Smart Playlist - No Duplicate Bands?

Is it possible to use smart playlist to make a random playlist with no more than one song per band? For example a rule that would prevent Float On and Bukowski by Modest Mouse from being in the same list.
Thanks in advance.

#1BillyZaneFan wrote:
Doesn't the list check to make sure there are no repeats though,
Correct. Basically the Smart Playlist analyzes each track and finds whether it does or does not meet the rules. It it meets the rules, it is in; if not, it is out. However, that does not do anything to prevent multiple tracks by the same artist.

Similar Messages

Smart playlist for duplicate track numbers?

Hi Folks,
With Regard to smart playlists is there any way to identify duplicate track numbers on the same disc?
During the import process the disc numbers (where it was a dual cd) we simply listed as disc 1 on the import process.
As a result, some albums have 2 x track 1 and 2 x track 2 etc.
So save me searching through the whole library manually, is there a way to create a smart playlist and search doe duplicate track numbers on the same disc.
In the same light is it possible to search for duplicate artists on the same disc?
Appreciate your help
Hope this makes sense.
Thanks
Simon.
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Hi Simon,
Missed this thread the first time around.. As Chris says this isn't something that you can pick up with a smart playlist. In principle I could write a script that runs through every track in a selection and notices when the same combination of track number, disc number, album title and album artist comes up. A second pass would then add every track from each affected album to a regular playlist for you to go through and fix up.
In practice when I'm hunting for inconsistencies in the library I've found that stepping through the albums using the column browser is quite effective. In my case I'm generally looking for instances where the same album title is reused by different albums, the obvious example being Greatest Hits, as these jumble together on my iPod classic. When this happens I retitle each album as <Album> - <Album Artist> to separate them. Using the column browser I reckon I can scan through the library at about 2 albums a second, stopping only when something looks amiss.
So, are you still hunting for your misnumbered double albums?
tt2

Separating (identical )duplicate files by smart playlist

I have an external drive to complement my internal drive. i have a set of
music on the internal drive which is included also on the external drive.
I wish to create a smart playlist which displays unique songs rather than all songs which includes duplicates.
the way i have been doing this is to denote all tunes on my internal drive as
BPM=1. This separates the two drives easily using a smart playlist. Then i have used the DUPLICATE SONGS command to identify the music that is on both drives. Then i separate these by denoting the ones found on both and, in particular, located on the internal drive as BPM=12. then i just make a smart playlist which subtracts only these from the entire library.
while this method works well, the problem is that when i choose the duplicate songs command, i need to go through all songs by hand to determine which are IDENTICAL duplicates (i.e. in all information) or DUPLICATES BY NAME.
it seems the duplicate songs command should have more options,
to determine if it's a duplicate only in name or furthermore in ALBUM,ARTIST, etc. then if i could choose all information, i would be able to determine without much effort which songs i want.
is there a way to do this? or is there another method to accomplish what i want in a different fashion anyone can recommend?
thanks
stefanos

Hi Simon,
Missed this thread the first time around.. As Chris says this isn't something that you can pick up with a smart playlist. In principle I could write a script that runs through every track in a selection and notices when the same combination of track number, disc number, album title and album artist comes up. A second pass would then add every track from each affected album to a regular playlist for you to go through and fix up.
In practice when I'm hunting for inconsistencies in the library I've found that stepping through the albums using the column browser is quite effective. In my case I'm generally looking for instances where the same album title is reused by different albums, the obvious example being Greatest Hits, as these jumble together on my iPod classic. When this happens I retitle each album as <Album> - <Album Artist> to separate them. Using the column browser I reckon I can scan through the library at about 2 albums a second, stopping only when something looks amiss.
So, are you still hunting for your misnumbered double albums?
tt2

Smart Playlist is showing duplicate icloud purchases

When I go to make a Smart Playlist of an album that I have purchased and dowloaded from iTunes the playlist that is created not only includes these downloaded songs but also duplicates of the same songs with the icloud icon next to them. Can anybody tell me why and how to stop it? Thanks!!

It would appear to be a bug...
Sign out of the iTunes store.
Sign in again.
tt2

Smart Playlists Not Syncing Correct CONTENT on iPhone 3G

Hi, I apologize about the length of this description, but I believe all or most of it may be relevant.
I have been having trouble synchronizing ANY of my smart playlists. I first noticed it in the playlists I had created which entailed "Most Recently Added" or "Most Recently Played" options. Now I realize that all of my smart playlists are no longer syncing their play order (some too big to determine if songs aren't making it into some of them). For instance, here is the criteria for a playlist I created just to demonstrate this problem (this is a brand new playlist just I made and synced with my iPhone):
Title: Recently Played 5
Criteria: Rating is in the range 3 stars and 5 starts
Checked Boxes-
(X)Limit to [5] items selected by most recently played
(X)Match Only Checked Songs
(X)Live Updating
Playlist as it appears in iTunes:
"Summer, Man" by Taking Back Sunday
"Sink Into Me" by Taking Back Sunday
"New Again" by Taking Back Sunday
"Error: Operator" by Taking Back Sunday
"Swing" by Taking Back Sunday
Playlist as it appears on my iPhone:
"Them Bones" by Alice In Chains
"Hands in the Sky (Big Shot)" by Straylight Run
"Lead Said (And A Paper Anchor)" by Atreyu
... etc
These playlist CLEARLY do not match and it drives me crazy because these types of playlists are what I generally listen to. I'm running iTunes 9.0.1.8 on Windows 7 OS (Dell Inspiron 6400), and OS 3.1.2 on an iPhone 3G. I just recently consolidated my library. I had a collection of over 7000 songs on my external hard drive backed up, and kept about 4000 of them on my computer stored in iTunes (i.e. only the 4000 songs were present in my iTunes library, originating from my laptop hard drive--NOT EXTERNAL). Upon switching to Windows 7, I wanted to have ALL my music on my laptop hard drive and thus copied and re-added all of the music (all 7000). I lost all my track info (ratings, plays, last played date, date added, etc) in this process until I opened the iTunes library file with iTunes(had backed up from before new OS installation) and, voila, all my playlists and track info was restored. I had to do some cleaning up of duplicate files, but nothing major.
I found this thread from Sept. 2008 which seemed to be in regards to the exact same problem under almost the exact same situation: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8066846#8066846. Unfortunately, it's unanswered and archived. My iTunes did not crash, but I cleanly installed a new OS and had to start fresh.
I cannot for the life of me figure this issue out. I thought about restoring my device and syncing it again (which I will try again tomorrow to see if I can manage any progress), but I want to retain my app info and text messages so I plan on restoring from a backup. If anyone has any solutions or even suggestions, I'm open to try anything.
Thanks!

Sorry, I just realized I'm in the wrong forum... I apologize.

Smart Playlists Not Syncing Correct CONTENT With iPhone 3G

Hi, I apologize about the length of this description, but I believe all or most of it may be relevant.
I have been having trouble synchronizing ANY of my smart playlists. I first noticed it in the playlists I had created which entailed "Most Recently Added" or "Most Recently Played" options. Now I realize that all of my smart playlists are no longer syncing their play order (some too big to determine if songs aren't making it into some of them). For instance, here is the criteria for a playlist I created just to demonstrate this problem (this is a brand new playlist just I made and synced with my iPhone):
Title: Recently Played 5
Criteria: Rating is in the range 3 stars and 5 starts
Checked Boxes-
(X)Limit to [5] items selected by most recently played
(X)Match Only Checked Songs
(X)Live Updating
Playlist as it appears in iTunes:
"Summer, Man" by Taking Back Sunday
"Sink Into Me" by Taking Back Sunday
"New Again" by Taking Back Sunday
"Error: Operator" by Taking Back Sunday
"Swing" by Taking Back Sunday
Playlist as it appears on my iPhone:
"Them Bones" by Alice In Chains
"Hands in the Sky (Big Shot)" by Straylight Run
"Lead Said (And A Paper Anchor)" by Atreyu
... etc
These playlist CLEARLY do not match and it drives me crazy because these types of playlists are what I generally listen to. I'm running iTunes 9.0.1.8 on Windows 7 OS (Dell Inspiron 6400), and OS 3.1.2 on an iPhone 3G. I just recently consolidated my library. I had a collection of over 7000 songs on my external hard drive backed up, and kept about 4000 of them on my computer stored in iTunes (i.e. only the 4000 songs were present in my iTunes library, originating from my laptop hard drive--NOT EXTERNAL). Upon switching to Windows 7, I wanted to have ALL my music on my laptop hard drive and thus copied and re-added all of the music (all 7000). I lost all my track info (ratings, plays, last played date, date added, etc) in this process until I opened the iTunes library file with iTunes(had backed up from before new OS installation) and, voila, all my playlists and track info was restored. I had to do some cleaning up of duplicate files, but nothing major.
I found this thread from Sept. 2008 which seemed to be in regards to the exact same problem under almost the exact same situation: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8066846#8066846. Unfortunately, it's unanswered and archived. My iTunes did not crash, but I cleanly installed a new OS and had to start fresh.
I cannot for the life of me figure this issue out. I thought about restoring my device and syncing it again (which I will try again tomorrow to see if I can manage any progress), but I want to retain my app info and text messages so I plan on restoring from a backup. If anyone has any solutions or even suggestions, I'm open to try anything.
Thanks!

This looks like yet another example of the "smart playlists with live updates are broken" bug, which has been discussed at length in this forum. Two "fixes" are known to work, at least some of the time:
1) turn off live updates (yes, I know that defeats the purpose of a "recently played" list; so does the current situation, where you have apparently random tracks instead of the right content).
2) add a "playlist is Music" rule to the playlist (in addition to the ones you have now).
In my experience the "playlist is Music" fix also has the effect of turning off live updates (regardless of what the checkboxes say), but other people report no such problem. So it might work for you.

How to create a playlist *with* duplicate songs

I have a practice where I need to play a playlist with duplicate audio tracks. The audio tracks are not duplicated in the iTunes app and I don't want to duplicate them as audio tracks. I only want to create a playlist that will play the same audio track at different points in the playst. For example...
Announcement of beginning
Round 1
Announcement of task1
John Doe 1
John Doe 2
3 minute work window
Countdown of 10 minutes
Round 2
Announcement of task2
John Doe 3
John Doe 4
3 minute work window
Countdown of 10 minutes
Round 3
Announcement of task1
John Doe 5
John Doe 6
3 minute work window
Countdown of 10 minutes
Round 2
Announcement of task2
John Doe 7
John Doe 8
3 minute work window
Countdown of 10 minutes
As you can see... I need to be able to duplicate the playlist audio tracks at certain points in the playlist to create the event that I need for that day.
The problem is that iTunes sees that a duplicate track is put into the playlist and doesn't allow it. I end up with this as I can not readd an audio track that I have in the playlist already.
Announcement of beginning
Round 1
Announcement of task1
John Doe 1
John Doe 2
3 minute work window
Countdown of 10 minutes
Round 2
Announcement of task2
John Doe 3
John Doe 4
John Doe 5
John Doe 6
John Doe 7
John Doe 8
Is there no way to tell iTunes to allow duplicate audio tracks in a playlist?

Smart playlists and playlist folders won't hold duplicate entries, but it should be possible to put the same track more than once into a regular playlist. Go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced and click the button Reset Warnings... iTunes should now warn you when you try to add duplicate items to a playlist, but you should have the option to add the items anyway.
tt2

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!

IPod Touch built-in smart playlists (Top 25,etc.) disappeared off of it although it's still on iTunes

I synced my ipod the day before, and everything was still intact. Today, I synced it again for more music, and it suddenly removed my smart playlists off my ipod touch. No, I did not change or mess with any settings or anything of that sort, and I even tried rebooting it and restarting iTunes. Please help me if this has ever happened to you!! Apple Support is being a butt and wants me to buy a freaking plan for one time and removed the personal asking them for support questions button. Thank you!

Right click on the playlists in question on your PC. Click 'duplicate' and it will create a new folder ie. recently added # 1. Sync and the new playlist should appear. Not ideal I know but at least you get your playlist back.

Smart playlists disappeared in iPhone after syncing

Is there a way to make my Smart Playlists reappear in Music? After recently syncing my iPhone, all of the smart playlists disappeared on the phone itself. The entire library is on the phone as well as playlists I created, but the standard smart playlists no longer appear in the index of playlists. In iTunes, they still appear in the device's contents. I just can't seem to get to them through the phone itself.

I have been having the same probelm. Tonight I right clicked on each playlist and chose the option "Duplicate" I then deleted the original. After doing this with each playlist the new duplicates sync with my iphone just like the old ones used to. Hope that helps.

Smart playlists in iCloud

Why won't smart playlists upload to iCloud when using itunes match, for use on my iOS devices?

" There are Gigbytes of iCloud space being taken up right now with audio files that are just audiobooks i've ripped in from CD. I don't need it up there. Apple surely dosn't want me wasting all that space on their servers... Why in the name of heaven would they go out of their way to make it impossible to fix?"
You brought this up in an earlier post, which I responded to. It's not "impossible to fix," but it does take some work. I pointed you a post that details how to make duplicates, change file names, get those files off Apple's servers and still keep them in your library. I see you're running into a problem changing the file type. If you follow the method I've used for swapping non-playing music files for copies that will play, at the point where you edit the actual file name, you're doing it outside of itunes. I don't need to change file type for what I'm doing, but working in the finder, I've never had a problem doing it, If you have a lot of files, I know changing them all to .epub manually may be a pain. I'm sure there are utilities out there that would let you batch change the file extension though. For reference below is the process I've used to swap out my own matched files.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3567775
"And while on the subject of things made pointlessly difficult or impossible: I love the iCloud Status setting in the smart playlists... But the most basic feature I need, dosn't seem to be an option: What is in the cloud and what is on my drive. Isn't this a fairly obvious thing?"
I've never used smart playlists, but your concern made me go look. I made one that included songs that were local and another that were uploaded or matched by using the icloud status qualifiers "matched" "uploaded" and "local only." Doesn't "Local only" do what you want?
Message was edited by: JiminMissouri

Smart playlists for file location?

I have half my music on my powerbook hd, and half on an external drive. I want to create a smart playlist of all the music on the internal drive, and one of all the music on the external.
Is this possible? Perhaps I need something else though... I want to avoid the situation of click on a song, and getting the 'not found' prompt, and only see music that is available to me at the time.
Thanks!

Chris CA wrote:
Both correctly include 2 1/2 star songs when one of their criteria is "greater than 2 stars".
Are you sure the songs are not getting includes as part of other criteria in the list?
Very. Each playlist has just two criteria (both of which must match): "Rating is greater than 2" and "Playlist is ___". In fact, I've used those two lists (which between them include essentially all of my rated music) to create a "Rated 2.5" list (which correctly contains all of my 2.5 rated songs and nothing else).
the Smart Playlist option "Rating 'is greater than'" is not mathematically correct, since it does not treat 3 1/2 as greater than 3
It is mathematically correct. You mean it does not work in adding 3 1/2 rating to the playlist.
Yes, that's what I meant, so perhaps I should rephrase: the actual behavior seen after choosing "is greater than" is not the behavior described by the mathematical inequality "A is greater than B" (since some songs with ratings that are greater than B are not included).
On a technical note, the behavior seems to be in "iTunes Library", not in "iTunes Music Library.xml"...
iTunes does not use the iTunes library.xml file. It is created by iTunes only for other applications to access the library.
Ah, thank you! That's good to know. Interestingly, when I look inside the XML file to compare one of my two "especially smart" playlists to what ought to be a perfect duplicate of it (but isn't) there /is/ one small difference in the "Smart Criteria" section (in the next-to-last line of data there, the better-behaving list has a "Bk" in a place where the worse-behaving one has an "A7"). Is there any way for an ordinary user to edit the internals of the actual iTunes Library database?
Have you looked over at dougscripts.com for something on this?
Yup. There are two or three scripts there for setting half-star ratings, but skimming through all search results for 'half-star' or '"smart playlist"' didn't turn up anything relevant.

One song smart playlist?

How would I make a Smart Playlist that would only show just the tracks that I only own one song off an album ?
I have a lot of "one hit wonder" single songs from bands that I only own one track of. How would I find them?
I don't see how I can make iTunes check the number of tracks on an album.

Navarro,
You are correct. This is not possible with iTunes Smart Playlist logic.
To do it manually, add "one hit wonder" to the Comments field of those songs. You can then create a Smart Playlist to match on Comments contains one hit wonder.

Smart playlist long list of criteria extends off screen - help!

I subscribe to a lot of podcasts and use several smart playlists to group and organize them. When creating criteria for the smart playlist, sometimes the list extends off the bottom of the screen, and unlike the usual Mac interface, no scroll bar appears on the window. This isn't really a problem (I'm able to keep adding to the playlist using the + button near the top of the window) but makes going back and editing or removing items that can't be seen on screen impossible.
Can anyone suggest a solution to "scroll up" on these long lists of smart playlist criteria that disappear off screen?
I thought it might help make sense of my ramblings if I included a link to a screenshot showing what I'm asking about:
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/9206/picture1qb8.png
Message was edited by: Bryan Hughes1
Message was edited by: Bryan Hughes1

I have found the only solution right now is to create sub-smart playlists and then group those in the main playlist.
For example, say for music you have...
Any of the following:
Band is Devo
Band is B-52s
. [more rules]
Band is ELO
Band is Heart
. [more rules]
Band is Bad Religion
Band is NoFX
. [more rules]
that you can take groups of them and put them into their own Smart Playlists like New Wave, Classic Rock, and Punk then your HUGE playlist you can remove those bands and put in to include the New Wave, Classic Rock, and Punk playlists, then add what ever extra rules you have.
Patrick

ITunes (11 I think) in smart playlists and folders won't apply the "Last Played" search criteria in real time. Please fix!!!

The major iTunes recent makeover, generally *****.
It's ugly to look at; it's grey and blue-grey and more grey. god, how drab can you get. You know how in the Finder we can assign colors to files, folders & applications. It would be fantastic to be able to do that to playlists and the folders of playlists within iTunes. Please add some color! And/Or let us choose the color format for our personal copy of iTunes, like some browsers do.
But more importantly I have some rather sophisticated smart playlists; many of which source other (smart) playlists & folders of playlists in my collection. With this current iTunes makeover (iTunes version 11 I think), they screwed something up. None of my smart playlists will apply in real time the "Last Played" search criteria. This is very annoying. Please, please fix it.
And how about the ability to duplicate a playlist, to make new playlist. Not to have two of the same playlists, but so the second one can then be edited to something similar to the first (as opposed to having to build a new similar sophisticated playlist from scratch). This would save a lot of time in some cases.

The major iTunes recent makeover, generally *****.
It's ugly to look at; it's grey and blue-grey and more grey. god, how drab can you get. You know how in the Finder we can assign colors to files, folders & applications. It would be fantastic to be able to do that to playlists and the folders of playlists within iTunes. Please add some color! And/Or let us choose the color format for our personal copy of iTunes, like some browsers do.
But more importantly I have some rather sophisticated smart playlists; many of which source other (smart) playlists & folders of playlists in my collection. With this current iTunes makeover (iTunes version 11 I think), they screwed something up. None of my smart playlists will apply in real time the "Last Played" search criteria. This is very annoying. Please, please fix it.
And how about the ability to duplicate a playlist, to make new playlist. Not to have two of the same playlists, but so the second one can then be edited to something similar to the first (as opposed to having to build a new similar sophisticated playlist from scratch). This would save a lot of time in some cases.

Smart Playlist - No Duplicate Bands?

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