Author Topic: Auto-DJ Albums  (Read 3741 times)

richardap1

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Would it be possible to add an option in the auto-dj so that instead of a single track it queues the whole albums. I realise that this would not work for streaming tracks.  This could then generate an album playlist based on initial seed album.

Anti

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Do you know any DJ's who play whole albums?
The general purpose of auto-DJ is to 'mix it up' a bit and throw you stuff that surprises and delights.

If you want whole albums queued, use an autoplaylist instead:
· music track source = library
· restrictions = limit to 10 albums | selected by= random | group by= album

richardap1

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I already have that, but the idea is at work I tend to like to listening to whole albums, and auto-DJ already had lastfm integration. I can then just set an album and MB will pull matching artists in. With the 'more drift' option it allows for a varied album playlist.

Anti

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Last FM can't play albums. They don't have a licence to play any artist more than one track an hour.

richardap1

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yes i know. the idea was that lastfm could return a similar artist like it does now and instead of playing the single track from that artist MB would select a whole album. Obviously it wouldn't work with streamed tracks just local files.

Steven

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have you tried setting the music source to an auto-playlist the groups by album?

richardap1

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Thanks Steven, I have just tried that but it still returns individual tracks from the grouped albums

Anti

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Ah, I get it now.

Love how your mind works, Richard, and the solution is up to Steven of course, but my 2 cents is that playing albums is too large a paradigm shift away from what AutoDJ is designed to do.

I don't know if autoplaylists could connect to the lastFM API, but it seems to me that it would be more appropriate as an autoplaylist rule rather than an autoDJ feature, especially since it's already got the 'group by album' feature.

There might be a possible solution already built-in:
· Go to AutoDJ and enter a sensible figure for 'rated by lastFM as more than X% similar
  (try something like 30% and see if you can increase it later; how successful it is depends on the size and diversity of your library)
· Go to album and tracks view
· right-click your seed artist
· choose: play more -> play similar '[artist name]'

When I do this, I get a Now Playing List populated with similar artists, and they are grouped by album (apparently because the view was grouped by album when I used the 'play more' option).

Another option might be to use AutoDJ to populate the Now Playing List with with single tracks using the lastFM similarity option, but then turn on shuffle and set it to 'shuffle by album'. You might not get entire albums placed in the NPL, but it will at least play the partial albums in sequence.

Finally, manually mapping similar artists/albums together using custom genres or moods might work better than a lastFM lookup.
Last Edit: January 03, 2012, 02:24:48 PM by Anti

richardap1

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Thank Anti
I that's almost how I currently do it, although I don't use the Auto-DJ feature, I pick an album right click and find Similar and build it up from that. However the Auto-DJ has an option that allows more drift, by using the proceeding artist as the next seed.