Combining my 3 smart playlists into one

[Dalinar]

I have 3 playlists that do the same things but for different Artists. They display one random album for that artist.

https://imgur.com/a/llzfbfL screenshot, i tried with img tags and also following instructions from help but both ways don't show the image, so here is a link to the screenshot of my smart playlist for the first artist

I was wondering is there a way to have a smart playlist that display one random album for each specified artist? So instead of 1 album on the smart playlist, it shows 3 - a random album for each of the 3 specified artists?

[phred]

Take a look at MB's Auto-DJ feature. You'll find it in the left navigator panel under playlists.

You can choose which playlists you want to draw from and then choose random play selected by artist.

More information can be found at the Wiki: https://musicbee.fandom.com/wiki/Playback#Auto_DJ

[Dalinar]

ok, thanks for the tip

or wait is this going to be random song by song? I need random albums

[frankz]

Your image properly displayed.


Why not just combine them into one auto-playlist selected by album.  Seems much easier.  (Artist...is any of... / select by: album)?

That way you can also easily add artists to the list if you need to without creating a new playlist.

Or you could create an auto playlist with the criterion: "playlist...is any of... " and then select the individual playlists you've already created.

Playlist mixers would probably work here, too.  Each of the seed playlists set to 1.  Don't know if that will pull by album if the originating playlist selects by album.  Try it out.

[tjinc]

Try it out.

I like that advice - you learn more by trying things, even if they don't work out for you.

You could also try creating a folder in your playlist node and then dragging all 3 playlists into that folder - the folder will act as the sum of the playlists that it contains.

[frankz]

Try it out.

I like that advice - you learn more by trying things, even if they don't work out for you.

I've come across a ton of MB functionality that I didn't know I needed until I found it this way.  I was like "Playlist Mixers?  Who needs that?" and then I started messing with them and now playlist mixes are all I listen to.

[Dalinar]

well following frankz suggestions, the best I could figure out to do what I wanted was to get it to sort of work.

v1
it shows 3 random albums however I could not figure out how to restrict it to only one album per artist.

v2

it does this correctly:
1. suggests one album from each artist randomly

Refreshing the smart playlist only rearranges the order of the 3 randomly selected albums however.

I can force it to choose 3 random new albums again by opening the edit dialog of the auto playlist and hitting save

So basically I can achieve what I want, however it is a bit cumbersome.

is there any way to refine it to work via refresh?



I guess the solution is ... because it is kind of stupid to have to choose Edit Auto Playlist | Save , each time

is to use v1 but to make it show 21 albums or something large like that to be guaranteed a selection that would contain a mixture of albums from each artist on each refersh

v1


v2


actually I was in general quite happy to have 3 different auto playlists, 1 per artist. However the problem was they weren't easy to access since I would need to get to the playlist explorer each time. I would prefer to use a tab header but I don't want to waste 3 spots as my tab headers are already quite crowded, that is why I wanted to combine it to one playlist. so I would have one Random Album Tab

[frankz]

is there any way to refine it to work via refresh?

My auto-playlists refresh when I hit F5.  I don't think I set that up special so it's probably default, but you can set it to whatever you want under Edit->Edit Preferences->Hotkeys...General:Refresh.

[Dalinar]

yes mine do also.

However for v1 it achieves something

for v2 all refreshing does is rearrange the order of the 3 albums (i.e. performs musical chairs).. to get truly random albums you need to edit the auto playlist and save - or modify something but save is better than modifying as it doesn't modify anything

first open of auto playlist v2



F5 of v2 auto playtlist



Edit v2 Auto Playlist | Save Trick



Edit v2 Auto Playlist | Save Trick - Done again

[tjinc]

The refresh function will refresh the current playlist but does not refresh its underlying playlists, which is why you are seeing what you are.

You can achieve what you want in two ways (at least):
1. Use a playlist mixer.
2. Create a 'Playlist Folder' and drag your playlists into this folder. Use the folder as your playlist.

(The Playlist Mixer is probably neater in this case.)

[Dalinar]

ah ok I will check that out - in my head I was conflating auto dj with the playlist mixer, and I read a comment about the auto dj not supporting albums .. just tracks.

[frankz]

ah ok I will check that out - in my head I was conflating auto dj with the playlist mixer, and I read a comment about the auto dj not supporting albums .. just tracks.

Auto-DJ does have the option to select by album.  I haven't really used it, but you can mess with it and see if it works better than the other options.