I\‘ll tell you how "anal" I have configured my iTunes using smart playlists. I have rated my entire collection. First let me establish the meanings of the star-ratings: 0 = OnTheGo Exiled, 1 = Yet to be rated, 2 = Low Rotation, 3 = Medium Rotation, 4 = Super Rotation, 5 = OnTheGo Rated. The idea behind it: All imported music gets 1 star. When on the road, if I like the tune, I update the rating to 5-stars. If I absolutely hate a tune, i\’ll exile it from playback by updating the rating to 0. When I get home and the stats are synchronised, I have a smart playlist called \‘OnTheGo Rated\’. I can then review the \‘approved\’ songs and assign a more appropriate rating. This results in 3 smart playlists for Low Rotation, Medium Rotation and Super Rotation, much like a typical radio station or musicvideo tv channel. In the partyshuffle mode, I assign another smart playlist, which 90% of the time is set to \‘Rotation Low .. Super\’. This will make sure that my party shuffle only plays approved tracks. If I only want "major hits", I select a more narrow selection using the smart playlist \‘Rotation Medium .. Super\’ or just \‘Rotation Super\’. Furthermore, I\‘ve set up \’Best Of Ggenre\’ smart playlists, which enables me to narrow the selection to a specific genre. The option \‘Play higher rated songs more often\’ is used throughout the partyshuffle mode, ensuring that more popular tracks are played more often. However, by utilizing the 0-star and 5-star for OnTheGo rating and using the 1-star as an initial rating, the partyshuffle mode only utilizes the 2..4 star rated tracks. The majority of the tracks reside in the 2-star category, which in regards to this statistical experiment is a big shift, as the article claims that \‘3-star\’ is the center of gravitation. I\‘m not a big math-freak, so perhaps you could tell me wether or not this has a positive influence on the \’Play higher rated songs more often\’ option. Oh, to make the playlist mania complete: using this strategy, I\‘ve also created these smart playlists: \’Rated but never played\‘, which lists all tracks having a 2..4 rating, but have never been played before, either in iTunes or the iPod itself, and a \’OTG to-be-rated\’ playlist, which features all 1-star tracks (initial import rating), which makes a handy tool to force you to review tracks and assign ratings, either in the comfort of home, or on the road using the OTG-exiled (0 stars) and OTG-rated (5-stars) ratings for easy rating ;). Oh and to complete it all, I\‘ve also set up an \’Airplay top 100\‘. I\’d like to hear all your comments on my implementation and the mathematical implications.
RE: This is how I've set up my iTunes by Anonymous :: NR0 :: Show
wow, you are anal.
I just forego partyshuffle and play music in playlists with random checked, it seems to work a lot better…