iTunes problem... is it just me?

H

Hidden Gekko

3 Years and 100 Posts 0_o
Is it just me or does iTunes have a bizarre little quark in it?

My itunes 4 play list has 754 songs, which would take 2 days to listen to. Now what I had been doing was just openning itunes, and pressing play with the shuffler on. What i've noticed is that the shuffler is very bad. It seems to always almost play the exact same songs in their exact order, and yet, it does manage to throw in some random tunes along the way.

I find myself starting up itunes, and letting the program shuffle through them. Then I find myself hitting 'next song' on my synergy bar at the top (a great program, btw) over and over, because iTunes keep playing the same songs repeatedly. I mean, I have much more i'd like to listen to in my playlist, but instead, the first 200 or so songs are just almost exact repeats that it played yesterday. Not only that, but whenever I add songs, it seems to take an eternity for the shuffler to finally get to them.

Ya, it's a strange complaint perhaps, but if you do what I do and have a big playlist, you may actually know what i'm talking about.

I dunno what the point of this post is, maybe it's a rant, maybe it's a cry for help. It's not like there's anyway to fix this I assume... other than add new songs... *sigh* (connects to a radio stream, leaving 754 songs alone)
 
You could create a smart playlist with the following criteria:
From the first drop-down menu select "Last Played"
From the next drop-down select "is not in the last"
Set number of days/weeks etc
Set like a 25 song limit selected randomly and Live updating

So for example:
Randomer.jpg


That should give you 25 random songs not played within the last month. When a song is played a new one takes its place and those songs won't appear in the list until after a month since they were played last. You could of course set it to 2 weeks or 4 days or whatever you see fit.
 
Same problem here, and I think it's related to the old Excel problem of not being able to generate very good random numbers. Something with an improper use of random number generators in the floating point unit of the G4 processor. It would be neat to see if this is reproducible on the G5 or earlier Mac computers like the 68040s.
 
As for new songs added taking ages to play, Unless you specifically tell iTunes to re-shuffle (unshuffle, shuffle) the list, the new ones added will be at the end of the list. I think iTunes only shuffles when you turn shuffling on, so it will probably stay that way until you re-shuffle, even if you close & open iTunes several times..
 
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