How can I fill my mp3 player via complex rules?

December 7, 2005 1:46 PM

What's the easiest way to fill my new 1GB DAP (works like a USB flash drive when plugged into the Windows PC) with 30% songs I love, 40% songs I've most-recently added to my library, and 30% randomly-selected songs?

Or, failing that, how do I fill it with randomly-selected songs?

Bonus points if it's a Winamp plugin!

posted by skryche to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Windows Media Player has a sync funcction that does the same thing as iTunes' shuffle-sync does, which is to sync random stuff.

I have never seen a media tool that does what you describe, so this is where you bust out the compiler and lay down m4d s|<illz!
posted by GuyZero at 1:50 PM on December 7, 2005

I have never seen a media tool that does what you describe

Media Center will do it, with some custom fields, some calculated values, and dump them into a custom SmartList.

Sadly, it is not a WinAmp plugin.
posted by meehawl at 2:02 PM on December 7, 2005

iTunes will let you export a Party Shuffle playlist which you can then use to populate your device. Not that close to what you really wanted, though.
posted by grouse at 2:05 PM on December 7, 2005

Here's how with Itunes:
3 smart playlists:
1. 300mb max, songs with high rating
2. 400mb max, songs added in last xx days (hours, etc.)
3. 300mb max, random
Update player with these 3 playlists only.

I assume other apps will have similar smart playlist-type settings.

Smart playlist tips.
posted by cushie at 2:14 PM on December 7, 2005

Use iTunes.

1. Create a new Smart Playlist called "Love It" with one or more of the following criteria:
   • My Rating is greater than ★★★ or
   • Play Count is greater than 5
   • Limit to 300 MB selected by most often played
2. Create another Smart Playlist called "Recently Added" with the following criteria:
   • Limit to 400 MB selected by most recently added
3. Create a third Smart Playlist called "Random" with the following criteria:
   • Playlist is not Love It and
   • Playlist is not Recently Added
   • Limit to 300 MB selected by random
4. Fill your DAP with those three playlists.

In practical terms, there will probably be significant overlap between your first two playlists, so you can add more songs to your "Random" playlist to fill the extra space.

(On preview, what cushie said, but with more detail.)
posted by designbot at 2:26 PM on December 7, 2005

Cushie's tips should work fine. You can drag and drop the files directly from Itunes onto your player. Just open an Explorer window and get to it.

So how is that particular DAP working for you, BTW? I've thought of buying it.
posted by selfnoise at 2:26 PM on December 7, 2005

Since you apparently aren't using iTunes now, step 1 won't really work right away. After you switch, you'll need to go through and rate your songs. Or, alternatively, you can just make a manual playlist of the songs you like best and use that instead.
posted by designbot at 2:34 PM on December 7, 2005

Actually, if you import all your songs into iTunes at once, step 2 won't work right away either. You might have to go by date modified instead.
posted by designbot at 2:37 PM on December 7, 2005

Response by poster: Uh... iTunes won't work with Vorbis files, will it?

And to answer you selfnoise: I have yet to actually turn it on.
posted by skryche at 2:59 PM on December 7, 2005

It is apparently possible to play Ogg Vorbis files in iTunes with a little work.
posted by designbot at 3:13 PM on December 7, 2005

This WinAmp plug-in supposedly offers (among other things) "Smart Playlists." I have no idea what the implementation is like, but if it's a good rip-off of iTunes, you should be able to do something similar to my steps above.
posted by designbot at 3:20 PM on December 7, 2005

do what designbot said in this post, and then use this iTunes plugin to let you sync any mass-storage device with iTunes playlists.

I have an iPod (IHAiP?) and have never used the plugin in question, but it looks like it should meet your needs.

Do let us know if/how it works out for you.
posted by heeeraldo at 6:26 PM on December 7, 2005

Response by poster: Ugh. So I'll have to install iTunes, an iTunes hack for Vorbis (that "apparently works"), and an unsupported iTunes plugin to make it work with my device? SOUNDS LIKE IT COULDN'T POSSIBLY FAIL.

Besides: I swore off iTunes when it insisted on residing in my RAM even when I wasn't using it.
posted by skryche at 5:16 AM on December 8, 2005