Playlist-Mixer and Podcasts! (Custom logical functions in playlists or Auto-DJ?)

[Jammet]

I would like to create something like a playlist like this:

1. <play most recent episode of podcast: news channel 1>
2. <play random track from music library>
3. <play random track from music library>
4. <play random track from music library>
5. <play most recent episode of podcast: news channel 2>
6. <play random tracks from music library for 20 minutes>
7. <play most recent and unlistened episode of podcast: entertainment>

This is, basically, an attempt to mimic what the "Daily drive" function does in Spotify.

A playlist like this, or Auto-DJ settings to get these kinds of results, is that possible?

[psychoadept]

You can do this with a playlist mixer. See Playlists on the wiki.

[Freddy Barker]

Have a look at using a Playlist Mixer, with feeds from a series of auto-playlists...

Freddy

[Jammet]

Thanks so much! I'm starting to work around with it, however, I now have the problem that I do not find a way to match criteria such as "most recent" for a podcast, and "unplayed", as well as "max track length" would also be a nice to have, so that I can play the short news tidbits inbetween a few songs.

How would I go about doing this, I wonder. It's easy to pick from a music library, but the criteria do not help much on podcasts.

So far, I haven't managed for Bee to play any news at all, sadly.

[Freddy Barker]

Something like this....(Note GROUPS is just a playlist folder containing the feeder playlists)...

PLAYLIST MIXER
===============

 Playlist is GROUPS\JINGLES  = 1
 Playlist is GROUPS\OLDIES   = 1
 Playlist is GROUPS\LOWPLAY  = 1
 Playlist is GROUPS\WHISSEY  = 1
 Playlist is GROUPS\CLASSIC  = 1
 Playlist is GROUPS\ALLSTAR  = 1
 Playlist is GROUPS\MODERN   = 1
 Playlist is GROUPS\NEGLECT  = 1


AUTO-PLAYLIST (EXAMPLES)


  GROUPS\JINGLES
--------------------------------
 Music track source: Library (music library)
 Match: All of the following rules
 Grouping is Jingle
 Last Played is not in the last 30 days
 Limit to 85 selected by: Least recently played
 Shuffle: Random
 Select by: Track
 Automatically refresh the matching tracks


 GROUPS\LOWPLAY
--------------------------------
 Music track source: Library (music library)
 Match: All of the following rules
 Playcount is less than 2
 Skipped is 0
 Last Played is not in the last 300 days
 Limit to 100 items selected by: Random
 Shuffle: Random
 Select by: Track
 Automatically refresh the matching tracks


Regards: Freddy

[Jammet]

Okay, I am officially too dumb to understand this. My head is smoking, I had a playlist that worked, and I just found out it specifically worked for yesterday because the podcasts obviously have different entries now. So I basically get a source not found error.



I don't get what the difference between an auto playlist and a mixer are. When to pick what. I don't understand how to tell it, in the simplest terms: just play the most recent version of podcast x, and do it nao. Done? Just play some music. 3 tracks. I don't even care what it is, if it's from my library. Rinse, repeat.

But I appreciate the helpful comments. You obviously understand how this works. I look at this and my brain takes the sock drawer and leaves town.

[Freddy Barker]

Maybe I'm not explaining things too well, but here's an intro to playlists on MB.

FULL DETAILS here:
 https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/Playlists

A playlist is a list of songs that you create, whether for listening or for some utilitarian purpose. MusicBee offers three types of playlists:

Static Playlists: the user adds and removes all tracks
Auto Playlists: dynamic, automatically update their contents based on rules
Playlist Mixers: use multiple sets of rules to create a customized, regenerating shuffle mode
Playlists can be organized into folders, which can also be nested.

[Freddy Barker]

Have a read of this blog https://diversity9892.wordpress.com/diversity-fm

Scroll down to TAG YOUR MUSIC FILES where you can see a few examples and experiment with options that suit your preferences....

Freddy

[Jammet]

I've been working with this for 5 hours without a break this evening and I can't get it to even play a single podast. Any. Podcast. It does nothing.

The task is so laughably simple, and I only have myself to blame here. I find no examples of anyone having ever tried this with podcasts. All the examples are for music. And it wants me to always add some qualifier like "Artist"  "starts with"  ... and I don't even want it to filter anything at all. But I entered Tagesschau as Artist as in "contains" that word.
Nothing.

I'm flabbergasted, I have no idea. There is the podcast, it updates every 3 hours or so, it's called "Die Tagesschau in 100 Sekunden", and I can't convince Musicbee that it even exists. Frustrating beyond belief. Sure, I can get it to play music. I'm not even selective when it comes to that, as long as it does play something.

At this point I'm ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  such a beginner. And grateful for you trying to help me. I did look at these examples, but either I do not understand what I'm seeing, or they're just examples that don't apply to what I'm trying to do here.

[psychoadept]

And it wants me to always add some qualifier like "Artist"  "starts with"  ... and I don't even want it to filter anything at all.

Try "any field ... has a value" for the filter.

Beyond that, if you'll post screenshots of your playlist settings where it doesn't seem to be working, we can give better advice.

[Jammet]

I think it helped that I focus on just the Playlist-Mixer. I made it. It does confuse me still, but, that's the way it works now. I hope it still works tomorrow when the actual podcasts are different ones, and have been replaced with fresh issues.

So, Example time.

Create new Playlist Mixer -> Entry 1: Listen to Playlist:CNN -> Any field has value "CNN" -> Most recent preferred.

So I created a bunch of rules. 2 tracks of music. News. 3 tracks of music, more News. 5 favourite tracks, News again. 2 random tracks, then the most recent full length podcast.
Thank you so much! You have helped me immensely. This was one of the things that I liked in Spotify. And I'm glad I can do this here!

[Freddy Barker]

Phew !!
Well done for your perseverance.  😃
Glad you're getting somewhere, can be heavy going for new users...

Cheers: Freddy

[Jammet]

Thanks! :3

Well now it's one day later and, things work, though I believe I have to manually refresh the podcasts when I re-start Bee, not sure why. It may update, but possibly up to a minute or two after launch, and usually when I hit play, this should have already happened.

But this is okay, I can go into podcasts and hit F5 real quick before running my new shiny playlist of shinyness. :3

[Freddy Barker]

Thanks! :3

Well now it's one day later and, things work, though I believe I have to manually refresh the podcasts when I re-start Bee, not sure why. It may update, but possibly up to a minute or two after launch, and usually when I hit play, this should have already happened.

But this is okay, I can go into podcasts and hit F5 real quick before running my new shiny playlist of shinyness. :3

Good job!!
Never bothered with podcasts myself, strictly a music guy!

Freddy