Playlist - Play one track at a time

[psychoadept]

Therefore, when I downloaded and installed MusicBee I was trying to more or less duplicate the way Mixmeister is set up but with a larger font size.

Thanks, that's a really helpful explanation. Looking at the Mixmeister screenshot, I don't think you're going to be successful at recreating that particular setup with MusicBee; it just doesn't function the same way. In particular, you won't be able to see the playlist and the library at the same time during playback. You'll have just the playlist in the main panel and playing tracks in a side bar, or maybe at the bottom. (There ARE other ways to approach it, but any of them would be unnecessarily complicated for your use-case.)

Your approach of adding tracks to the library and then making a playlist sounds right, but the screenshots might help us find where things are going awry there. One thing I'm wondering is if rather than making a playlist, you're actually adding your tracks directly to Playing Tracks, because by default it's vaguely where the playlist window is for Mixmeister, on the right-hand side.

If you look at my signature, there's a link to the wiki, which has a lot of gaps but does have pretty solid pages on "The Anatomy of MusicBee", "Playlists", and 'Playing Tracks".

[frankz]

The long and short of it is that this will need to be done manually at some level.

You can have a playlist with as many songs as you want.  There are basically two options to playing that playlist to get the results you want.

Option 1: Under Edit->Edit Preferences->Now Playing...'Play Now' action set "clear list and play selected track only."  Then, in your playlist, you will double click the song you want to play. That song and only that song will be sent to "Now Playing" and play.  When you want to play the next song, you will double click the next song in the playlist.  Note that if instead of selecting individual tracks here you play the entire playlist, the entire playlist will play until you manually stop the playback, because in effect all files in the playlist are "selected tracks" when you do that.

Option 2: Under Edit->Edit Preferences->Hotkeys...Playback: Stop After Current, set a hotkey for this action (Mine is CTRL+Space).  Start playback of the playlist. When the first song is playing, hit the hotkey.  Playback will stop when that track is done and selection will move to the next track. Start playback of the next track when appropriate. Immediately hit the hotkey.  Playback will stop after that track and selection will move to the next track.  Repeat.

MusicBee will never work the same as DJ software for DJ functionality, because it's not DJ software.

[Freddy Barker]

Option 2: Under Edit->Edit Preferences->Hotkeys...Playback: Stop After Current, set a hotkey for this action (Mine is CTRL+Space).  Start playback of the playlist. When the first song is playing, hit the hotkey.  Playback will stop when that track is done and selection will move to the next track. Start playback of the next track when appropriate. Immediately hit the hotkey.  Playback will stop after that track and selection will move to the next track.  Repeat

MusicBee will never work the same as DJ software for DJ functionality, because it's not DJ software.

Option 2: I like what you've done there frankz!

DJ Software: This much is true, but are you thinking about a Club DJ with a mixing desk full of high tech equipment?
I've been to few weddings in the past where the DJ found on Craigslist has used Winamp on a gaming laptop.
MB would be able to cope admirably for the latter scenario     

[geofre]

Once again, thank you everyone for being so willing to help; you're all really great for doing that.

I understand the situation now. It looks like I'll have to either keep using Mixmeister or continue looking for different software.

Before I "sign off", I'd like to explain what my intended usage of MusicBee would have been.

For many years my wife and I made our living as a musical duo. Back then I sequenced all of our backing track via MIDI gear that hasn't been manufactured for years - all Roland stuff. Then, sometime during the mid-1980s, we allowed ourselves to be talked into getting a "real" job. Stopped performing for 15 years or so. At that point, prompted by requests from several friends to perform at their functions (not to mention making a little extra money) we pulled out the old gear and, to our huge surprise, discovere that it all worked---except that many of the tracks had sat on the 3.5" floppy disks for so long, they deteriorated to a point of not being usable anymore.

Since the response to our first few gigs was way more positive than we'd expected, we decided to update our gear and go for it, this time as an advocation. Besides getting new hardware - PA, speakers, mics, etc - we found ourselves virtually forced into going with mp3 backing tracks. (NOT karaoke tracks - we didn't want any extra voices and it really, really annoys us when someone uses a track that fades out.)

That's when we realized that we needed something to play the tracks via our laptop that wouldn't automatically start playing the next track when one track finished.

Wow, sorry I went on for so long; my apologies. Anyway, thanks again to all of you.

George
a/k/a geofre
d/b/a (One Plus One, if you're really bored and have nothing else to do.)

[psychoadept]

I understand the situation now. It looks like I'll have to either keep using Mixmeister or continue looking for different software.

I'm still not convinced that MusicBee won't do what you want, but of course it's your call. Out of curiosity, what do you do now to trigger the next track, once the previous one stops?

[hiccup]

I understand the situation now. It looks like I'll have to either keep using Mixmeister or continue looking for different software.

I haven't read the whole thread in detail, so perhaps I am missing some specifics that won't make the following an option, but I thought to share this anyway.

If I understand correctly you are aiming to create a playlist for a set, then start that playlist, and have it stop after every song, and be able to simply start the next song which will also stop after it has played.

I believe this can be done with the use of just two shortcut keys.
And if you use the (free) AutoHotkey software, you could achieve it by using only one shortcut key.

First you need to create two shortcut key combinations in MusicBee.

One for "Playback: Play now"
One for "Playback: Stop After current"
Let's suppose you assign F9 and F10 to these two shortcuts.

After you have created these, selected your playlist, and make sure all the tracks are displayed in the 'Playing Tracks' pane on the right.
Also make sure that the (Windows) focus is on that pane, and not on the main panel. That's important!

Then press F9, and immediatly after that F10.
The first song should start playing, and stop after it is finished.

When your audience is ready for the next song, just do the same: F9, F10.

If you install and setup AutoHotkey, you can rather easily create a single hotkey that will perform: "press F9, short pause, press F10"

Hope this helps.


edit:
And in case you have a keyboard with some additional programmable 'gaming' or 'macro' keys you don't even need AutoHotkey.

[Bizy]

Hé Geofre,

(If you're still there?)

I started from scratch, and 'created' something basic that might suit your needs:
https://imgur.com/a/1ahrWGS

You see:
- the library on the left (you can navigate and add to the playlist)
- the playlist in the middle
- the 'now playing list' at the left

When the present song is finished, all you need to do is select one song in the playlist and play it:  it will replace the other song and play.  And stop.  Till you play the next song, and so on.

There's other ways of course (and especially more 'fancy').
What do you think?

Greetz,
b.

PS:  this is the option first proposed by Sveakull (so Edit/Preferences/Now playing - 'clear list and play selected tracks only')

[geofre]

I'm still not convinced that MusicBee won't do what you want, but of course it's your call. Out of curiosity, what do you do now to trigger the next track, once the previous one stops?

The space bar; it both starts and pauses.

And I'd be really happy if MusicBee could work for this old fart. I just feel kinda bad taking up so much of all your time.

[psychoadept]

And I'd be really happy if MusicBee could work for this old fart. I just feel kinda bad taking up so much of all your time.

Haha, I think we're willing to keep at it if you are. I for one am super stubborn when it comes to creative problem solving. But I think we have enough ideas here to make it happen, it's just coming up with the perfect combination.

There's another track my brain has gone down involving the MusicBee Remote app, but it would only work if you have an Android phone and access to WiFi at your gigs. You'd need a plan B for when it won't work.

[geofre]

Hé Geofre,

(If you're still there?)

I started from scratch, and 'created' something basic that might suit your needs:
https://imgur.com/a/1ahrWGS

You see:
- the library on the left (you can navigate and add to the playlist)
- the playlist in the middle
- the 'now playing list' at the left

When the present song is finished, all you need to do is select one song in the playlist and play it:  it will replace the other song and play.  And stop.  Till you play the next song, and so on.

There's other ways of course (and especially more 'fancy').
What do you think?

Greetz,
b.

PS:  this is the option first proposed by Sveakull (so Edit/Preferences/Now playing - 'clear list and play selected tracks only')

Wow Bizy, that must have taken some time - thank you for that!

And yes, that's pretty darn close to what I'm looking for: Library on the left, Playlist in the middle and Now Playing on the right. (The Now Playing part is what was confusing me; based on what I've gotten used to, there was no Now Playing; the Playlist was both a display of the playlist and, by highlighting the track that was playing, it doubled as the Now Playing pane.)

Is this something you could explain / show me how to do? Or perhaps direct me to where I could learn how to do it? I would make (or try to make) a few tweaks - if possible, have the Library show only my tracks, and in all three panes I really only need Title, Artist and Time.

Oh, and hiccup, thank you; I did figure out how to use the Hotkey section of MusicBee. Once I got over "old man thinking" and just actually looked at it, I could see how easy it is to create Hotkeys there. If I'm brave enough, I'll check out AutoHotkey try creating that single hotkey for "press F9, short pause, press F10".

This is getting kind of exciting for me; thanks very much everybody.

[geofre]

Haha, I think we're willing to keep at it if you are. I for one am super stubborn when it comes to creative problem solving. But I think we have enough ideas here to make it happen, it's just coming up with the perfect combination.

There's another track my brain has gone down involving the MusicBee Remote app, but it would only work if you have an Android phone and access to WiFi at your gigs. You'd need a plan B for when it won't work.

I used to be like that myself; now I dread any kind of learning curve. Add that to an almost stereotypical fear of technology and...yeah, that's pretty much me.

BTW, I do have an Android phone, but virtually none of the venues we play have a reliable WiFi connection.

[Bizy]

Hé Geofre,

Yes, that took some time.
And you're asking even more of my time... ;-)

But I'm glad to help out, hope it's gonna work for you.

I made a few more screenshots to illustrate more or less what you need to do:
- arranging your panels
- setting the right 'play now' action
- choosing displayed fields
(And then, of course, you need to create a playlist.)

https://imgur.com/a/V8VMXdk

Hope it's clear enough.

Success!
And/or:  have fun!

B.

[geofre]

Thanks very much, Bizy - I'll do my best to duplicate what you've done.

Well, I've pestered you folks more than enough; I'll take it from here, good, bad or indifferent.

Have a great weekend!