Shuffling Groups?

I was wondering if it were possible to shuffle groups on the ipod classic? and how do I accomplish this?

I want to be able to shuffle through specific mutli movement, or single works without shuffling the entire cds instead. Lets say I set up an Orchestral playlist, on itunes I shuffle groups, and it will only shuffle through the specific tracks with the tag "Orchestral." But when I shuffle albums on the ipod, if I have four "Orchestral" tagged works off of the same cd, it will play all of those in order, then skip to the next random cd on the playlist.

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Shuffle, Grouping, and Classical Music

Okay, I've been struggling with advanced shuffles in iTunes. Here's the dilemma... most classical music has several movements.
This becomes troublesome when I try to shuffle my music. I'll often listen to iTunes for 6 hours running, and would like it to randomly pick music. However, I would also like it to pick the movements of my classical music in order.
I've successfully shuffled by album with my U2 collection, however I can't seem to shuffle by grouping with my classical collection. I assume this is because some tracks in a single grouping have different albums, but why would iTunes do this?
Example of desired behavior:
-randomly select Beethoven's 5th.
-play movements 1-4 of Beethoven's 5th in order
-randomly select something else, say Mozart's 21st Piano Concerto.
-play movements 1-3 of Mozart's 21st PC in order
-randomly select something else.
Now, is there a way to do this in iTunes? How about Party Shuffle? I use this feature all the time, and would love to use it for classical, too. And are there any ways to do shuffle like this on an iPod I'm considering for purchase?

Do you have the cds of the music?
If so, reimport the cd. Before importing, select the track which you want grouped together. I.e: 5-8. Select track 5, hold down the shift key and arrow down to track 8. Then, go to the advanced menu at the top of the menu bar and select "join cd tracks." Now import. This creates one long track including tracks 5-8.
Got it?
If this is already imported music, and you don't want to reimport it, there are applications that will let you join already imported music. It will not join protected AAC files. You would have to burn those to a disc and reimport.
iTunes Join 3 is one. It cost $10.00. Note: I haven't used it myself.

ITunes 8 cannot keep groups together anymore when shuffling? :(

I have lots of classical music in my library. It is very often the case that a classical piece is a concert consisting of multiple parts, each part of the concert being a separate "song" in iTunes.
In my opinion, the parts of the concert are supposed to be played directly after each other, in the right order. If that's not the case it's like you're watching only the left half of a painting, and after that the left half of another painting.
Before iTunes 8, i used to ensure this by making each concert a group, and by setting the shuffle function to "shuffle groups".
E.g. the Summer by Vivaldi consists of three "songs": 1. Allegro non molto, 2. Adagio, 3. Presto. I made those all members of group "Vivaldi/Summer". So after shuffling my library, Vivaldi's Summer might appear after Aphex Twin's Tha, but the three parts of the Summer would still come directly after each other in the right order.
But in iTunes 8, the option to shuffle groups has disappeared! When i add a new concert to my library as a group, iTunes will simply ignore it and happily place the 3rd part of a symphony by Mahler after the 4th part of a symphony by Tchaikovsky.
I'm very distressed about iTunes shattering all my concerts and shuffling the splinters, instead of shuffling the concerts mutually while leaving the concerts themselves intact. This is really devastating to my listening experience.
Does anyone know a solution for this? Maybe a "defaults" command in the terminal? Apple, will you please bring back the shuffle groups feature in iTunes...

You appear to be correct. Although I normally use the field for a different purpose (populating smart playlists) I've just tried it out. I would expect it to behave much like shuffling albums, i.e. starting with the first track of any labelled grouping, then playing sequentially through the group, then choosing a new group at random. As you say this is not what happens. I guess the only thing to do is drop a line to iTunes Feedback.
tt2

Grouping Songs in Shuffle mode?

Does anyone know if there's a way to "link" or group songs together so when in shuffle mode they play one after another? I have some songs that are multiple parts and are saved as multiple files(like many classical pieces are), but I don't ever want to here just a single part or section when in shuffle mode.
Len

Further to Len's post, can anyone give me some tips on exactly how to rip and link songs or parts of songs to create one track that can then be shuffled on iPod (I have the same problem as Len). Can this be done in iTunes, or do I need some other software? Can you recommend any, if that's the case?
Isn't it a bit odd that iTunes has the ability to shuffle groupings but the iPod doesnt?
Thanks
Kiwi

Group music feature in iTunes vs shuffle play in ATV2

Hi everyone,
I recently discovered the "group" feature in iTunes, that allows to group separete parts of a sonata or symphony, for example, in order to play them together when using the shuffle mode. All this works perfectly in iTunes (latest version).
Now, when I use the Shuffle mode in the AT2... well, the AT2 seems not recognize that some of my music is grouped. It just plays the music as if nothing was not grouped.
Maybe this is normal? Or not?
Thanks in advance...
Mathieu.

I'm not sure that's gonna work; I've got an old iPod 60, and I'm pretty sure you can only shuffle the main library on my iPod, not individual playlists. I have no idea why this is happening. I just opened iTunes and clicked on another playlist that was shuffled, and turned shuffle off. The songs went back to their original order. Then, I shuffled that playlist again, and the songs were placed in a random order. This problem seems to be specific to only a few playlists [naturally, the ones I want to shuffle]. Any ideas?

Remote App and shuffling a single album

I'm using iTunes 11.0.1.12 on my PC and Remote App 3.0 (598) on my Touch 5G running iOS 6.0.1, and I want to play an album with its songs shuffled. For example, I go to Artists, choose Steely Dan, then "A Decade Of Steely Dan". There's no obvious way to begin playing, so I press the first song, which begins playing. This takes me to "Up Next", which has all the songs from the album I was on, PLUS 7 songs from the album, "Everything Must Go", also by Steely Dan. This makes no sense at all, but I ignore it for the moment, as shuffling is what's on my mind. The thing is, there's no shuffle button on "Up Next", so I click on the tiny album artwork in the upper right corner, and it takes me to the traditional "Now Playing" screen, with the transport controls and big album artwork in the middle. There I find my shuffle button, so I press it, and it turns blue, so I'm all good, right? Wrong! When the next song begins, it's from some other Steely Dan album chosen at random, like "Katy Lied". When I go back to "Up Next", songs from all my Steely Dan albums now appear. All I wanted was to shuffle the one album "A Decade Of Steely Dan" and play just its songs, but this simple thing doesn't appear to be possible. Am I missing something?

Eliciting the bug requires entry to the album in the Remote App through Artists or Genres. I can leave the "Up Next" list displayed in iTunes on the PC and watch it populate with all the following albums when I do this. However, if I enter the album through Composers or Albums, only that album's tracks go into "Up Next". Unfortunately, using Composers to select albums is not a solution at all; for one thing, I only maintain Composer metadata for classical composers. Using Albums isn't really a solution either, because I like to browse by artist or composer. Interestingly, the Remote App groups albums by artist, but it's a flat list and hard to scroll through because there are so many more albums that artists, and while there is a scroll bar (column of dots) to the right, it has no letters to easily go to the p's for, say, Pink Floyd. The Artists view OTOH has letters A-Z instead of dots. I don't get the inconsistency here.
Moreover, I've found that when I press a song to begin playing, the Remote App inconsistently takes me to its "Up Next" screen as I described in my first post vs. its traditional "Now Playing" screen. I've yet to figure out what determines this.

I can't believe I fixed my Shuffle!

After suffering all the problems with the latest version of the firmware/drivers and iTunes updates, I had a shuffle that couldn't be synced, couldn't be recognized, and couldn't play. Guess what? I fixed it and it now works better than ever, with vastly improved sound quality when used with my Transpod FM transmitter in the car.
First step HAS to be this one. There is a bug in the software that assumes the Shuffle is E:\ drive. You have to change the drive letter assignment in Control Panel, the following from Microsoft Help:
How to assign a drive letter
To assign a drive letter to a drive, a partition, or a volume, follow these steps:
1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Performance and Maintenance.
Note If you do not see Performance and Maintenance, go to step 3. Performance and Maintenance appears in Control Panel only if you use Category view. If you use Classic view, Performance and Maintenance does not appear.
3. Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management, and then click Disk Management in the left pane.
4. Right-click the drive, the partition, the logical drive, or the volume that you want to assign a drive letter to, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
5. Click Add.
6. Click Assign the following drive letter if it is not already selected, and then either accept the default drive letter or click the drive letter that you want to use.
7. Click OK.
The drive letter is assigned to the drive, to the partition, or to the volume that you specified, and then that drive letter appears in the appropriate drive, partition, or volume in the Disk Management tool.
How to change a drive letter
To change an existing drive letter on a drive, on a partition, or on a volume, follow these steps: 1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Performance and Maintenance.
3. Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management, and then click Disk Management in the left pane.
4. Right-click the drive, the partition, the logical drive, or the volume that you want to assign a drive letter to, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
5. Click Change.
6. Click Assign the following drive letter if it is not already selected, click the drive letter that you want to use, and then click OK.
7. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the drive letter change.
The drive letter of the drive, the partition, or the volume that you specified is changed, and the new drive letter appears in the appropriate drive, partition, or volume in the Disk Management tool.
I chose M: due to the built in flash card drive on my laptop eating up drive letters. At one point I even tried formatting it from Windows as a flash drive, which may turn out to be a critical step for some of you. This gets Windows to recognize the Shuffle and where it is. Suddenly Itunes could find it, but couldn't truly access it for me after this fix.
If you are like me, you will have to use the updater from the current version of the drivers, use restore, not update. If that fails, uninstall the iPod drivers and reboot the computer, then install them again. You may have to reboot again, then plug in the Shuffle and update it. Mine was so messed up it had to be reformatted during one of the tries.
Eventually the current version took and to my shock iTunes was able to automatically transfer music again. I tested it and it once again could play music, no more alternating green and orange lights. Currently using the latest versions of iTunes & iPod software now.
Hopefully this will help some of you fix your problem, I have to warn you it took me some hours of trial and error (mostly error) one evening. So be patient and it can be worked out. Still, there is no excuse for this from Apple.

Try using your home computer. First off, make sure iTunes is not running in the background, then see if Windows recognizes the Shuffle as a USB drive. Make sure the Shuffle is turned off and that you use the same USB port that you originally installed it to. If you can get Windows to recognize it as a drive, go to My Computer and right click on the Shuttle drive. I'm assuming you've already assigned it a letter, such as M: in the steps I outlined above. You should be able to format it there.
Always make sure to use the icon in the system tray to safely unplug the Shuffle (or any USB storage device) before removing it. I'd also suggest not using the Shuffle as a jump drive, there are cheaper and more capacious ones out there these days and it would reduce the likely hood of software getting confused by the split.
If you can get the thing formatted in Windows, you will be able to get it reformatted with latest update. Oh and you might want to get the standalone Quicktime installer and run that first before mucking around with iTunes 6. There was a corrupted install involved there, going to check out the new revision of iTunes that just rolled out today.

"Why Does The Shuffle Songs Feature Perform So Poorly?"

How'dee,
I have an iPod 160G Classic, I've spent the last 3 months taking my 2,247 "Owned" cd's (I'm a retired dj), an ripped them with identical settings and transfered them flawlessly onto my iPod. I now have a total of 26,311 tracks on my iPod. "FWI"- I tranfered each "Complete" album, no individual tracks... I had been looking forward to being able to Shuffle through my music and not actually listening to individual ablums at a time. I work as a security guard and I am able/allowed to use my iPod via my Bose dock.
I have been listening to my iPod in Shuffle Mode for 3 full weeks now and I am finding that I'm continually listening to the same 30 or so albums out of the full 2,247 that are on my iPod, sometimes it will actually play a song from a perticular album and then play Another track from that same album within the next 10 - 15 tracks!
In the end I'm hearing One New Track that I haven't heard yet every 15 - 20 or so tracks while at the same time I'm hearing tracks from the same albums and or groups throughout the 15 - 20 tracks that have played... As an example, I have 4 albums from the group KISS, I hear tracks from those 4 albums atleast 3 - 5 times every day - day & half... Why does the Shuffle Mode work so poorly? I can't see for the life of me why the so-called "Shuffle Mode" doesn't Shuffle through "ALL" of the 2,247 tracks that are on the iPod.
I've even gone as far as to use a cable to plug my iPod into a regular radio allowing me "Not" to charge my iPod until the battery is almost dead, allowing it to play continuously for my entire 8 hour shift in Shuffle Mode. And then just resume the next shift for another 8 hours, again, until the battery is almost dead. I've gotten around 35+ hours per charge over the last 2 weeks.
"My whole reason for spending $350. on this iPod was so that I could listen to my album collection as though I were listening to a radio... shuffling through "All" of my tracks. I'm now sitting here kicking myself in the a$$ for seemingly wasting my money..."
Any insight would be appreciated.
And just to let it be known, I have attempted to play tracks manually just to see if they are even workable transfers and I haven't come across any problems with the music that I put on the iPod.
The ToxicOne...

It is true - "random" does not mean that you should not hear two songs from the same album (or artist) in close proximity. However, as the number of albums increases, the likelihood of hearing multiple (sometimes three or four) cuts from the same album decreases. And the chances of this happening EVERY time a new shuffle is started is even less likely. Comparing flipping a coin (a 0.5 probability of any given result) to a library with over 2000 albums (a .0005 probability of a track from any given album) is comparing apples to oranges. Also, given one of the posts above which indicated hearing the same *progression of songs* indicates that the mathematical algorithm used by Apple to simulate randomness (as there is no such thing as true randomness in computer programming) is just not up to snuff.

IPod Shuffle 2nd Gen not recognized. I feel like I've tried everything. Help.

iPod Shuffle 2G is not recognized by my 2013 MacBook Air. It is not viewable anywhere. I am getting the blinking orange light.
iTunes is up to date & has been reinstalled.
I have restored the iPod according to the instructions I have seen in similar threads.
Tried plugging into a USB hub with its own power source.
Shuffle will charge in USB wall plug & play music.
I am using the original USB dock that it came with it.
Thanks for any suggestions.

If you do
Apple Menu -> About This Mac -> More Info -> System Report
to run System Information (or System Profiler), does the "iPod" appear as a connected device under
Hardware -> USB
Try doing the above with the shuffle connected directly AND using the power USB hub you mentioned.
Have you tried connecting something else to that USB port, to confirm it is working properly? Preferably, it should be something similar, like a USB flash drive or port-powered external drive (data storage devices that get power from the USB port).
Two other related tests... Create a new user account in System Preferences Users & Groups pane. The new user account can be Standard or Admin. Log out and log in to the new user account (do not use Fast User Switching). In the new user account, run iTunes and connect the shuffle.
And the other test. Start up in Safe Mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1564
Connect the shuffle while started up in safe mode, to see if it appears anywhere. These two test are to see if you have a process running when you start up normally, that interferes with the iPod being recognized.

IPod Shuffle (2nd Gen) not charging, just blinks orange once.

Hi,
I was using this iPod Shuffle 2nd Gen for almost 4 years without any problem, After I got iPod Touch 4G a year back, I stopped using shuffle for almost a year. When I looked at it recently, of course, to give it to my niece - it's not responding. Thinking that battery drained, I tried to charge the shuffle using the then supplied USB doc.
When connected it just blinked orange once - only once that's it. Nothing happend. Even after keeping it for a whole night, nothing happend. It doesn't play, iTunes won't recognize, but windows 7 says "USB Device not recognized", and it was showed under Generic USB Hub as "Unknown Device"
I used USB 2.0 port back of my computer.
Tried using 3rd gen shuffle charging cable, but this time not even the orange blink.
Tried suggested resetting option (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1655), but invain.
Any suggestions?

If you do
Apple Menu -> About This Mac -> More Info -> System Report
to run System Information (or System Profiler), does the "iPod" appear as a connected device under
Hardware -> USB
Try doing the above with the shuffle connected directly AND using the power USB hub you mentioned.
Have you tried connecting something else to that USB port, to confirm it is working properly? Preferably, it should be something similar, like a USB flash drive or port-powered external drive (data storage devices that get power from the USB port).
Two other related tests... Create a new user account in System Preferences Users & Groups pane. The new user account can be Standard or Admin. Log out and log in to the new user account (do not use Fast User Switching). In the new user account, run iTunes and connect the shuffle.
And the other test. Start up in Safe Mode
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1564
Connect the shuffle while started up in safe mode, to see if it appears anywhere. These two test are to see if you have a process running when you start up normally, that interferes with the iPod being recognized.

I have a new 160GB iPod Classic. I often listen to it for many hours at a time. Even with Itunes and the Classic set on shuffle it repeats songs often and only plays a small fraction of my songs. Help! of my

When listening for hours to my new Clasic 160 with several thousand songs and both itunes and the Classic set to shuffle all songs it only plays a small fraction of my library and plays many songs several times over that period. It also seems to pick a small different group of songs to repeat without touching many of most of my songs each time I start listening. Over 98% of the music is legally owned in my CD collection. A few are down loads which play! There should be no issues with ownership. Please help. As much as I like all my tunes I want to actually hear them all. There are many many albums that have never been played.

Okay, well we've eliminated a couple of things.
One thing I have noticed about the iPod Classic: I suspect that "shuffle" is actually a Playlist, not a real shuffle. The Classic is not as powerful as iTunes or a desktop/computer, so it cannot truely "shuffle songs". I suspect what happens is that every Sync of the Classic with its iTunes Library causes a revised "shuffle playlist" to be put on the iPod and then, when you choose Shuffle play, it actually uses that special hidden "shuffle playlist".
So one trick is to Sync your iPod with iTunes frequently. This would change the "shuffle playlist". Another trick would be to create your own Playlists, either by adding what you want to a Regular Playlist or by creating a Smart Playlist which adds and removes songs by itself.
Smart Playlists: for example, you can create a Smart Playlist (in iTunes) which contains a random selection of all songs, or a random selection of a particular group of songs, provided the song has not been played for a period of time, say six months, or 300 days. Every Sync of the iPod with iTunes would remove any song from that Smart Playlist if it has been played. That same song cannot go back into the Playlist for a period of six months, or whatever you choose.
This way, you can reduce the likelyhood of hearing the same songs too often. This brings me to another point. If you have the same song, on different albums, then it's possible that you are hearing that same song but from both albums.
Try this: in your iTunes Library,
look for and click on the big + button and choose New Smart Playlist..., if you do not have the Sidebar displayed, switch to the Playlists view where you will find it in the bottom left corner,
Set it up to look like this:
It creates a list of songs that have not been played for fifteen weeks. It excludes videos and in my iTunes Library, it has 527 songs in it. If you would like a smaller list than that, click on the Limit to and fill in the number of songs you want.
Having set it up, play some songs from it (in shuffle mode if you wish) and watch how it changes . The song must play through to the end of the track before it is classed as "played". If you like it, let it go onto your iPod. You could set up a few Playlists, each with their own rules. Even if a song appears in two different Smart Playlists, if you have the "last played is not in the last" rule in both lists, then playing the song will eliminate it from both lists. None of this removes songs from the iPod (unless you use Sync selected Playlists...).

1st Generation iPod Shuffle not receiving Purchased Songs on a Win Vista

I authorized this new computer to iTunes.
I then tried to copy 30 purchased songs to this Vista Machine as part of a playlist of about 60 songs.
The non-purchased songs copied. The purchased ones will not copy, either as a group or individually. When I try to drag a songs, all I get is the icons showing a prohibited movement.
What do I need to do to move these purchased songs to my trusty old Shuffle?
Thanks.

I'm in the same position but worked out a fix.
Go into the Shuffle settings on iTunes and untick, 'start iTunes when this iPod is plugged in' but also tick, 'enable for disk use'
Eject the Shuffle, close down iTunes.
Now, when you plug in the Shuffle, it'll appear under Computer on the desktop as a removable drive and from there, you can right-click it and eject - bingo, LED stays on unblinking.
You may get a message from Windows, 'error on this drive, it needs scanning' or similar, but I ignore this now as when I scanned it, it seemed to mess up the Shuffle in iTunes.

Connecting iPod Shuffle 1st generation (Early 2005) to Windows Vista

Hi
I bought a early iPod Shuffle in 2005 and installed it on a Windows Xp Computer. The installation disk was for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The iPodWorks fine even now.
Want to install it on a Windows Vista Computer. Does not install properly. iPod not recognised. iPod never appears in the iTunes windows. I assume it needs a USB driver for Vista. Nothing on the Apple support website or so far as I can see in the discussion group for 1st generation iPod shuffles.
Regards

The 1st gen shuffle has REALLY excellent sound. It is better than 2nd gen shuffle, and other iPods, for sound. Because it has a separate docking connection (the USB plug), it is the only shuffle that can play music while it is charging. Plus, I like being able to hold it in my hand and control it (not clipped).
Because I liked it so much, a few years ago, I bought some broken ones being sold on eBay. Using these instructions
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPod_Shuffle_1st_Generation
I took them apart and tried to assemble working ones by swapping parts. Fortunately, the 1st gen shuffle is small, but not tiny. Unfortunately, the most common failure point (by far) was USB plug component (including a very delicate ribbon cable that connects to logic board). I have plenty of "spare parts" now, except for that USB plug part. So I am VERY careful when connecting and disconnecting my remaining working 1st gen shuffle, and try to do it as infrequently as possible.

My iPod shuffle feature no longer seems to work

This is odd. I got a new iPod and when I hooked it up and transferred my old music to the new one (not sure how I did it) it now seems to shuffle my songs but it will play 2 or 3 or 6 or 7 songs by the same artist in a row. It drives me insane. I don't think it's genius, cause that's not turned on... it just randomly groups songs by the same artist together so I'm not getting a true shuffle experience. It's very odd and totally annoying. Anyone know what's going on? And I should add, the new iPod (5th generation nano) completely failed to hold a charge so I had to go back to my 2nd generation Nano (which never had this problem before). thanks

Nevermind, I figured it out. Somehow I had 'shuffle albums' on LOL

Recently, my Ipod classic no longer plays grouped consecutive podcasts continuously.

recently, (I believe the since most recent update) my ipod classic no longer plays grouped consecutive podcasts continuously. In the past it work quite effectively.
I checked the shuffle switches, and they were all turned off.
None of the threads that seem to address this issue effectively.
Don't have this problems with my iPhone 4GS.
Does anybody know what gives? Not real keen on Updating Software when options and features removed.

Did a restore without any media being put on, here are the stats, and the increase from the original posted:
Retracts: 1                         (+0)
Reallocs: 280                     (+64)
Pending Sectors: 480         (+48)
PowerOn Hours: 198          (+1)
Start/Stops: 24856             (+50)
Temp: Current 33c             (+6)
Temp: Min 14c                   (+0)
Temp: Max 54c                  (+0)
Although the hours, and temps don't matter much I included them anyway. Here are the stats after another restore, and all the media being added (increase from original, not last restore):
Retracts: 1                         (+0)
Reallocs: 400                     (+184)
Pending Sectors: 48           (-384)
PowerOn Hours: 198          (+0)
Start/Stops: 24861             (+55)
Temp: Current 36c             (+9)
Temp: Min 14c                   (+0)
Temp: Max 54c                   (+0)
The pending sectors went drastically down, which is awesome, lot less songs are skipping.. Except the reallocs went significantly up as well, I assume that would be due to the remaps of the pending sectors? And should I try more restores to see if that would help try to fix the problem, assuming it would be fixing desk/memory errors?

Shuffling Groups?

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