Help with dynamic playlist for mpd

Question

Hi guys,
I use mpd with sonata for playing my music, and after trying exaile there is one thing id really like for mpd, and that is the dynamic playlist function.
When you're playing a song in exaile with dynamic playlist enabled, it queries audioscrobbler and automatically adds similar artists/songs to your playlist (if you have them on your pc).
I dont want to use exaile as it just feels too big and slow and bloated (not KISS ), i know a little bit of python so i thought i'll try and make my own little script/program as Sonata has audioscrobbler support, but i dont think there is anyway to query similar artists.
I think im going to try and make this as a daemon type program that will run in the background adding songs to the playlist.
Ive found the code from the exaile source (audioscrobbler.py) which queries lastfm e.g.
>>> lips = AudioScrobblerQuery(artist='The Flaming Lips')
>>> for artist in lips.similar():
... print artist.name, artist.mbid
This will print a list of similar artists to the flaming lips.
I've not done much with python so i thought this would be a good way to try and improve.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what the best way to go about searching and comparing the results to my mpd database, would the best way just to be to search the mpd.db?
And if anyone else has any ideas/comments id like to hear them.
Edit:
I just found this too, so i may only need to change some things to integrate it with mpd rather than amarok
http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=31920
Thanks
Last edited by Kane (2008-06-05 13:24:33)

Answer 1

well i just modified the patch into a little script, it does what i need
its here if anyone wants it
import audioscrobbler
import mpd
import random
import time
lastsong = {}
def timer_control():
get_similar()
time.sleep(10)
timer_control()
def get_similar():
audioscrobbler
client = mpd.MPDClient()
client.connect("localhost", 6600)
mpdstatus = client.status()
prevsonginfo = client.currentsong()
global lastsong
if mpdstatus['state'] == "stop": return
if prevsonginfo == lastsong: return
lastsong = prevsonginfo
similarartists = ""
song = prevsonginfo
#if not song: break #No song, do nothing
prevartist = song['artist']
# Is the info already cached?
similar_cache = {}
if similar_cache.has_key(prevartist):
similarartists = similar_cache[prevartist]
else:
#Not cached so fetch from Audioscrobbler
try:
similarartists = [artist.name for artist in audioscrobbler.AudioScrobblerQuery(artist=prevartist).similar()]
# Cache search results and save some time next search
similar_cache[prevartist] = similarartists
except audioscrobbler.AudioScrobblerError:
similar_cache[prevartist] = None # Empty cache
return # Do nothing!
if not similarartists: return # Empty list
# Split list in half and sort upper half
# this means good matches will have priority
# but makes sure artist A does not always result in artist B
half_idx = len(similarartists)/2
upperhalf = similarartists[:half_idx]
lowerhalf = similarartists[half_idx:]
random.shuffle(upperhalf)
artistlist = upperhalf
artistlist.extend(lowerhalf)
# Try each artist in order
for artist in artistlist:
try:
print "Trying:",artist
songs = client.search("artist", artist)
if not songs: continue
selected_song = random.sample(songs, 1)[0]
client.add(selected_song['file'])
print "Added", selected_song['title'],"by",selected_song['artist']
# Delete old song from playlist?
break
except mpd.MPDError, e:
print "MPDError", e.message
continue
except ValueError, e:
print "ValueError:",e.message
continue
timer_control()
Last edited by Kane (2008-06-06 16:22:49)