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RE: robg's comment
Authored by: cybergoober on May 14, '03 11:02:14AM

You could tell the Smart Playlist to "Match the following condition:" and select "Play Count" and set it 0 (or less/more than or a range etc...). Then tell it to "Limit to <i>N</i> songs selected by random" and check "Live updating".

That's about the best I could come up with.



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RE: robg's comment
Authored by: valx on May 14, '03 11:08:51AM

Depending on how many songs you have and how long it takes you to cycle through all of them, you could create a smart playlist with the criteria:

[Last Played] [is not in the last] [n] [days/weeks/months]
Limit to [n] [songs] selected by [random]

If I set this for 2 months, I get a nice random selection of songs I haven't heard in a long time.



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RE: robg's comment
Authored by: jolinwarren on May 14, '03 11:48:54AM

The problem with this method is that you can't have a smart playlist that includes multiple artists. For instance, if I want the following criteria:

Artist contains "Eric Clapton"
Artist contains "Derek and the Dominos"
Playcount is less than "1"

Choose "2" hours selected by "random"

there's no way to combine this. I have to either have songs matching _all_ the criteria (impossible, since no song has an artist containing both "Clapton" and "Derek and the Dominos") or I have to have songs matching _any_ of the criteria (which will have any non-Clapton and non-Derek and the Dominos songs that have a playcount less than one).

What I really want is nested criteria:

(Artist contains "Eric Clapton"
OR
Artist contains "Derek and the Dominos")
AND
Playcount is less than "1"

Choose "2" hours selected by "random"

but, alas, this is not possible. So thanks for the hint! I had not noticed the "Least recently played" limit, and this, combined with shuffle, achieves the goal described above.

Cheers,
Jolin



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RE: robg's comment
Authored by: DanFrakes on May 27, '03 10:47:47PM

This comment is two weeks after the original thread, so jolinwarren may never see it ;) but at least it will be in the archives...


Instead of "nested" criteria, you can solve your particular dilemma by adding "clapton" to the comments field for anything by Eric Clapton, Derek & the Dominos, Cream, etc. Then create a playlist that contains any song with "Clapton" in the comments field.

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RE: robg's comment
Authored by: doggkruse on May 14, '03 12:08:04PM

I don't think you understood the hint... You don't need to to select "random" and "least recently played,"... you select only select "least recently played" in the smart playlist options, and then you hit the shuffle button on the bottom of the iTunes window... This reproduces the Random effect without random actually being selected.



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RE: robg's comment
Authored by: marky on May 14, '03 07:01:04PM

Try adding to the Smart Playlist criteria something like this:

[Date Added] [is not in the last] xx [days, weeks or months]

You could also use "selected by random" instead of "selected by least often played" and:

[Last Played] [is not in the last] xx [days, weeks or months]

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