Random Albums Smart Playlist: Is it possible?

In addition to the other smart playlists I have live updated onto my iPod, I wanted to add a 7GB limited smart playlist which selects random albums. I have had a very hard time doing this. Is this even possible?????
My current rules state:
Date Added is after 10/31/05 (first day I had my music library)
Limit to 7 GB selected by album
This unfortunately pulls the albums in alphabetical order, so the 7GB limit essentially caps me at albums starting with "B."
Is there a away to pull a true random smart playlist of albums that I can either recreate or reset each time I would like my ipod to live update?????

no responses. see other question of same nature.

Similar Messages

No more "Album" smart playlist?

I just got a new laptop with vista on it and i have been uploading some CD's and i just noticed that i cannot create a smart playlist by album. Same thing for when i download CD's from the itunes store
Is this happening on everybody or jsut mine?
whats a way around it, its nice not to have to manually drag and drop all the songs into a regular playlist

Well, I just tried one as an experiment. Selected "Album" is "Bones of All Men". Worked fine. Now, I am using a Mac but that shouldn't make a difference.
Exactly what criteria are you using for your smart playlist?

Itunes - very smart playlist - it is possible ?

good day to you
i have a lot of music in my itunes library and of course i can't listen to all songs
is it possible to make a playlist with top songs in all my albums from the itunes store
i see when i find the album i have in itunes store i see there is top rated or the most downloaded song from the album - i can go to my album in itunes and mark the songs that are top rated but i want to know if there is a way to this automatically
thanks

Yes, this is not easy.
I have written Apple several times suggesting that iTunes add the option to set keywords for each item, much like keywords in iPhoto or Aperture.
That would permit me to create complex playlists where one song could appear in several different types of playlist.

Filter songs by rating (on the fly, without smart playlists)

Is there any way (3rd party app maybe) that would allow you to live filter the displayed/played songs by rating? ie. if I have an artist selected, and all 200 songs are shown by that artist -- I would like to select on the fly to only display/play songs that are rated 2 or higher.
Aperture has a similar function that does not require making smart lists -- "Display only 2 or higher" of the current album, etc. -- AND you can sort with a sub-filter in addition (in iTunes, I would show/play only 2 and higher, and maybe sub-sort by album, or shuffle it.)
The only current way to do this is to create a unique smart playlist for every artist, genre, etc. that you would want to filter by rating in that way. Alternately, you can sort by rating, so the best are at the top, but with large selection of those ratings I often want to be able to shuffle the order within that selected rating range.
This software addition would be very useful!
Thanks for any tips...

Merci beaucoup for the response. However, what you described in both cases are the workarounds that I described & that I've been using.
With sort by rating solution, the music can then only be sorted by rating -- and there will be songs of lower ratings played eventually.
Let me try to describe what I'm looking for more precisely:
Like in Aperture, there would be a small gui selection toward the top of iTunes, and you select what ratings should be shown/played -- for example, 2 & higher. Then, there will be no songs shown/played that are below 2 stars. You can then have it play on shuffle, or sorted by other data such as artist, album, etc. -- and you will never hear a song below 2 stars.
The smart playlist is the other workaround I've used, but it's also not the solution. It requires making a separate smart playlist for every possible artist/genre, etc. that you would want only (for example) 2 stars & above to play. For example, if on a whim I wanted to listen to all of my U2 music on random/shuffle -- I'd like to be able to just select Artist-->U2, and with the 2+stars GUI selection, I know I will never hear anything below 2 stars -- *without* having to take the time to make a smart playtlist for this random & rare mood. If I suddenly want a even higher selection of U2, I just click the 3stars GUI selection, and the shown & playable songs instantly update. No need to always have to create & edit smart playlists for such random selections...
This interface works extremely well in Aperture - I wish they'd migrate it over to iTunes!
I hope I'm clearer now... Thanks again

Tip for creating auto-updating Smart Playlists for iPod

Short Answer:
Don't use Smart Playlists that use rules with nested playlists which aren't completely on iPod.
Long Answer:
If you're like me and use nested Smart Playlists, make sure that any Smart Playlist you want to have auto-update on the iPod doesn't use a rule which uses as a criteria a playlist that isn't fully present on iPod (exclamation point next to the Smart Playlist in iTunes when connecting iPod to your Mac).
For example, I have Smart Playlists to exclude certain tracks in other Smart Playlists (Streams, Spoken Word,tracks under 1 minute, etc.). These are tracks that I usually want to exclude in other Smart Playlists but don't want to add those rules each and every time.
The problem is that iPod looks to see if that 'excludes' playlist is present, which obviously it isn't because by it's nature it's designed to exclude tracks. If a nested playlist isn't present it seems the auto-update will not work.
My solution was to create a new Smart Playlist specifically for the iPod, which contained all the rules of my "master exclude" Smart Playlist and any other I wanted specifically for the iPod.
My beef with Apple here is that I can't duplicate a Smart Playlist, which is possible in iPhoto. Being able to do that would make things much easier.
I have since gone about creating 'excludes' playlists so that the playlist itself excludes tracks; previously I was creating a Smart PLaylist that contained (included) all the tracks I wanted to exclude, then using that as a rule (Playlist is not 'Excludes') in other playlists. The second method worked fine on iTunes, since all the tracks are present, but it creates problems on iPod.

I've posted a better version of this thread in the "Using the iPod with color display" forum.
APPLE DISCUSSION ADMINS: Please delete this thread. Thanks!

Smart Playlist of random albums

I want to create a Smart Playlist that contains randomly selected albums...until the playlist reachs a certain size. I know how to tell it to "limit" the list to X GBs "selected by random". However, this won't give me complete albums.
Any help is appreciated!

Well, since there is no Smart Playlist option that allows you to specify whole albums, this currently appears not possible to do with a Smart Playlist.
Rob

How can I make a smart playlist sort album by artist in order of size?

I'm trying to figure out a way to make a playlist of songs I generally like from a very large library to fit on my iPod. The songs aren't rated, and I don't want to have a totally random selection chosen by a smart playlist.
I thought a good way to pare down the list would be to sort album by artist, and then filter that list in order of the size that each artist takes up. It's more important to get rid of an artist that I don't like that also hogs a lot of space than one that maybe only has one track. I figure if I could scan down the list and exclude the worst offenders, it conceivably would make the task much simpler.

I'm trying to figure out a way to make a playlist of songs I generally like from a very large library to fit on my iPod. The songs aren't rated, and I don't want to have a totally random selection chosen by a smart playlist.
I usually make two playlists.
One playlist with favorites I do want on the iPod and another smart playlist to fill the rest of the iPod. Just limit the size to th esize of the iPod minus wthe size of my iPod selection playlist.

Problem with smart Playlist after Upadte to 10.6 - PLEASE UPDATE SOON, Backup not possible

Apple, Apple, Apple... (again)
Is it so difficult to let things, that are quite good, just there where they are??
After updating my iTunes, OS Lion and some other stuff 2 days ago, I have now a big problem with a smart Playlist in iTunes 10.6. Before updating all things was right.
The problem: Now, AFTER UPDATE, my Playlist ist totally empty!
Before they were over 2000 songs in it.
And because this is my major-smart-Playlist, which is established to my whole other Smart-Playlists, the other ones are also empty.
And this is not the first time Apple.
It´s good, if you - apple guys - just added something like new categories to sort of music (like "iCloud-Status" or some others).
BUT WHAT DID YOU THINK, WHEN YOU DELETED THE OPTION "VALUATION" - mh??? (I hope in english this is the word that used in Itunes - my iTunes is in German)
So I don´t mean the "lines" - I don´t know the right english word - when you see the music. There you can fade in "Album-Valuation" - new - AND "Valuation" - old.
But I mean in the options of the smart-playlists - THERE ARE ONLY "Album-Valuation"!!!!! What the heck....
EVERYONE NEEDS THE NORMAL Song-"Valuation" - and not the album (because normaly you decide by each track how good he is and not by the whole album).
You can let the Album ones in it, BUT PLEASE BRING THE NORMAL ONE BACK.
So, in my case, I tried to go back to iTunes 10.5.3 with my nice Time-Machine-Backup. So, but I couldn´t because there came a bug-message that said something like "It is not possible because OSX need the Programm".
What is that?
I also couldn´t delete the iTunes app from my app-folder.
So, and now?
I had to totally restore my volume !
What is that for a solution?!
So please think before you delete any functions, who is needed by many people.
And if you did, maybe ask some users, that uses for example smart-playlists alot, if there is a problem about some changes, you want to add.
I hope anyone from Apple read this and also answer me. Because I´m upset about that.
In every iTunes-Update I am concerned about what will be after the update.
For example in the past, there was more than one changes in iTunes with the Valuation. First, there was just whole stars to set for every song. Than, after a long time, Apple decided to give the options for also half stars. So I said to myself - hey that´s great, that I don´t have to use external apps anymore to set these. So I did this to many of my songs (and that´s many).
Than - after an Update - wow, all half stars rating are gone ! Great Apple, really great.
I was VERY upset.
So after an other update, the opportunity to give half stars are back.
I thought, my god, it is so difficult to talk with other guys, that worked before on iTunes if I am new or just to look if there was already a change in that part of the app???
So, apple guys, please don´t think that I want to attack you. But please be more carefull in the future. I hope that I don´t have to worry too much about so stuff. I really have better things to do with my time.
So, have a nice weekend.
Greetings from Germany.
Marco Blum

Hi..
Use Lion Recovery to reinstall the Mac OS X.

Album ratings and smart playlists

Hello all,
I was wondering if anyone can help me with the new iTunes functionality. I am trying to create a smart playlist with album ratings between 0 stars and 5 stars (basically all albums) and limit the playlist to 4 gb. I am trying to just create a random list of albums to sync to my iphone. Everytime I create a random list it always truncates the final album to exactly match 4gb so there is always an album that is incomplete.
Can anyone think of a different way to accomplish this so you can get ALL complete albums? There must be a way. Sorry if I sound picky about this but I am an album guy, not a random song guy.

Hi there. Try the following:
iTunes -> Preferences... -> Playback -> Shuffle: Albums
Now take your smart playlist you created, and set the 4GB limiter selected by "random" instead of "album". Because we forced shuffling to be by album only, this "random" will select entire albums, randomly. I just figured this out a few minutes ago and it seems to work great.
If you want all albums, you can probably omit the album rating rule (you might need to set Kind to "MPEG audio file" or something to skip podcasts, etc.)
To refresh your list, select and delete all tracks in the playlist, or use the Reshuffle Smart Playlists script available at dougscripts.com/itunes. Or you could add a criterion saying that Last Played must be greater than a month, or so.

Smart playlist not showing albums

I wanna make a smart playlist that shows albums > tracks instead of just tracks.
I mean that you see a list of albums, then select an album and play the tracks.
Now i get a whole list of tracks, and don't know where one albums ends and the next album starts.
Is that possible?

Make sure that the Album column is showing for the playlist, and then click the Album header to sort by the album name.
If you just want to play specific albums, you will probably find it easier to turn on the Browser (View menu -> Show Browser). Then you can select an individual album and play all it's tracks, or select an artist and see (and optionally play) all album by that artist.
Hope this helps.

How can I create a smart playlist of least played complete albums?

Hi,
How can I create a smart playlist of least played complete albums? (of a specific genre, say jazz)
What I would like to do is to have a playlist that will always automatically pull the least played albums of a specific genre (ideally, but not necessarily, with a random album play within that playlist) Hope you are getting the concept!
Thank you for any idea!
Daniel
p.s. there have been solutions for earlier versions of iTunes, none working with iTunes 10 apparently

As you say, you can't access the Gapless property in a smart playlist rule.
The obvious way that comes to mind would be to create another playlist with stuff to exclude from your final list and put the gapless tracks and anything else that won't filter out easily into it.
Yes you say but I have oodles of gapless tracks and I don't want to gather them up by hand.
OK, so you'll need a script. Here is one I've just created for the purpose: GaplessToPlaylist
tt2

How do I create smart playlists for albums?

Hi,
I have a lot of albums and each album has their proper track listings meaning their proper track songs. I would like to create smart playlists for all my individual albums and for every individual album has a smart playlist with the proper track songs in the smart playlist for the album?
1.) Would doing this be possible?
2.) If so, how could I do this?
I forgot to mention a lot of my albums are multiple CDs, and a lot also include bonus CDs.
I don't know many tracks or CDs off the top of my head, but here are some album names as an example.
Road Trips vol. 1 no. 1
Road Trips vol. 1 no. 2
Road Trips vol. 1 no. 3
Road Trips vol. 1 no. 4
And the list goes on.
Thank you,

An album in iTunes is a collection of tracks that have the same Album name and the same Artist or Album Artist. Older iPods only work with Artist. The iPod has menu listtings for Artists & Albums built in, so again no need to duplicate with playlists. Any tracks you put on an iPod will, if correctly tagged, show up in their relevant album, and in the artist listing, the genre listing, any playlists that you include, etc.
For tips on organizing tracks in iTunes and on an iPod see the Grouping tracks into albums article. It needs some updated images, but the information is otherwise still relevant.
tt2

Random album playlist on iphone

Hello, so I'm actually embarassed because I'm not able to make any random album playlist on my iphone, maybe due to a new update. Before I made a smart playlist where I choosed to sort my albums randomly, so i can enjoy my albums entirely, then I synchronyze my phone. But since yesterday, when I tried to do this, when I synchronyzed this smart playlist, all my albums were sorted in the alphabetical order, not randomly. If anyone knows how to get to play entire albums randomly on the iphone or at least to get my smart playlist to play in the random order that i made with itunes, i would be very thankful.

Connect the phone to a computer
Click on the phone under devices
Click on the music tab above the picture of the phone in the middle of the screen,
Uncheck sync music -remove music - apply - recheck sync music.
This should remove music from any accounts.
then resync your music

Adding new albums to smart playlist PLEASE HELP

Having a little trouble adding new albums to smart playlist that already exist. Can this be done?

Having a little trouble adding new albums to smart
playlist that already exist. Can this be done?
I am trying to edit smart playlist but songs dont show up, they are in the library.

Since I upgraded to IOS5, my Smart Playlists are in a random order. Since I use it for listening to Talking Books this makes it useless. How can I control the order of a Smart Playlist?

Since I upgraded to IOS5, my Smart Playlists are in a random order. Since I use it for listening to Talking Books this makes it useless. How can I control the order of a Smart Playlist?

It may be best to recreate the folder and the smart playlists from scratch.
tt2

Random Albums Smart Playlist: Is it possible?

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