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[ashawley]

I know this issue has been brought up ad nauseum and the standard response is that we humans tend to look for patterns even when they don't exist and that Smartlists are random but we just seem to think they aren't.

I've got to challenge that somewhat.  I tend to notice in my smartlists that have sort=random in them that MC9 groups songs by Artist somewhat.  I'll consistently get 2 or 3 songs by the same artists either next to each other or very close (one or two songs).  I mean, this happens a lot.  

Is it possible that the placement of the sort=random modifier can effect how "random" the list is?  I've done it just at the end and I've done it wrapping the entire smartlists in parentheses and adding it after that.  For example: "(Genre=Rock, Pop Rating=>4) sort=random"

Any thoughts.  I should note I'm using this w/my iPod, though I doubt that the iPod plugin is having any effect.

Adam

[shAf]

...  I tend to notice in my smartlists that have sort=random in them that MC9 groups songs by Artist somewhat.  I'll consistently get 2 or 3 songs by the same artists either next to each other or very close (one or two songs).  ...

Before having any faith in your observations, we'd need know you don't have any preferences towards specific artists.  For example, I have more tracks by Robert Cray and Keb' Mo' than any other in my "contemporary blues" genre ... so I naturally see groups of RC and KM(?)

[gpvillamil]

I've noticed this too. What I tend to get is 2-3 songs from the same album consecutively. Since I have a lot of compilation albums, the artist doesn't repeat that often.

I also wonder how and in what sequence the modifiers are applied. I use a master "iPod base" list to control what gets put on the iPod, and I seem to notice that the generated lists are different depending on whether I put the rule at the beginning or the end.

[_K_C_]

I've been putting the [random] string in at, well, random points in the smartlist and haven't noticed any difference.  Grouping of tracks from the same artist seems quite consistent.  I've just been putting it down to the willingness to see patterns problem that you mentioned.

This is why I made the suggestion to introduce  variation, rather than randomness in smartlists.  See:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=16235

Unfortunately no-one else seemed to care  

[Matt]

Let's say you have 10 artists in a smartlist, with a total of 100 files.  

After a shuffle, it seems like each file would have about a 1/10 chance that the next file would be the same artist.  Since there are 100 files, there should be "groupings" almost 10 times.

When I'm trying this in MC, that's about what I see.

Maybe variation would be better than random, but it's probably too complicated of a thing to be added to 9.1.

[ashawley]

Regarding "faith".  This smartlist is just grabbing 100 songs (out of 4000) that haven't been heard in 2 weeks.  Since this is the only list I listen to (on my iPod) it can't be that I've been listening to artists in any order.

I've seen it 3 times on today's smartlist (that was copied to the iPod) where an Artist had songs repeated one after the other and for each of these Artists I have only one album.

That seems pretty unlikely that it's random--the odds are pretty slim don't ya think?  If it is, man, I gotta run out and buy a lotto ticket today.  

ADam

[Drowbe]

This is why I made the suggestion to introduce  variation, rather than randomness in smartlists.  See:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=16235

Unfortunately no-one else seemed to care  

I must have missed that thread.  I care.  Great Ideas.  We don't really want random...whe want shuffling based on rules.

[jleerigby]

I think you are probably after a feature that I've asked for several times.....

I'd like ot be able to use the Duplicates feature to find just one example rather than all (DUP) or none (NODUP).

This would be really useful when creating playlists.  

[_K_C_]

I'd like ot be able to use the Duplicates feature to find just one example rather than all (DUP) or none (NODUP).

Finding "just one example" would partly correspond to the first of my suggestions (pasted again here).  I was suggesting something a bit more flexible - i.e. "just one" or "just two" etc.

My favourite type of smartlist is something like
Genre=blues BPM>130
Within that smartlist, I'm happy for there to be more than one track by Blues Traveler, but I'd like to be able to limit how many tracks there are.

And THEN (yes I know I know), I'd like to make sure that if there are three tracks by Blues Traveler, they're not next to each other in the smartlist.  That leads to (c) below.

(a) Maximum tracks per field:
eg one track per artist, two tracks per album, one track per year etc

(b) Maximum tracks per field[grouped]
eg one track per decade [Year grouped 10]

(c) Maximum adjacent per field
eg if max artist=1 then there will never be two songs from the same artist in succession
Sort-random doesn't ensure this (as it's random!).  Basically this is to increase the variation in the smartlists, not the randomness.

[ashawley]

I know this topic always dies because it's presumed that it's not a bug.  But I'm telling you folks, the occurance is just too obvious.

I have a random smartlist, of my entire library and I'm always seeing songs by the same Artist grouped.  For example: 2 songs by the same artist, maybe 5-10 random songs, then 2 more songs by the same artist, 5-10 more songs, then 2 more songs by the same artist.

This happens every day I listen to this smartlist (my work list).  It's 8 hours of random tunes.

There is something up here....

Adam

[Matt]

Can anyone make a simple smartlist that consistently seems "wrong" after multiple F5 refreshes? (we haven't been able to)

[crowfan]

Adam,

I am seeing this same behavior. I have the word "Gym" listed in the Keywords field for all of the files in my library that I consider gym-appropriate. I have an iRiver iFP-380T (128MB flash player) that I use at the gym. I have a smartlist set up to pull 125MB of tunes labeled gym-worthy. When I want new tunes for the gym each week, I open my smartlist, and drag and drop the list to my mp3 player. Whenever I refresh the list, it seems to always have 2 or 3 songs by the same artist in a row, but almost all of the other songs are random.

crow

[Matt]

Make sure MC isn't sorting by artist or something silly.  Look at the column headers to see.

Use ~sort=[random] in the smartlist if that's what's happening.

[ashawley]

Matt:

Just to confirm:  That's exactly what I have in my smartlist (sort=random) and nothing else.  Well, aside from Limit to 8 hours.

And now that I've played around with it, I think it's the Limit that's causing the problem.  But out of 7 refreshes, I had repeated artists 3-4 times on all but one of the refreshes.  From a 4000 song library?

Maybe it's limit that's doing it?

Adam

[crowfan]

Here's a screenie of my list, maybe this can help?

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-9/384749/random.JPG

In the screen shot, you can see that there is no sorting (column headings), and I think you can see the settings of the smartlist (sorry if image quality is no good, I only have free online storage space  )

In the pic, the non-random activity happens twice with Counting Crows, and once with Better Than Ezra.

crow

[Matt]

I've tried on several computers and I can't reproduce anything that's statistically abnormal.  Pairs should be fairly common unless you have lots and lots of artists.

Can anyone give anything more concrete to show there really is a bug?

Thanks!

[hit_ny]

i have noticed the 2 artists appearing adjacent at times.

i make random smartlists limited to 2 hrs from a selction of 5000 tracks.

My workaround is to use the random sort twice, this seems to take care of the issue.

[jleerigby]

Whether this is a bug or not will be difficult to establish.  However, bug or no bug the result is the same;  on the whole we create random lists mainly to ensure a diverse selection of tracks and, of course, random can sometimes mean a not so diverse selection.  In other words we don't really want random!

What we really need (I know i've said it before) is a new modifier that can restrict the number of instances of a particular artist or artist/track combination.  The 'Full Albums' modifier was a master stroke and I'm sure that this would be just as useful and well received.

e.g.  ~Max=[artist],[name]=1

....if the =1 bit at the end makes it too complex it would be just as good to hard code it to always leave just one track matching the criteria.

[Phydeaux]

The concept of variation (as opposed to randomising) is one that is useful and has the potential to be rather complicated...

For example, when compiling a playlist for a gettogether of some sorts, one does not want all quiet music to be together (lest everyone falls asleep) nor all the fast music to be together. Varying the tempo of the music (instead of relying on randomness) has huge potential.

But how would this work in conjunction with spacing artists about, since BPM is an numeric value? Ideally it should work with any field.

Perhaps as some examples (to get the creative juices flowing):

~vary=[Artist]
~vary=[Artist]-3
~vary=[BPM]
~vary=[BPM]-10,[Intensity]

In the above examples, the first would ensure that no two identical artists would be together.

The second, that the artists are three letters apart (Alphaville cannot be followed by Beach Boys, Carpenters, but can be followed by Dido).

The third, that no songs with identical BPM's can be next to each other.

The fouth that the consecutive songs' BPM's must vary by at least ten and their Intensity by at least 1.

[xxx]-1 is identical to [xxx] in the above instances.

Anyway, that is just a thought! I do hope that this becomes a feature:)

P.

[modelmaker]

I have 12k+ files in my library at this point and I get these kinds of repeats all the time.

In my MC 9.0 the function is "shuffle" not "random" is this not also true for 9.1?

If that is the case I guess we shouldn't really expect "random" selection. Shuffle-Play is more like shuffling a deck of cards; you never get a "random" hand of cards -  you'll get multiple number cards & suites. With shuffling your chances for multiples of a suite (>artist) are quite high. With random choice you chances for multiples should be much lower ( although I am not an expert in probabilties). Jay.




Listening to: 'Platform One' from 'Naked' by 'Annie Whitehead' on Media Center 9.0

[hit_ny]

~vary=[Artist]
~vary=[Artist]-3
~vary=[BPM]
~vary=[BPM]-10,[Intensity]

What an interesting idea..

would love to see this implemented

[ashawley]

I know that no one can seem to duplicate this problem, but I was playing around tonight and found out something interesting.  Here is the smartlist that I listen to each day:

playlistid==856389893 -[Genre]=[Classical],[Japanese Pop],[Jazz],[Soundtrack],[Traditional Country],[Vocal] [Rating]=>1 [Last Played]=>524160

Note that it doesn't have Sort=random on there anymore.  Well, I've removed it.

First off, the playlist that it refers to is my master iPod list.  It's just a bunch of rules to exclude artists and genres.  So we're dealing w/a list of 3200 songs here.

When I had Sort=Random in there I could be assured that I would get anywhere from 3-4 sets of two or more adjacent artists (The Beatles, The Beatles).  That's quite a bit in a list of 100 songs out of 3000--and my  list of artists is large.

Anyway, when I remove the Sort modifier, the smartlist is still sorted in a random order, and guess what?  0 adjacent Artists.  That's in 10 refreshes.  Zilch, nada none.

So, what's up with that?  

Adam

[sapnho]

My random smartlists are perfectly random but when I call them up through NetRemote, they are not random at all with the same 2-3 titles showing up first EVERY time. Does anybody know a fix? http://www.netremote.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=4339#4339

[gpvillamil]

I think you are probably after a feature that I've asked for several times.....

I'd like ot be able to use the Duplicates feature to find just one example rather than all (DUP) or none (NODUP).

This would be really useful when creating playlists.  

Yep. This would be really useful. For example, I have a list that looks for songs called "Ring of Fire" - this brings up versions of the song by Blondie, Social Distortion, Wall of Vodoo, etc. and tons by Johnny Cash. Ideally I'd like to only have one version of the song by each artist.

Right now, nodup means I get no songs by Johnny Cash and dup means I *only* get songs by Johnny Cash.

[ashawley]

Well, per my earlier post I noticed something strange today.

I removed the Sort=random from my list (noted in my post above) and when I view the smartlist in MC9 it was in a nice random order (no adjacent artists at all).

However, when I played the smartlist on the iPod...well, it was sorted by Artist.

Interesting..think I'll ask Steve to look at this.

Adam

[crowfan]

Adam,

I saw the same problem on my iRiver iFP-380T.  Thank God it has its own "Random" function!  

crow