Smart playlists alphabetical by artist

I just got a new 160 GB classic, and the smart playlist that has only 0 playcount songs will let me arrange them however I want on iTunes, but after synching the podcasts get shoved to the bottom on the iPod, and all the songs at the top list sort alphabetically by artist, then the podcasts do the same after the songs.
I've tried various settings on the Podcast sync tab, and I have to have sync turned on to get the podcasts, but automatically including or not doesn't seem to change anything.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Put the songs in the playlist in the order you want on your computer. Then right click the playlist's name in iTunes under Source (on the left). Go to copy to play order. Now update your iPod with iTunes. Assuming your iPod is set to automatically update all songs and playlists, that playlist should be in the right order on your iPod.
btabz

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I have a 1st & 4th gen ipod shuffle. When I copy a playlist to the 1st gen it plays back correctly. The 4th gen plays back the same playlist alphabetically by artist. The copy by play order function makes no difference. Any suggestions?

I have a 1st & 4th gen Ipod shuffle. When I copy a playlist to the older shuffle it plays back in order. When I copy a playlist to the 4th gen shuffle it plays by alphabetically by artist. I used the copy by play order but with no change. Any suggestions?

This is crazy. What are those guys thinking. I would love to have my 2nd generation ipod shuffle back - it was so easy to use, so easy to operate, alas it was lost/stolen! There are 2 big disasterous (disaster to ease of use) changes in the ipod 4th generation. This particularly relates to podcasts. One is they only play in order by source/type of podcast. You cannot break out of that unless, you have someone to show you how to use the voice over which is not covered anywhere on the very thin manual or elsewhere. Secondly and just as bad but related also, you cannot line them up on your shuffle by date, preference, anything. ONLY apple will do this for you. I hate the thing and will return it today after visiting Apple 3 days in a row to try and get answers, trying to apply the answers and realizing beside the fact that some of the answers given were wrong, they were not going to lead to ease of use. Who said this was better? I was struggling with this (not knowing how to break out of one type of podcast) until i went to Apple and talked to about 4 people who knew less than i did about the shuffle. OUr family has just bought 2 new macbook pros for my son and wife. I have had my macbook for 4 years and love it. I had my ipod shuffle (2 gen) for the same time and loved it but now I don't trust Apple. Are they going to make changes just to make changes. Get some consumer advice, please not just from nerds who want more buttons but from everyday people.
A Bunch of wasted time, yfbolsen

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

HT1801 Just wondering, does iTunes update my Smart playlist with new songs?

Does iTunes update my Smart playlist with new songs each time I download it or do I have to manually update it myself? If I do, can someone walk me through it. Thanks a bunch

Yes that should work.
Are you using an "Artist is ..." rule? If so, and if new stuff by onerepublic isn't showing up in the list, check the Artist name on the new songs to make sure it's exactly matching the one in your rule.
For example, I've got music in my library (by the same people) under the artist names Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Godspeed You! Black Emperor ... (different position of the "!") If I set up a smart playlist based on:
Artist is Godspeed You Black Emperor!
It doesn't catch the songs with an Artist name of "Godspeed You! Black Emperor".
To get all the songs showing in a smart playlist, I'd need to adjust the Artist name on one or the other sets of songs so it matches a rule. (Haven't done that myself yet for GYBE, because I haven't worked out where the exclamation mark is actually supposed to go.)

How do you update smart playlists with live update turned off?

If I create a smart playlist in itunes and deselect live updating then how exactly does the smart playlist load up?
The reason I ask is that started setting up Smart Playlists for all of the artists on my computer and they're all set to live update which is consequently slowing down my itunes. I realize that I may not necessarily need that. My question is though...how exactly would I go about manually updating a smart playlist that has live updating turned off?

Well, the problem is that I have smart playlists for every artist in my library (which is literally hundreds). With every live update turned on, every time I edit tags for a new single or something it'll scan all the smart playlists for matches. The reason I'd like to have smart playlists instead of regular playlists is that I tend to add a lot of singles, and, especially in the hip hop genre, they tend to have a lot of guest appearances so I'd like the smart playlists to do tehir job.....I'd just prefer to not have it set to live update so I can avoid delays during tagging.
Apparently this is a known side efffect of having many smart playlists in your itunes. I realize my way of working with them might be slightly unconventional in comparison to how they are typically used but it's great for me. If I could leave live update on without any performance degregation then I would but it seems I have to pick.
I read somewhere that if you shut down itunes and restart that it'll refresh all your smart playlists (if live update is turned off).

Smart Playlists come up empty

When I try to create a Smart Playlist, for example "Artist contains Coldplay AND Artist contains Ben Harper," the playlist is blank. iTunes names the playlist but there are no songs. I can't make playlist of any kind/combination this way. I remember on my iBook I could make smart playlists but I can't on my iMac. What's going on?
12'' iBook G4 20'' Intel iMac Mac OS X (10.4.5) iPod Mini (green), iPod Video 30 GB (white)

Edit:
I can create a Smart playlist for only one album or artist at a time. It's only when I try to add different factors that it doesn't work.
12'' iBook G4 20'' Intel iMac Mac OS X (10.4.5) iPod Mini (green), iPod Video 30 GB (white)

Multiple Artist, Genre... Separator (Semi-Colon) instead of Smart Playlists

In my opinion, one of the greatest features of ID3 tags is the ability to use semi-colons to differentiate between multiple artists, genres, albums, etc... for any given field. This feature has been available since ID3 tags for MP3's were first implemented over a decade ago.
With Windows Media Player 10, it's database was finally able to parse the information separated by semi-colons correctly. What this means is that if I have a song like "Picture" by Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock, in the ID3 tag, I type "Sheryl Crow; Kid Rock", and in WMP, if I click on Artist | Sheryl Crow, "Picture" appears. And if I click on Artist | Kid Rock, "Picture" appears. In fact, when I rip songs using WMP, it places semi-colons in numerous ID3 fields from the album description.
In iTunes, however, when I import a song with a semi-colon in an ID3 tag field, the database reads the artist as "Sheryl Crow; Kid Rock", or essentially, it treats "Sheryl Crow; Kid Rock" as a THIRD artist. The same is true if I have a song that I feel crosses two genres--like "Picture". In WMP, if I put in the Genre field "Pop; Country", when I choose Genres | Pop, "Picture" appears, and when I choose Genres | Country, "Picture" appears.
Does anyone know if a bug fix for this is in the works for iTunes? It seems Apple and iTunes have been trying to push Smart Playlists for this kind of organization, but that's the poor man's way of organizing songs and not nearly as efficient. I don't want to have to create Smart Playlist for all songs with "Sheryl Crow" in the artist field. It should be inherent based on the semi-colon.
Does anyone know if anything smarter than Smart Playlists is in the works that matches the intuitiveness of Windows Media Player's database?
Thanks,
Bill

Whereas in WMP & the ID3 spec. you would use a semi-colon to separate items you will find that iTunes & the Music store use a slash instead. However as you so rightly say iTunes takes the information and construes a new artist entity rather than two artists connected to the same track. (WMP might also respond to slash - I recall AC/DC always presenting issues so they exist as AC-DC in my library.)
If you'd like to make feature request go to: iTunes Feedback.
Working on the assumption that such ideas are unlikely to implemented any time soon however you might like to see my post on Grouping Tracks Into Albums which covers workarounds for this & other quirks.
tt2

I copied a smart playlist to a regular playlist in order to change the order of the individual selections. I then burned the regular playlist to a cd, but the cd burned it in alphabetical order as it appears on the smart playlist.

I changed the order, then burned a cd but the cd copied the songs in the order of the smart playlist, which was alphabetical. What am i doing wrong in this scenario, and is there a way to change the song order in a smart playlist? I am a new MAC user. Is this unique to the MAC format?

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.

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.

Is there a way to sort a playlist on my iPhone alphabetically by Artist?

Is there a way to sort a playlist on my iPhone alphabetically by Artist? I can do it when I view the playlist through iTunes on my computer, but when I view it on my iPhone's iPod, it is sorted by the date the songs were added. I add the songs through iTunes, and I can sort it by Artist with no problem in the iTunes window. However, when I look at the playlist through the iPod on my iPhone, the new songs are down at the bottom, no matter who the Artist is.
If it matters I am running iOS 4.3.10 on an iPhone 4 and I have iTunes 10.4.0.80 on my computer.
Thanks.

Ottonomy, here's what to do.
Connect your iPhone to your computer and open the iPhone's playlist in an iTunes window. Copy/Paste the entire playlist into a new(!) playlist in iTunes, not on your iPhone. Then resort the playlist. After you sort it, Copy/Paste it to a new(!) playlist on your iPhone. Now delete the old playlist on your iPhone and rename the new playlist the name you want it to be (probably the same name as the old playlist).
The downside to this method is that you have to do it every time you add a song to the playlist. Unfortunately, I don't think there's another way.

Smart playlists are not in alphabetical order on iOS 5.1 devices

One of the most frustrating things for me about iTunes Match is the fact that the smart playlists in iTunes (version 10.6) do not sync in alphabetical order on my iPad/iPhone running iOS 5.1.
Even though I click on the Name column and the songs in iTunes appear in alphabetical order, the songs appear in a random order on the iPad. I spent hours trying to fix this by turning iTunes Match off on my iPad, turning it on etc all to no avail. I created new smart playlists thinking that maybe the original smart playlists were corrupted in some way by the upgrade to the latest version of iTunes. This did not work either.
Then, I had an idea. I created a new playlist (not a smart one), called it Test Alpha, copied the songs from the smart playlist into it and waited for my iPad to update.
Voila! The songs in this new, non-smart playlist are in alphabetical order.
I do hope that this problem is fixed. It is a pain to do this for the 15 odd smart playlist I have. Hope this helps someone else.

No. And the problem persists in iOS 6 with the latest version of iTunes.
For three weeks, I had been talking on and off with a techie in Singapore. She got me to run all these test, send screen shots etc..
In the end, I was told that the engineers said 'that is how it's supposed to be'. Well, thank you very much. No help at all. No further discussion about the issue ensued.
Apple's arrogance will soon be the cause of its share price collapsing. My solution? I have not renewed my subscription to iTunes Match.

Smart Playlists: One instance of artist per list?

Hi there,
When I have a smart playlist create a list by my ratings (eg 3+) is there any way I can limit the amount of times an artist is added? I want to try and avoid a playlist dominated by one artist!
Thank you in advance for your help!

Windows doesn't do Applescript, but iTunes for Windows does have a programming interface, which I've used frequently to do various things.
So what the OP wants to do is possible with a script, but I'm too tired to write it right now :-/
Maybe tomorrow... maybe. But note: the playlist the script creates will not be a smart playlist -- it would be an ordinary playlist.

I am trying to copy some songs from my playlist to a CD but it changes the order of the songs during the conversion. I want the songs in alphabetical by name but iTunes arranges them alphabetically by artist.

I am trying to copy some songs from my playlist to a CD but it changes the order of the songs during the conversion. I want the songs in alphabetical by name but iTunes arranges them alphabetically by artist.

The apparent order of a burned CD may depend upon how you have iTunes display it - https://discussions.apple.com/message/17827921
iTunes 10 for Mac: Disc burning overview - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH1746
iTunes 10 for Mac: If you have trouble burning a CD - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH1751
iTunes 10 for Mac: Create your own MP3 CDs - http://support.apple.com/kb/PH1748
iTunes: How to set the play order of songs on an MP3 CD - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2455

Smart Playlist of Artists who only have 1 or 2 songs?

Hi all,
Itunes has completely changed my buying habits. I now have a lot of artists where I only have 1 or 2 songs by them and their songs often get overlooked when I'm choosing an artist to listen to. I was trying to figure out a way to make a smart playlist that has all artists where I only own 1 or 2 songs by them.
Is that even possible?
Thanks in advance.

I have a "live updating" smart playlist that is nothing more than 200 of the songs "Least recently Played" and I also add a rule to exclude songs with Play Count = 0 (to new stuff I added to the library doesn't fill it instead. I use this playlist when I am in the mood to listen to the things in my library I haven't heard in a long time without having to go find them.
Cheers,
Patrick

Smart playlists: song order not correct, mainly with "feat." artists

When creating smart playlists--usually for albums that have guest artists--the track order gets thrown out of whack, and I don't understand why. For example, just bought Santigold's most recent album, of which one has "feat. Karen O" in the "Artist" category. That's the first track on the album, but gets dropped to the last on the playlist. Any thoughts on how to fix this? It is incredibly frustrating.

Set a common Album Artist. Sort the resulting playlist as Album by (Album) Artist.
tt2

Smart playlists alphabetical by artist

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