Want smart playlists without iTunes

May 31, 2006 12:53 PM

How can I get smart playlists in Winamp, or any other media player besides iTunes?

I really like the idea of smart playlists, but I hate pretty much everything else about iTunes - the interface, the way the music is managed, the fact that I don't have an iPod and don't want to buy music online, the list goes on. Until recently I was using Winamp 2, so I downloaded Winamp 5 because it seemed to have what I want, but it doesn't. You can make smart playlists, but they don't auto-update - you have to constantly click on them to make them your current playlist. Is there anyway to automate this, or can another media player give me the same functionality?

posted by Orange Goblin to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

You don't need an iPod or purchase songs from the music store to use iTunes. I have never purchased music online, nor did I have an iPod for a long time, yet still use/used iTunes. You seem to like the music management feature of iTunes that is "smart playlist", and it seems that iTunes handles this better than WinAmp. Where is the problem?
posted by cahlers at 1:07 PM on May 31, 2006

Musikcube (which is my primary audio player) has "Dynamic Playlists". I haven't played around with them too much but they should work similarly.
posted by selfnoise at 1:11 PM on May 31, 2006

Response by poster: Yeah, I just tried Musikcube but it also seems you have to manually update a Dynamic Playlist by clicking it. And cahlers: I want one feature of iTunes, without all its bloat - that's why I specified "no iTunes" in the question...
posted by Orange Goblin at 1:26 PM on May 31, 2006

The thing is, part of the "bloat" may be itunes having to constantly be running queries on ID3 tags throughout its database. Could be wrong, but...

J River Media Center also has a similar playlists feature. Might work better for you, but then J River's product isn't free.
posted by selfnoise at 1:51 PM on May 31, 2006

what's bloated about it? is it slowing down your system? So just use the feature you want and ignore the rest.
posted by cahlers at 2:59 PM on May 31, 2006

Response by poster: cahlers: would it be easier if I said I had an irrational fear of the word "Apple" and throw up every time I see it? Look, there I go, better clean that up...

The whole point of asking the question was because I don't want to use iTunes, for various reasons. Sorry if that upsets you, but I wouldn't have asked otherwise...
posted by Orange Goblin at 4:04 PM on May 31, 2006

I'm still looking.
posted by Gyan at 4:11 PM on May 31, 2006

Despite the fact that it is Microsoft, Windows Media player is still a great product and handles Smart playlists, or Auto Playlists as they call them, very well. This was one of the biggest reasons that I used Windows Media Player despite its minor bloat. Although its still not as bad as iTunes, which IMO is probably one of the worst media players ever.

I eventually switched to WinAmp which is perfect to me. I think the auto-playlist functionality is there, its just different. Winamp has "smart views" which work fine for me and are even more flexible, just a little less user friendly maybe.

Open up the media library and right click on "Local Media" and select "Add Smart view". Then give it a name and set the conditions and options. You may have to play around for a little in order to figure out all of the options.

If thats not good enough try to look for a plugin for this purpose. I just found this one called Dynamic Library which may help.

Good luck and let me know if I can be of further help.
posted by coolin86 at 4:13 PM on May 31, 2006

Response by poster: As I said in the post, smart views are almost what I want, but don't auto-update. Just installed Dynamic Library, and all it seems to do is give you an Explorer-like view in Winamp - nothing to do with playlists.
posted by Orange Goblin at 4:32 PM on May 31, 2006

"As I said in the post, smart views are almost what I want, but don't auto-update. Just installed Dynamic Library, and all it seems to do is give you an Explorer-like view in Winamp - nothing to do with playlists."

I'm not sure what you mean by the Smart Views not updating. For instance, I have one that works for 5-star rated music. If I change a rating on a song, the change is reflected in the Smart view instantly. Are you looking for something different?

Also, sorry about the Dynamic Library, I didn't realize that was its only functionality.

Good luck.
posted by coolin86 at 5:58 PM on May 31, 2006

Response by poster: Yeah the smart view is changed, but your playlist isn't - that has to be manually updated.
posted by Orange Goblin at 6:33 PM on May 31, 2006

Tag&Rename 3.2 seems like it might help.

"Tag&Rename is a music organizer that easily handles all popular digital audio formats. No matter what music compressor you prefer, you can keep your music collection organized with Tag&Rename since it is the only tag editor and organizer which has full native support for: mp3 (ID3v1, ID3v2.2, ID3v2.3 and ID3v2.4 tags), MusePack mpc/mp+ (APEv1, APEv2 and ID3v1 tags), Windows Media wma, asf and wmv files, Ogg Vorbis/Flac/Speex (vorbis comments), Apple iTunes and iPod aac (m4a) files including mp4, lossless m4a and protected m4p files, most popular lossless codecs including Monkey's Audio, Flac, Wav Pack, Optim Frog, True Audio, Apple and Windows Media lossless.

Tag&Rename supports many additional tag fields including lyrics, cover art, rating, mood, disc #, part of a compilation, album artist, classical music fields (Composer, Conductor, etc.), file related URL's and so on. With Tag&Rename, you can:
* automatically fix and complete file tags using online freedb database
* load titles and cover art from amazon.com server
* get tags data from file names and its folders structures
* rename your music files and folders according to its music information in a batch
* create play lists *
* export files information to CSV, HTML, XML and text formats and more"

also, foobar2000 seems to be pretty customizable. screenshots:
http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/3075/tichfoobar200019nr.jpg
http://img334.imageshack.us/my.php?image=capture324200612534pm411200611.png
posted by foraneagle2 at 7:18 PM on May 31, 2006

Response by poster: Nope, Tag&Rename is just for organising your mp3 tags, nothing to do with smart playlists, and foobar2000 doesn't seem to have the feature.
posted by Orange Goblin at 2:44 AM on June 1, 2006

Is there a reason, that you don't use Windows Media player, because that functionality is definitely there? I used to use that as my primary media player and was very happy with it. You can also try the new Windows Media Player 11 Beta but I have not used it some I am not sure of the functionality.
posted by coolin86 at 6:29 AM on June 2, 2006