Even Distribution of Artists in Playlist

[davoid]

Hi,

Is there a way to sort artists evenly throughout a playlist?
E.g. if the playlist contains 5000 songs and 5 of those songs are by ABBA, then each song should be 1000 songs apart (if the first song is track 1 in the playlist).

My aim is to have a playlist with a 'random' sort of artists, but also for the artist's songs to be evenly spread throughout the playlist.

The only way I've found to do this, is to manually sort a playlist M3U file using Notepad++, but it is a long slow process which I haven't completed. This involves having the song total of each artist and then dividing the total playlist song number by that, then manually searching each artist's song and then moving it in the file to the correct line number.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,
davoid.
 

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

With Auto-Playlists you can set the selection to be "random" and the shuffle to be based on "different/same artist" and adjust how much you want the artist to vary within the playlist using a slider bar. There is no way to specify an exact number of songs that play before the artist repeats, however. This may be something you could accomplish with a Playlist Mixer, but it honestly seems like a huge headache to nail down such specificity.

[davoid]

Hi The Incredible Boom Boom,
thanks for reply.

It might sound specific, but it really is just what many people would expect from a 'random' shuffled playlist, until they realise 'random' isn't 'evenly distributed', and you get the same song playing before the end of the playlist, or multiple songs by the same artist back-to-back.

Basic 'active' random can play the same song before the end of the entire playlist, as it chooses from all the songs each time.
To get around this you can save a shuffled playlist to make it static, but the same artist's songs can be clumped together and unevenly spaced.

'Random' is quite dumb compared to 'evenly distributed', that's why no-one had created one yet.

Thanks for the same/different slider info. I think that will be part of the solution.
There's also the 'gap before the same artist repeats' option. That looks promising.
Setting the slider to different and a relevant number for the 'gap before the same artist repeats' setting might just do it.

My current collection is approx. 5500 songs with about 180 The Beatles songs, so unless they are evenly spaced they tend to take over.
5500 divided by 180 is 30, so that would be the 'gap before the same artist repeats' number, but it then treats other artists with a greater 'gap' number to the lesser one. E.g. Nirvana songs are about 40, which would be a 'gap' number of 137.
It does your head in trying to work it out, heh.

Music Bee seems like a very customisable software: kudos to the creator.

[hiccup]

It might sound specific, but it really is just what many people would expect from a 'random' shuffled playlist, until they realise 'random' isn't 'evenly distributed',…

Considering how often people have been, and keep complaining about (and misunderstanding) random playback on the forum, this seems to be an ideal candidate for a nice plugin.
I am guessing it could become very popular quickly.

[davoid]

Hi hiccup,

Music Bee is the most comprehensive player I've found. I've been looking for years for something to help with this function.
Not sure it'll work how I would like, but I will have to experiment with it and see how it goes.
I haven't downloaded it yet.

There is a plugin called UltraMIX for the AIMP player software. It sorta worked but after about 70% of the 5500 songs, it started to break down and songs clumped together.

https://www.aimp.ru/?do=catalog&rec_id=261

[Steven]

using the "same/different artist" shuffle where the slider is set to the middle should ensure an even distribution without the need for a plugin

[davoid]

Hi Steven,

I will give it a go.
So if there's 180 Beatles songs in a 5500 library, does it figure out the 30 songs gap for even distribution, or is it just roughly distributed, i.e. no back-to-back or clumps?

How does the 'same/different artists' shuffle work?

thanks.

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

Hi Steven,

I will give it a go.
So if there's 180 Beatles songs in a 5500 library, does it figure out the 30 songs gap for even distribution, or is it just roughly distributed, i.e. no back-to-back or clumps?

How does the 'same/different artists' shuffle work?

I'm also interested in the answer to this, if you would like to brief us on it, @Steven.
I don't get quite the results I want from the option, but I believe it's because I don't understand how it's supposed to function.

[davoid]

I stumbled across poe.com when I clicked the 'Tell me more' button whilst using Quora.com.
It's a AI chat bot with a choice of a few AI bots. The default was Sage.
I asked it:

how does the musicbee 'different/same artist preferred each track' option work?
I screen grabbed the answer. Not sure if it's correct at I found Sage to be a prone to mistakes (and it apologises, heh).



Is this option now available for 'auto playlists' as well?

I also asked Sage:

how does the musicbee option 'gap before same artist can repeat' with auto playlists work?

"The "Gap Before Same Artist Can Repeat" option in MusicBee's Auto Playlists allows you to set a minimum gap between two tracks by the same artist in the playlist"

"Open the Auto Playlists feature in MusicBee and select the "Different/Same Artist" option.

Set any other criteria for the playlist, such as the number of tracks, genres, or tempo.

Under the "Same Artist" section, check the "Gap before same artist can repeat" option.

Set the desired gap time, which is the minimum amount of time (in minutes) that must pass before a track by the same artist can be played again in the playlist."

So if I have 180 Beatles songs in a 5500 song playlist, I have to individually select 2 songs at a time and specify a minute amount gap?
I must be mistaken...as that's not practical obviously.

So what happens if you set the  'different/same artist preferred each track' slider to 100% different? Will it still allow the probability of artists not being evenly spread, i.e. just a different artist from the last song played, so: no '2 songs by the same artist in a row', but it could do:
Beatles
Nirvana
Beatles
Queen
Nirvana
Queen
i.e. different artists but still too close together.

If you could set the 'Gap before same artist can repeat" by song count for all the songs by an artist,
and you used it in combination with the above 100% different slider setting, then I think you would have genuine 'evenly spread' artists.

If you did have the above 'gap' option, it would also be handy to a 'song gap' calculator based on how many songs by an artist were in the total playlist. E.g. 5500 songs, 180 Beatles songs =  5500 divided by 180 = 30 song gap.
But you could just calculate manually yourself and enter the answer.

[davoid]

Hi all,

I tried to install the latest version of Musicbee on my Windows 10 laptop, but it has .Net Framework 4.0.
So I installed the first version from 2018, but it doesn't seem to have 'auto playlists'.

Man, I really despise Windows 10. Nothing but problems since I got this new laptop in 2017.
I think it was a Windows 7 laptop that had been updated to Windows 10, every time I tried updating to the new Service Pack which was 4GB or something stupid like that, it would download 90% and fail. I had to do it at the public library as I only had 8GB data per month.
Tried multiple times. To fix that problem I'd have to download another huge ISO file and run that. Gave up.

So now I have a laptop in as new condition that is stuck in 2017.

I cannot connect to the internet on it, tried every fix to the 'password not correct' error for 2 hours, so I'd have to update Windows manually and the file is 5.7GB, FFS.

I tried updating .NET framework manually but it needs other updates I guess, as it fails with the 'not applicable' error.

Windows 10 sucks. Worse OS ever. You basically need to be an IT tech just to do simple things that Chrome does without problems.
Slow, complicated, just a real piece of crap.

[Steven]

recent older versions of MB require .net 4.6.2 and the latest .net 4.8
I believe both of which should be included with a standard windows 10 install, but you could try downloading from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet-framework

[davoid]

Hi Steven,

As I said, I already tried installing the .NET Framework.

I think I will download an up to date Windows 10 ISO and then sell the laptop.

Chromebooks have the Wine app for installing windows .exe files but the results are variable, and.NET Framework .EXEs don't run.
So it looks like Musicbee is out for me.