playlist on my IPOD - I just want the songs. Then it would be easier to keep the
two tasks separate - picking which songs I want on the IPOD, and picking which playlists I want to use on the IPOD. Or sometimes my playlists are in conflict
with each other - my lists pulling up random songs, for instance, fight my efforts to (easily & quickly) exclude songs by a particular group or genre. Then there
are the details I've wondered about but haven't seen here on the forum or never taken the time to really check out. For instance, if I have a song that appears
on 2 playlists, does that song get entered twice on the IPOD (essentially as 2 "different" songs) or is it entered once but with two references to it? 
Anyways, I've found a lot of topics related to this, too many maybe, but I'm hoping other MC users can help.
How does everyone else handle syncing? What are the better ways to do this?

[benn600]

My strategy for syncing is simple but time consuming.  Rate every song you have and then sync based on rating.

I rate strange items 1 star (thunder & rain soothing stuff, audio books, etc.)  I essentially would never want this stuff synced.  Of course I could still rate it 5 stars (or rate normally and later remove anything longer than 12 minutes.)

2 stars is for songs I do not like or haven't given enough time to in order to start liking.  Duplicate songs also get this rating.  So if I own a greatest hits, I'll pick which one I prefer (newer ones generally get mastered louder--good/bad) and then the other gets 2 stars.

3 is for songs that are by artists I really like so there's a good chance I could start liking the song if I listened to it more. ... or just anything that is borderline good/bad.

4 for all those that you definitely like but perhaps it's a bit older and out of your common playlist desires.

5 for the hottest, smokin-est songs that you gotta have.

I sync 4/5 star songs when I have a big player or only 5 star if it's a smaller flash drive/ player/ whatever.  Be aware of other issues such as genre=Christmas, which I generally make sure to filter on or off depending on the season!  My music library is quite boring and basic in the sense that I don't allow random pieces into it--it is 100% ripped from CD by me FLAC--and I always have some sort of conversion going or nothing would fit on my player.  Keep this in mind, too.  The HQ portable is a good choice or Normal if you can fit it.

[ProblemChild]

I've ignored the ratings tag for the most part - that'd actually be a good way to use it for me; In your handheld options sync-list do you just have one playlist checked off then?
I'm still wondering about the playlists. I keep running into situations where if I want to include some songs in the sync, then I have to go back and re-edit some of my smartlists being used for syncing. I'd like to be able to tell MC that, THESE playlists are just to tell you which songs to transfer - I don't want to see a "Sync-List" playlist on my IPOD. These OTHER playlists are just lists - if they contain songs that I haven't chosen to transfer over, then handle it based on some option setting... ie [remove the songs from the list and don't copy] OR [copy them and leave them on the list] OR [ask me]? Using ratings might be a way to just use a single sync list and forget about everything else - you're right though, it seems like it must take some time, at least at first.

[benn600]

Yep, just check the one smartlist that returns songs >= 4 stars.  You can then keep a Manual Sync playlist or something where you can add songs manually.  This would help with the issue overall.

[mark_h]

I have a user field My Ipod, with values Include, Exclude, Unassigned.  I have a view built around this field and a smartlist which only lists tracks where My Ipod = Include.  Thus I hand edit, using the view, my collection to include or exclude stuff to the ipod and the smartlist is used when syncing to only add stuff marked 'Include'.

Mark

[ProblemChild]

Thanks for your help Benn600 & mark_h. I'm going to take your advice, create a new field and work from there - that approach seems like a smart one.
One last question - hopefully ok since it's related to all of this - if I have one large sync list like this, based on a single
user field (via ratings or 'include') and then want to include my other playlists on the IPOD, the smaller lists are going to generate
duplicates - MC doesn't then copy the songs onto the IPOD twice (or more), does it? It just copies them once, then references the same songs
each time they occur in a playlist?

[bspachman]

You are correct--one copy of the song, then the proper references in your various playlists...
brad

[zxsix]

My method:

I rate all tracks.

Playlists that get synced to the ipod:

1) all 5-star songs, absolute favorite songs
2) all unrated songs
3) favorite bands,  this includes all songs from about 20 bands that I choose to always have on the ipod.
4) random selection of 4 star rated songs that haven't been played in the last 45 days.

regarding playlist 2, once a song is rated, if it's a 5, it stays on the device due to playlist 1.  If it's rated below a 5, then it is removed from the device, but may return someday on playlist 4.

[benn600]

2) all unrated songs

I know I couldn't sync unrated songs.  I am definitely working toward rating every song but with 1,273 albums or 16,420 songs that will take a while.  I've rated (so far) 5,690 (35%--not too bad!)

[zxsix]

I know I couldn't sync unrated songs.  I am definitely working toward rating every song but with 1,273 albums or 16,420 songs that will take a while.  I've rated (so far) 5,690 (35%--not too bad!)

You could sync unrated songs with a mix limiter, say at 200 or so.  Whatever would keep you within the free space available on the ipod.
So out of all the 16000 unrated songs, the smartlist would randomly select 200 of those to sync.

[ProblemChild]

Thanks for everyone's comments - I'm gonna start working on a system probably using parts of all of the above.
It's probably not news to most, but after playing around with some of the suggestions I've learned more about the
different modifiers that are available when building smartlists. Without really thinking about it I'd always assumed that
"limit size to..." referred to a limit for each individual song. Now that I have a need for it and tried it, I see that it
limits the total size (MB) of all the songs on the smartlist it builds, just as 'limit time to...' refers to the total time
of the list, as opposed to limiting the list to short songs. One that I will definitely use is "limit of device," where I can
select the IPOD (or other device I'm using) and have MC make sure it doesn't select more songs than will fit on that
device. Anyways, I just added this fyi for anyone like me who's never really tried it. Sometimes it's hard to know
you're not missing something or heading in the wrong direction without asking, so thanks for all of the input.

[mabes]

I have a Samsung and under Playlists, I created a folder called Samsung Sync Rules. This contains only smartlists that get synched, some of which are copies of other smartlists but then renamed, so I can easily modify those without affecting the original smartlist.  Normally this list is not expanded so it's only one line that shows up in the tree.

You might want to combine this approach with the other things you are doing.