Wednesday, December 13, 2006
iTuned: my iTunes best practices
I followed the suggestions on Lifehacker about iTunes with great interest, and I followed it up with Andy Budd's suggestions and a whole blog about smart playlists.
I use the smart playlists in much the same fashion as described above -- as a way to create lists of songs that haven't been played recently.
I've got four core lists:
a) "Not Recently Played" -- basically, this list contains songs with the oldest last playtime.
b) "Least Played" -- this list contains songs that have been played the least
c) "Favorites Not Recently Played" -- same as (a), but only for songs that have a rating greater than four
d) "Favorites Least Played" -- same as (b), but only for songs that have been played the least
They're all limited by size, so while a song could appear on multiple lists, there isn't a whole lot of overlap. That way I get both songs that I haven't listened to recently as well as songs that I've listened to less.
I also have a couple of lists for seasonal purposes -- for example, I've got a list for "Christmas", which can then be mixed into my iPod during this time of the year.
I also recently added a "New Favorites" list for songs that I've just added to iTunes and have rated highly, as it's not at all unusual that a new favorite is going to be something you'll want to listen to very frequently.
I haven't done much for genre-specific music; but then, that's because I really like strange stylistic switches in my listening, going from a progressive rock song, to a pop song, to a country song, to harder rock song, to something from a soundtrack.
I use the smart playlists in much the same fashion as described above -- as a way to create lists of songs that haven't been played recently.
I've got four core lists:
a) "Not Recently Played" -- basically, this list contains songs with the oldest last playtime.
b) "Least Played" -- this list contains songs that have been played the least
c) "Favorites Not Recently Played" -- same as (a), but only for songs that have a rating greater than four
d) "Favorites Least Played" -- same as (b), but only for songs that have been played the least
They're all limited by size, so while a song could appear on multiple lists, there isn't a whole lot of overlap. That way I get both songs that I haven't listened to recently as well as songs that I've listened to less.
I also have a couple of lists for seasonal purposes -- for example, I've got a list for "Christmas", which can then be mixed into my iPod during this time of the year.
I also recently added a "New Favorites" list for songs that I've just added to iTunes and have rated highly, as it's not at all unusual that a new favorite is going to be something you'll want to listen to very frequently.
I haven't done much for genre-specific music; but then, that's because I really like strange stylistic switches in my listening, going from a progressive rock song, to a pop song, to a country song, to harder rock song, to something from a soundtrack.
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