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.

Similar Messages

Creating a custom smart playlist *HELP*

Having a very difficult time creating a customized smart playlist and looking for help.
I would like to create on using the following criteria:
Songs from two different genres
Plays greater than 8
Seems simple enough but I get either zero results, plays greater than 8 from all genres, or music from all genres
What am I doing wrong?

Akeel,
I think the rules shown below will do what you want.
To be included, a song has to have more than 8 plays and be in one of the two stated genres.

Please help! Ipod not dynamically updating smart playlists!

I have quite a complex system of smart playlists on my 4G color ipod but I can't get any of them to update dynamically away from the computer. I have a total of 6 and here are their preferences:
SPL 1:
match ALL
1) My rating is in the range 4-5 stars
2) Last played is not in the last 1 day
3) Last skipped is not in the last 1 day
4) Playcount is less than 5
limit to 100 by most recently added
SPL 2:
match ALL
1) My rating is in the range 0-3 stars
2) Last played is not in the last 1 day
3) Last skipped is not in the last 1 day
4) Playcount is less than 4
limit to 55 songs by most recently added
SPL 3:
match ALL
1) My rating is in the range 3-5 stars
2) Last played is not in the last 1 day
3) Last skipped is not in the last 1 day
4) Playcount is greater than 5
limit to 30 songs by random
SPL 4:
match ALL
1) Last played is not in the last 1 day
2, 3, 4) Playlist is not SPL 1, SPL 2, or SPL 3
limit to 15 songs by random
Unwanted:
match ANY
1) Time is greater than 15 minutes
2) Genre is Comedy
The active playlist that I use to listen to:
match ANY
1-4) Playlist is SPL 1, SPL 2, SPL 3, or SPL 4
5) Playlist is not Unwanted
So here's the problem. When I sync with my computer, the playlists work great, everything updates as expected and I get a pretty diverse playlist every time I sync which I want. The problem is that while I'm listening to my music on the ipod away from the computer, my playlists don't dynamically update. After I listen to a song, the song's supposed to remove itself from the playlist which doesn't happen, as well as when I skip songs. Even when I rate songs that aren't rated they don't appear in any playlist. This is really frustrating and I can't find a solution anywhere and yes, I do have Live Updating selected. I also have "Match only checked items" selected on all playlists as well. If anyone has any ideas for how to fix this, I would love to know. Thanks!

I was searching this forum and found someone who says that 4th gen ipods have problems live updating smart playlists if the criteria "last skipped" is on the playlist. I took this off of all of my playlists but they still don't work. Then I tried making a playlist that is just "rating is equal to 5 stars" and it WORKS!!! But that doesn't help me out much for my other playlists so maybe it's some other criteria that's causing the problem. Any ideas?

Help with creating a specifik smart playlist

Hi everybody.
I'd like to create a smart-playlist that only contains *albums with a total playtime of 25 minutes or less*.
I've tried a few things but haven't succeded.
I'd greatly appreciate if anyone could help me!

That cannot be done with iTunes Smart playlist logic.
The Smart playlist rules operate on one song at a time. They cannot operate on multiple songs at a time. So something like the playtime of an album, which requires adding times across the multiple tracks of the album, does not work.
If you wish, you can manually tag tracks in those albums, using the Grouping or Comments field, and use that as a criterion in the Smart playlist.

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.

Help with Smart Playlists

What I'm trying to do is create a smart playlist that lists all my songs according to when the song was added to my iTunes library, this way I can get easy, quick access to songs I recently added to my iTunes library in reverse chronological order (newest to oldest).
The "limit to X amount of items by most recently added" does not work for what I'm trying to do.
Hopefully someone out there realizes what I'm trying to do and can help me out.

I'm not sure I understand. If you want your entire iTunes library sorted by date added, why not just show the Date Added column (control-click on any column header, show the Date Added column, then sort by that column)? If you want your normal library sorted differently but want to also have a "view" that lists your entire library by date added, you could create a Smart Playlist with "Track Number" -> Is not -> (empty field) and then again sort that playlist by Date Added.
Hope this helps. If not, please post back and explain further what it is you're trying to accomplish.
Regards.

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

Smart Playlists. Need Help Please.

Hello. Sorry, I am new to forums and kinda new to iTunes too, got my first iPod only few months ago(nano 3g), but here is my question:
I want to make smart playlists consisting of my:
Daily Top10
Weeks Top10
Months Top10
Years Top10
I want them also sorted in order of popularity. Music only. No videos or anything like that.
I have tried different methods but failed. They just keep coming up in the order of last played, not how popular. Can you help me, and if you can, can you say it in steps.
Thanks!

Okay, so you're creating some smart playlists . If by popularity you mean the number of times the song's been played, then to create a playlist for your Daily Top 10:
Have the playlist Match all of the following rules: Last played is in the last 1 days and Kind contains audio file.
And then select (check) the next line and set the limit you desire selected by most often played.
(If by popularity you mean the ratings you've assigned the songs, you would select by highest rating.)
For the Week's, Month's and Year's Top 10 you'd change the Last Played part of the rule.

Help creating a smart playlist - all video from one group and fill to size

I have two classifications of videos:
A) current videos added randomly to iTunes
B) old videos I'm trying to work through in chronological order but are less important than 'A'
I have a 8GB Touch so space is limited. I always have 2500 MB available for videos.
It was easy enough to separate the two classes of videos into two smart playlists, A and B.
Now I need your help to create a third Smart playlist that contains everything from A , then fills whatever is left of the 2500 MB with videos from B.
Or, if playlists aren't an option, do you have any other ideas?
Thanks

The new tools in iTunes 9 made this possible, at least good enough.

I am using iPhone 5. I have a smart playlist that shows the 25 most play songs within the last 3 months. However, the list on my phone got completely messed up. Please help me.

I am using iPhone 5. I have a smart playlist that shows the 25 most play songs within the last 3 months. However, the list on my phone got completely messed up. Please help me.

First thought: Have you used the same Apple ID for all the purchases you're talking about? If not, that could cause an issue.
Assuming you've used the same Apple ID all the way through everything you're talking about, here's the second set of questions:
When you say you can't play the songs from the iPhone playlist, can you see the playlist on the iPhone? Is the song visible in the playlist? Is it visible under "Songs" in iTunes on your iPhone? Is it visible in "Albums" on your iPhone? Is the song in iCloud?

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.

I have smart playlists combined in a folder that I use to make playlists to fit on devices. Lately the folder isn't updating with the playlists inside it, so the folder shows songs that aren't in any of its playlists. Can anyone help?

I'm using the latest iTunes on Windows 8. Since upgrading to iTunes 12 my old system of smart playlists within folders have not worked properly. I used to have a folder containing three folders with smart playlists in them, but I had to abandon this and copy all the smart playlists into one folder, as the nested structure didn't seem to update anymore. This worked for a couple of months (even though it was less convenient and didn't exactly accomplish what I had been able to do on iTunes 11 and earlier).
More recently, however, I've found that the folder in the simplified structure also doesn't work properly. The smart playlists are set up to remove songs after they were played, but now the folder seems to retain some songs even after they've disappeared from the playlist that included them. It seems to be building up 'ghosts' of songs that were played and were then supposed to disappear as per the smart playlist setup. I tried copying all the playlists out of the folder, but ended up with the folder 'properties' showing that it contained a number of songs, even when it was empty.
I also noticed that I'm unable to reference the folder in the conditions of any new playlists I set up - I get the error message that the folder relies on smart playlists that cannot be updated. In response to this I reviewed all the playlists, but saw no errors.
Anybody else have this problem?

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

Need help with smart playlists

Hi all,
I have created a smart playlist in iTunes called 'not rated yet'. The settings are:
My rating = 0 stars +
podcast = no
In iTunes everything works fine. When a not rated song gets at least one star it disapears from the playlist. My iPod in contrast does not update the playlist as long as podcast = no is part of the playlist settings. When I remove podcast = no then the mini works again.
So I wonder if this is a bug? Does anybody have an idea?
By the way, I am using the latest iPod-updater software which is 1.4.1.
Windows XP iPod mini 2nd gen.

Thanks for looking into that. The way you described it, is the usual behaviour of smart playlists on the iPod. But the point is that Live Updating is selected and it will not update, even after re-entering the playlist. iTunes does it, as soon as you rate an item it will disappear. As described above it works on the mini, but only when I remove the podcast option.

Need help creating a smart playlist with multiple rules

I'd like to make a smart playlist that:
has the word 'Anime' in its Name, or Album title
has the word 'Cover' in its Album title
does not have the word 'OST' in its Album title
Thanks in advance!

Create a new smart playlist, click the + symbol, then the second ellipsis ... then the last + symbol. This will give you the rule structure as shown below, edit the parts accordingly.
tt2

Need help with smart playlist

I want to create an auto-fill function for my new 16 GB nano that is the same as my old Shuffle had, as I have much more music on my computer than my nano can hold. I don't want to rate the songs with stars or when last played. I simply want a new selection each time I sync. I was thinking of making a playlist with the rule "Playlist is music" and then limiting it by size to my nano and selected by random. But will I get a new sync each time? Or will that smart playlist never change? How do I do this?
Also, what does the live updating function do? Thanks.

To make a random playlist go to File>New Smart Playlist.
Uncheck "Match the following rule"
Check "Limit to" put "14800" in the number box, choose "MB" from the first list box, choose "Random" from the next list box. Check "Live Updating"
When you want to change the selection in the smart playlist just delete everything in it and it will add a new selection. When you want to change the normal playlist just delete out what you don't want and drag in a new selection.

Smart playlists - help!

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for