INTERACT FORUM

I posted this on (the excellent) iPodlounge forums in a similar thread :

Well I have the usual smartlists that I'm sure most people have (lots of random 30 mins, random 1 hour, random 90 mins etc smartlists) but in addition to those I have these :

"Covers" -- A random 1 hour list of cover versions (I populate the "Keyword" list field with the word "Cover" when I rip and use this as my smartlist rule.

"1989 - 1992" -- A 1 hour list of random tracks released in the years 1989 to 1992 which correspond to my college years. Memories  

"< 3 mins" -- A random selection of tracks less than 2 and half minutes long. A playlist full of short and snappy tracks.

Not very imaginative, I know, but I'm looking at experimenting with the intensity and BPM fields to try and create some 'mood' smartlists....and my 'Genre' tags are all over the place at the minute so once those are sorted, that'll help me build a little more imagination into things.

"Covers" -- A random 1 hour list of cover versions (I populate the "Keyword" list field with the word "Cover" when I rip and use this as my smartlist rule.

I have a similar smartlist, only I created a new semicolon delimited field called "Original by". I enter the name of the original artist (if I know it) or just put a "?". Then the smartlist is setup to only selects tracks that have something entered in the "Original by" field.

I use the Keyword field for descriptive things like whether tracks are Live or Dance Mixes or from Soundtracks, etc. Then I build smartlists based on those things.

For another set of smartlists, I created a semicolon delimited field called "Artist (related)". For example, I have a lot of tracks that are written or produced by Prince, but not performed by him. So I enter "Prince" in the "Artist (related)" field. Then I can easily build a smartlist that contains not only contains tracks performed by Prince but also tracks he wrote and/or produced.

Also, as a sidenote, pretty much most of my smartlists are actually setup as view schemes, since most smartlist rules can be used in view schemes.

Rob

Yes Kurt - this is the new thread - that would be a great idea - smartlist plugins!  Is this doable?

I used Audio Analysis on my entire collection, and built two Smartlists based on that:

1) Ultra Mello, where intensity = 1 and BPM <80
2) Frenetic, where intensity =5 and BPM > 140

I've also experimented with things like:

Genre = Dance, Club, Techno, Trance and BPM > 140
Genre = Ambient, Lounge and Intensity <=2

Throw in a size limiter, move it to the iPod and I have new, mood appropriate music with every sync.

What would be really cool is if smartlists could be added to MC9 simply by clicking on a web link.

Imagine this:

I create a smartlist in MC9 which I want to publish, so I right-click on it and choose "Share this smartlist". MC9 automatically generates some kind of http request and effectively uploads the smartlist to J River which adds it to a public database.

Also added to MC9 is a new smartlist group called "Shared smartlists". Right-click and choose "Update" to have it repopulated with the latest contents of the database. Click on it and MC9s list view shows the full database. Items from here can then be saved locally by dragging them to a different smartlist group.

Okay, maybe that's best left for MC10. For now we'll just have to copy/paste.

Ok, I've been busy with my smartlists! Here's the lists I've built:

1) iPod base: Filetype = mp3, Last Played > 1 week ago

2) A bunch of master genre "aggregators":
    i) World Master: genre = arabic, bollywood, brazilian, latin, world, etc.
    ii) Dance Master: genre = club, dance, disco, techno, trance, etc.

3) Some manually built lists for albums to classify differently:
    i) World Soundtracks: a collection of soundtracks that are "ethnic"
    ii) Science Fiction Soundtracks
    iii) My girlfriend's favorites

4) Then I apply Audio Analysis rules, for example:
    i) World Lounge: playlist = World Master or Playlist = World Soundtracks, BPM <=70, intensity <=3

5) Finally I build lists for the iPod
    i) World Lounge (iPod): playlist = World Lounge, sort = random, limit = 1000 mb, playlist = iPod Base

Some of my favorite lists are:

1) Movie moments: 1GB of music where genre = soundtrack, random sorted
2) Lounge hop: genre = Trip-Hop, Ambient, Lounge, BPM <=70
3) Space lounge: genre = Trip-Hop, Ambient, Avantgarde, Electronic, Electronica, Trance, and BPM <=70
4) World Beat: Playlist = World Master, BPM >=80, Intensity >=3

The combination of genre and audio analysis parameters is really powerful - you can have hours of music that sounds pretty good together.

Note how I use the iPod base list to keep only legal filetypes going to the iPod, and to keep it refreshed. Then I build genre lists, including a smartlist and any manually generated lists for "exceptions". Finally I build the iPod lists, including random sorting, limits to 1GB, and referencing the iPod Base list to keep everything clean.

If I ever decide to use m4p files I can just add this to the iPod base rule, and it will affect all the other iPod lists.

Nila asked about this over in "3rd party plugins" so I'll dupe it here for general consumption. btw, who's the cleaner around here, I originally wrote this post in all the dust that was laying around, but then decided to clean the dust and write it properly

"Recently Imported" smartlist based view scheme......

1. Create a playlist group called Import List.
2. Add the smartlists below to this new group. (Number them to keep them in order)
-------
1. Past 24 Hours --> [date imported]=<=1440
2. Past 7 Days --> [date imported]=<=10080
3. Past 4 Weeks --> [Date Imported]=<=40320
4. Past 8 weeks --> [Date Imported]=<=80640
-------
(I played around with adding ~sort=[Date Imported]-d but is irrelevant when in panes view)

3. Right click Media Library, create new empty view scheme, call it "Recently Imported"
4. Now make children for this view scheme, one for audio, image and video. (using the media type rule in each VS setup). Setup panes and columns most suited to the common tasks you perform on each media type after importing. Choose whatever you need, but the 1st column must be the playlist group "Import List"

That's the basics. Obviously, you set up the sort rules and columns etc. to suit the way you work. Also, selecting the parent, recently imported, will list all media types imported in the last 8 weeks, so if you like, you could set panes and columns for those too. If you want different timescales, just use a calculator, and the knowledge that 1440=24 hours and adjust accordingly.

This is a great "working" viewscheme, imho

A while back, someone posted a two smartlist method of getting one random full album.  I have been searcing all over but I can't find the post.  If anyone has any thoughts on this I would like to see them.

The idea is to return one full album, selected randomly.

Thanks in advance.

This one selects one random full album:
[Media Type]=[Audio] ~n=1 ~a [Complete Album]=1

Thanks JLee and JaWe.  

Could J River simply collect all contributed smartlists and include them as options in each new release of MC?  Maybe have a pool of 100+ smartlists from which users select.

I've set up my lists to control the ratio of songs I love to songs I enjoy by using this type of rule, ~sort=[Random] playlistid==69547982,=652298654,=945033287,=310722522,=586141697,=423508927,=333878570,=448730864 ~nodup=[Artist],[Name] ~t=120

where each playlist id points to a smartlist of say 15 minutes of randomly chosen songs that I have rated a 2 (and put in a particular genre), or 25 minutes of randomly chosen songs I have rated a 3 and so on.  The drawback is that it requires careful tagging and complex rules.  What I would love is to be able to simply generate 30 minutes of music by artist X rated 3 or above, combined with 60 minutes of all other artists rated 4 or above.  It should be straightforward, but I couldn't seem to get it to work that way, and hence the complex scheme.  If anyone has a good way of doing it on the fly that would be fantastic.  

Hey, you're welcome - though the idea came from PhilG (sp?) originally.

Nesting playlists is one of the more powerful features in MC, and something that no other program does. And it simplifies editing...

Hmm... I'm not sure about how to prevent songs by the same artist showing up consecutively but you CAN limit one-song-per-artist in a playlist by using the no-duplicates modifier ("~nodup"), or by just selecting ADD MODIFIER, then DUPLICATES, then NO DUPLICATES, then specifying [artist] etc.

Nila asked about this over in "3rd party plugins" so I'll dupe it here for general consumption. btw, who's the cleaner around here, I originally wrote this post in all the dust that was laying around, but then decided to clean the dust and write it properly

"Recently Imported" smartlist based view scheme......

1. Create a playlist group called Import List.
2. Add the smartlists below to this new group. (Number them to keep them in order)
-------
1. Past 24 Hours --> [date imported]=<=1440
2. Past 7 Days --> [date imported]=<=10080
3. Past 4 Weeks --> [Date Imported]=<=40320
4. Past 8 weeks --> [Date Imported]=<=80640
-------
(I played around with adding ~sort=[Date Imported]-d but is irrelevant when in panes view)

3. Right click Media Library, create new empty view scheme, call it "Recently Imported"
4. Now make children for this view scheme, one for audio, image and video. (using the media type rule in each VS setup). Setup panes and columns most suited to the common tasks you perform on each media type after importing. Choose whatever you need, but the 1st column must be the playlist group "Import List"

That's the basics. Obviously, you set up the sort rules and columns etc. to suit the way you work. Also, selecting the parent, recently imported, will list all media types imported in the last 8 weeks, so if you like, you could set panes and columns for those too. If you want different timescales, just use a calculator, and the knowledge that 1440=24 hours and adjust accordingly.

This is a great "working" viewscheme, imho

Fairly old thread, but since I had to search it out to reinstall these excellent View Schemes I thought I'd thank Marko again for the great idea, while giving it a little bump  
Thanks Marko

That sounds pretty cool, you can bring up the pace of things at a party to suit, and bring it back down as it near an end.  I imagine something like that would be good for a DJ as well to help taylor the dynamics as needed. Slick.

What would be really nice . . . if the nice folks at JRiver would make Playlists, Smartlists, View Schemes, and 'Scheme Clusters' be exportable as well as importable for easier creation and sharing or view schemes.

The only thing that's getting me down is how slow things update. It's like a 30 second delay anytime I pick anything in a pane, during which MC doesn't respond to anything. I've posted on this subject separately.

That's not normal.  Something else is going on.  Is this the same for views that are "stock" (unmodified)?

I'm making no claims about this being the greatest smartlist of all time but here's one of my key ones:

Description:  excludes songs on my iPod (which are in the two playlists), includes anything equal or greater than 59 seconds, excludes Classical, Comedy and Spoken genres, includes only 5 star ratings, limits to 10 songs by any one artist, limits to the 1960s and sorts the result randomly.

Code: -playlistid==247036698,=592998181 [Duration]=>59 -[Genre]=[Classical],[Comedy],[Spoken] [Rating]==5 ~limit=-1,10,[Artist] [Date (year)]=1960-1969 ~sort=[Random]

I like my iPod excluding playlists as it guarantees that I won't be listening to the same stuff at home and in the car.  I'm a BIG fan of the limit argument as I have a LOT of songs by the same artist and I don't want to get tired of Neil Young or The Beatles by letting them overstay their welcome.

Since this list has been added to the FAQ list pinned at the top of the message board I'd like to suggest a method for posting a smartlist to this thread.

Instead of just describing your smartlist, please post the actual smartlist criteria, something like:

Description: 5 Random Full Albums in Album Order

Code: [media type]=[audio] ~sort=[Random] ~n=5 ~a ~sort=[Random] ~sort=[Album] ~a -[Album]=[]


(this is not my smartlist, I copied it from Dedidio on another thread)

Also note that if you post a smartlist that refers to another smartlist, it will post the internal MC identifier for that smartlist (example: playlist id=13487450) and will not be meaningful to others.  It might be better to post each smartlist seperately.

This will help everybody see whats going on with smartlists and may help people come up with their own ideas, in addition to being able to copy/paste the code directly into MC.

Setup panes and columns most suited to the common tasks you perform on each media type after importing. Choose whatever you need, but the 1st column must be the playlist group "Import List"

For some reason I don't see my Playlist group as an available column for the View Scheme, only the standard user columns. Any ideas?

Quote from: JimH on June 02, 2004, 07:17:58 am

bjsolem,
That's a very good suggestion.

To others who have posted here,
It's possible to edit your original post.

would if i could, but i can't

My tree's in a bit of a mess atm, once i'm done pruning, what's left might be worth posting, if it is, i'll be back....

How do you get that cool looking image with your "Playing now" info on your signature?

Is there a way to create a smartlist that includes only albums that have a certain average rating per song for the album?  (e.g., only albums that have a 4 star rating average).  Is such a calculated field even possible?

This has been requested.  I believe the word from Matt is that calced fields are not currently possible but something they would like to do down the road.

Not speaking for J River, just trying to remember what I read on the boards.  You could probably do a search on Calc Field.

bump

Subject - Duplicates for Handhelds

Ok, this is something that I have never seen in the forums, so I don't know how much use it will be, but here goes;

I use continually changing playlists for my nomad, so I don't convert songs on upload, as this would take too long.  Instead, I keep a library of duplicate tracks for use on the nomad.  To keep this library's size to a minimum, I only convert tracks with certain criteria; for example, year of release.  What this set of playlists does is find duplicate tracks with where the date is missing in one.  I could go on about this, cause I've got quite a complicated setup, but hopefully people will find it useful - I'll be happy to answer any questions, and even happier to get suggestions!

*NOTE* See update below before doing all this - there are 2 ways to skin this cat!

1.
Name: All Duplicates
([Media Type]=[Audio] -[File Type]=[cda],[mid],[wav] ) ~dup=[artist],[name] ~sort=[name],[file type]
This identifies all tracks with duplicate artist and name fields for the file-types that have music I want on my nomad

Create Playlist Group, called Date

2.
Name: With Date
playlist=All Duplicates -[Date (year)]==0 ~nodup=[artist],[name]
3.
Name: Without Date
playlist=All Duplicates [Date (year)]==0 ~nodup=[artist],[name]
4.
Name: Comparer
(playlist=With Date or playlist=Without Date) ~dup=[artist],[name] ~sort=[artist],[name],[date]-d
That's it.  What I then have is a Playlist Group called 'Date', with 3 playlists, one of which is called 'Comparer'.  When I click on 'Comparer', I get a list of all tracks with duplicate artist and name info which have different dates, sorted for easiest editing (ignore the 'Unconverted APEs' list):

http://www.alluvialplains.com/Images/MC/playlist.jpg

Hope this is of some use, and PLEASE, if there's a better way of doing this, let me know.  It's pretty tortuous doing this for everything I want to weed out inconsistencies for!  For example, if you wanted to get a list with inconsistent dates, you'd have to set up a similar group for each individual year!

Update 13/04/06:
Well, I found an easier way to do the above:
~nodup=[Artist],[Name],[Date (year)] ~dup=[Artist],[Name] ~sort=[Artist],[Name],[Date (year)]
Quite a saving on work and space! However, the more complicated system above works for something else, which can be quite useful: instead of just using the date field, if you wanted to find items of a particular year which are out of synch, you would use [Date (year)]=1970 or whatever year you were after. (See my comment about inconsistent dates).

While it might not be so practical or useful for dates, the more complicated system could be useful for things like [keywords]=Single etc. Having to set up 3 lists for each entry is a lot, I know, but if you want to keep duplicates for your portable player you might find it helpful.

I've merged several threads into one called "Smartlist Questions and Answers".  Please use that one for anything other than sharing your favorite smartlist(s).

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=28314.0

Anything new?  Come on I know there are some people doing some fabulous things out there!!!!!