Smart Playlist Question

I started to notice something the other day. I'm not sure if the problem is new or if I am just using Smart Playlists more.
This is what's going on. I create a Smartplay list in iTunes. All is good it syncs to my iPod.
What I am having problems is the play lists becomes static. After the initial creation, I have a few playlists that are Random songs; like a random 1 hour, 2 hour, and 10 hour. I'd like these to be updated at every sync if not every time iTunes is opened.
Am I miss understanding Smartplay lists? Is there a way to do what I am looking for?

Do you have live updating checked on your SPL criteria?

Similar Messages

ITunes Podcasts & Smart Playlists Question

Hi everyone,
Thanks for taking the time to read my question.
I have a 60gb Colour iPod and have nearly filled it, so do not want to sync any of the podcasts to it. I've disabled Podcast syncing in the options tab after connecting the iPod, but Podcasts are still syncing because I have a large range of Smart Playlists which are set to show me what I added by date. This means they are treating Podcast content as being "Added On" a certain date and hence appearing in the Smart Playlist and being synced.
It is my understanding that to disable this I have to add a clause to the Smart Playlist which says "Kind, Is Not, Podcast" - is this the case? To go through every playlist I have would take ages and can anyone advise if it's possible to apply the same criteria to all playlists? I tried to select more than one by holding down Control or Shift but it didn't work.
Any thoughts would be very gratefully received!
Cheers,
Edd

This question has been answered in the general iTunes for Windows Forum.

Live updating smart playlist question

I made a smart play list for my songs that have no rating.
but once I rate them the music stops because of the live updating. I turn this feature off but my question is, when will the smart play list update with the live updating off? Daily?
Thanks

Ya I see your problem. The playlist is for stuff you haven't rated yet. If you rate it, it then comes out of that playlist. The problem being, if you rate the song while it is playing, it gets booted out of the playlist and since that is where you are currently playing music from, the song abruptly stops playing. Right?
As Beavis pointed out, if the live update is turned off, it will NEVER update because the playlist is frozen at the time you either create it with live updating turned off or when you turn off the live update feature.
So the solution is, leave the live update off. Then at your own schedule, when you remember, edit the smart playlist, click Live Updating, click ok to exit. The playlist will be updated with rated songs being removed and new stuff you added to the library being put into that playlist. Now edit it again and uncheck the box to turn off live updating and you can continue to play out of the playlist and rate as you go. Then repeat next time you are ready to update your playlist.
Patrick

Smart Playlists Question

Who knows a lot about Smart Playlists? I want to create a playlist that has all of my songs sorted first by "Play Count", then by song title. Does anyone know how to do this? I could write a MySQL query to do this in 2 minutes, but I don't know enough about iTunes to do it. Is it possible?
Thanks!!!

Smart playlist are for selecting specific songs, not sorting.
If you are sorting everything you don't need a playlist.
Select Library /Music and sort on *Play Count*.
Can't select a secondary sort column though (with either a playlist or the library).

Shuffling Smart Playlists Question

I run many different smart playlists to manage my library of music. I have noticed that when I click the shuffle button on the bottom left when a playlist is selected in iTunes, the tracklist visually shuffles or unshuffles as I toggle the button. However, other lists do not. Any ideas on how to fix this? (I am back to running iTunes 7, since 8 had all kinds of authorization issues for me)

If the list is sorted by anything other than number, the view will stay sorted if the play order is shuffled.
If you like to see it in shuffled order, click the area above the number column.
By the way, this is the same on smart or regular playlists.

Creating smart playlist question

Hi,
This seems like it'd be very simple but for some reason I'm having problems creating the smart playlist I want to create. I have a lot of hip-hop instrumentals and I want to create a smart playlist that filters them out and displays only hip-hop tracks that aren't instrumentals. All the hip-hop tracks I have are labeled as either "hip-hop" or "rap" (or some combination of the two) in the genre field and if they're an instrumental then they have "instrumental" in the name field, i.e., "Stressed Out (Instrumental)." What I've done so far is to try and create a smart playlist with the following three criteria:
-Genre contains "Hip"
-Genre contains "Rap"
-Name doesn't contain "instrumental"
If I choose "Match all of the following rules" then I only get 117 songs (I have way more hip-hop/rap tracks that aren't instrumentals than this) but if I choose "Match any of the following rules" then I get a list without instrumentals but it includes ALL the genres I have. I have 2674 total hip-hop/rap tracks and I'm using iTunes 7.7. If anyone has any suggestions or help it'd be most appreciated!
Thanks,
Evan

You will need 2 playlists:
P1
-Genre contains "Hip"
-Genre contains "Rap"
-Match all
P2
-Playlist is P1
-Name doesn't contain "instrumental"
-Match all
P1 should have 2674 items. P2 will include all of them that are not instrumentals.

Smart playlists - help!

Hi Everyone I have a few smart playlist questions. This is a bit long so bear with me.
1. Lets say there is an artist Joe Smith. Joe used to record as Joey Smith. Joe also recorded a Christmas album. How do I create a playlist that includes Joe, Joey, no Christmas songs and with that cridera use the option play songs not played in 1 day?
2. My next question which is somewhat similar - can I do the above with two or more artist on one smart playlist?
3. With the above two questions, tHe only option I could think of was to create various smart playlists and a third one merging both together. Now if I do that will that cause problems? For example if I say on each playlist play songs that haven't been played in 1 day, then I do the same thing on the third playlist will that cause "wires to cross" and I'll end up with nothing in the playlist?
4. Last but not least... is there a way to just add one particular song to a smart playlist? I could not figure out how to do it. I could only find albums.
It seems like when I say match all criteria with these questions I can solve one issue another one arrises. Any help would be appreciated. I am new to using smart playlists, ipods in general (just bought mine a few months ago) and am somewhat lost in the process. Thanks for your help, Christina

1. You have to use multiple playlists like you mentione in your #3. This is becuase smart playlists can "match all" or "match any", but can't use "match x OR y".
Genre is not Holiday
Last played is not in the last 1 days
2. Yes
3. Not a problem, I've done it....but sometimes I make mistakes and have to tweak the various playlists.
4. Name is what iTunes uses for track name.

QUESTION! I deleted a smart Playlist Accidently, how do I get it back?????

QUESTION! I deleted a smart Playlist Accidently, how do I get it back?
Playlist is 90's Music. I think that is the only one, also can someone list all the smart playlists I'm scared I deleted more than one!

1990's
File -> New smart playlist.
Match rule:
Year is in the range 1990 to 1999
Recently added
File -> New smart playlist
Limit to 100 items (or whatever you want) by Most recently added

Another question about smart playlists

Hi,
I have been experimenting a lot with smart playlists lately and have 3 now that I have set up with help from this forum so far. However, I have a question I don't see an obvious answer to. That is, I have every song in at least one playlist, and some songs are in multiple playlists. I can add a playlist to a rule, but how can I tell ITunes to create a playlist containing songs that are in more than one playlist? For example, I want ITunes to create a playlist from songs that are in more than one of the following playlists, top 25 most played, purchased, and tagged. How can I set up ITunes to do this?

The checkmark on the right side when you're editing smart playlists adds more rules. Make as many rules as there are playlist that you're looking into and make each rule say "playlist _is_ (fill in the playlist from the dropdown." If you want songs that appear in ALL the selected playlists you select match ALL of the rules at the top. If you want songs that appear in any of the playlists you've selected you have to select match ANY rule at the top. If you have three playlists and you're looking for any songs that appear on any two of the playlists, but they don't necessarily have to appear on all three, then unfortunately there's no way to do that with one smart playlist. You'd have to make a smart playlist with one saying playlist top 25 most played+purchased (match ALL) another saying with playlist top 25 most played+tagged (match ALL), another saying playlists purchased+tagged(match ALL). Then you could make a 4th smart playlists saying to add the other three playlists and you'd end up with one playlist that has only songs that appear in ANY of the other three.
Note: there's an option that appears to make subrules as if you could do the above all in one playlist but unfortunately these don't actually work the way they appear they should in my experience.

Smart playlists - genre and rating, two questions

I can't figure out a way to create a smart playlist that includes Rock and Alternative songs but only Rock and Alternative songs rated 4 or 5 stars. I can easily create a playlist that includes one genre and is limited to a star rating and I know I can create the list I want by first limiting my playlist to 4 or 5 stars and then subtracting genres but my library includes 51 Genres!
Actually, I might be willing to create a playlist by subtracting 49 genres if I could then duplicate the list so I can create the second playlist I want; 4 and 5 star World and Latino songs. So, question #2 is, is there any way to duplicate a playlist?
TIA,
Peter

Oh, you got it!!! I'd never noticed "Playlist" as a parameter in the smart playlists! Suddenly all kinds of possibilities open up! It did work the way you suggested but I decided to take a different tack. I created a 4-5 star "rock" playlist and a 4-5 star "alternative" playlist and then created a third smart playlist that includes the first two playlists! Now I can just continue creating smart playlists that include only songs I rate 4-5 stars in all of my 51 genres and create composite playlists to my heart's content! OK, I wouldn't do that. Once I get over 25 genres, it'd be easier to go back to the subtraction method. ; )
Thanks for your help Diane! You're brilliant!
Peter
Message was edited by: petemay

Please help, simple question about Smart Playlists and Live Updating

PLEASE for some reason I've never gotten an answer on this.
I have a Smart Playlist called "Recently Played" with Live Updating. No matter how I set the parameters, the most recently played *song will ALWAYS appear on the bottom of the list when using my iPhone on the go.* I bolded that because I want you to be aware I'm not talking about on iTunes - I'm aware you can change how the list is viewed on iTunes.
When using your iPod/iPhone on the fly and Live Updating is enabled, is there any way to make the most recently played song appear at the very top???
Thanks so much

Haven't seen that problem before but try the following: in iTunes, right-click the playlist name and enable the option "Copy to Play Order." Then sync.
The normal use of "Copy to Play Order" when you have the playlist displayed in iTunes in some sort order, but you want it to display in the iPod in shuffled order (as it will actually play). Different problem than you are observing, but the same thing "might" help.... Let us know.

Question about smart playlists

hello all:
i was wondering if someone can help me out with something. i really, REALLY need my iPhone to start behaving the way an mp3 player i had almost 5 years ago worked.
what i am looking to do is to have a playlist that has a bunch of my music, and after i play a song, i want that song removed from my playlist WITHOUT having to sync with iTunes and WITHOUT having to do it manually. i created a smart playlist that has "playcount = 0" as the only requirement, but after playing a song, the song is still in the playlist. i tried stopping the iPod app and after restarting the iPod app the song that i played is still in the playlist. i even tried rebooting my iPhone, but that still doesn't make the playlist update.
i have done a lot of testing to see if i can make this work, but i keep running into roadblocks. i even tried changing all of my music so iTunes would think it is a "podcast" so that i could get that blue dot which signifies an "unplayed" status, but it was messing up my play order and i did not see any way of making it work the way i wanted it to.
does anyone have any suggestions that may help me with my problem? any insights would be greatly appreciated!
thank you!
jason

Sandra, THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
something i have noticed is that for some reason, if i play the song from the playlist that has the 'Media Kind = Music' and 'Plays is not 0' as the playlist rules, then the song is not always marked as listened to. if i play the same song from a temp playlist, the song gets updated and disappears from my iPhone smart playlist. however, i have been using another playlist that i can easily clear and add the songs from the smart playlist, and bang, my problem is solved.
you have no idea how happy i am with this. it may not be the absolute very best solution, but i am happy with it. i no longer have to relisten to music just because my iPhone does something stupid.
thank you yet again!!!

A question about smart playlists

how do i get a smart playlist to automatically uptade my added songs everyday

Another option I have found very useful with iTunes and my iPod is to create a smart playlist of songs that haven't been played yet.
Simply create a new playlist and tell it to only play songs that haven't been played yet (play count = 0). Shuffle still works with this play list so when you use it you still get a random assortment of tunes, but also only the stuff you haven't heard yet (well hasn't yet been played since adding it to iTunes). Very useful for when you add new albums and songs to your iTunes and iPod as they automatically get added to this playlist.
Further more, once they get played, they no longer have a play count of zero and so no longer belong to this playlist, therefore, no repeats are possible. With the iPod/iTunes set to automatic update, when you sync you iPod to iTunes, anything you played on your iPod gets the count updated in iTunes.
Patrick

Quick question about smart playlists.

Is it possible to edit a smart playlist used to show recently played songs to recognise multiple plays of the same song? To say it another way, if I listen to 'X' once it records it with the correct time etc, but if I play 'X' again it overwrites the first play with the second. Is there anyway to stop this?
Thanks alot.

Make a Smart Playlist and choose "Selected by: most often played" as one (or the only) option.
I have Smart Playlists that track
Top 10 most played
Top 20 most played
and so on.......
That is just one way way of doing it.

Smart playlists, grouping, and podcasts question

Hi I listed to a lot of podcasts, and have them grouped using "Grouping" feature like Home, Money, Health, etc. I then have a smart playlists that have the following settings:
Podcast is yes, playcount is 0, and grouping is 'Home' (or money or whatever)
The problem I am having is when new podcasts are downloaded, they DO NOT inherit the grouping setting for that podcast!
So every day, I have to go to each podcast, and reset the grouping to Home (or whatever it is) -
How I permanently set the grouping for each episode to have the correct grouping?
Thanks in advance,
Ndimitru

Oh, you got it!!! I'd never noticed "Playlist" as a parameter in the smart playlists! Suddenly all kinds of possibilities open up! It did work the way you suggested but I decided to take a different tack. I created a 4-5 star "rock" playlist and a 4-5 star "alternative" playlist and then created a third smart playlist that includes the first two playlists! Now I can just continue creating smart playlists that include only songs I rate 4-5 stars in all of my 51 genres and create composite playlists to my heart's content! OK, I wouldn't do that. Once I get over 25 genres, it'd be easier to go back to the subtraction method. ; )
Thanks for your help Diane! You're brilliant!
Peter
Message was edited by: petemay

Smart Playlist Question

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for