I have more music all of a sudden!

zozo
Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
I dunno what they did with iTunes 4.5, but all of a sudden I'm listening to songs I have *NEVER* heard before in my 5000song collection (that have always been there).



I have always used Shuffle and songs DID get kind of redundant... it felt like I was always hearding the same few hundred songs.



Weird.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    damn! i thought i was the only one who felt that way. i've got about 2,500 songs and i swear i'd always be listening to the same 500.



    i'll have to play around with the shuffle option and see if i start hearing albums i thought had faded into memory.
  • Reply 2 of 16
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    I've noticed this too. Since the update, shuffle doesn't seem to play favorites so much.



    Or else it's picked a new set of favorites and I just haven't had the update long enough to notice.
  • Reply 3 of 16
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    Is it possibly a new randomizing algorithm? I don't know how that stuff works at all, but it sounds like they may have figured out a way to make "random" even more random.



    \
  • Reply 4 of 16
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Believe me, making "random" (actually, pseudo-random number generators) act random is actually an interesting problem.



    The usual tradeoff is speed vs. randomness (as anyone who remembers old school video games can testify - their pseudo-random algorithms were frequently lame, and their sequences predictable). It's quite likely, given the iPod's cellphone-like processing power and its need to shuffle lots of songs quickly, that Apple picked a fairly bad - but really fast - algorithm to start with, and they've been steadily massaging it since then as they update and tighten up the software.



    One interesting way around this is actually to have an analog white noise generator of some description, and sample it whenever you need a random number. I doubt the iPod does that, though.
  • Reply 5 of 16
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    My brother was telling me one time that someone once took a lava lamp and studied it's flowing properties. The result was that a lava lamp is one of the most random occurances ever discovered. A 3D imaging of a lava lamp in cycle will generate almost a perfectly random image on which an algorithm can be based. Hmm. I must find that info.
  • Reply 6 of 16
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    perfect randomness can create a perfect encryption algorythym/key



    sorry... I just finished reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson last week... awesome book. Made me want to install GPG on my Mac and make a nice 2048bit key.



    Paranoia cha-cha-cha



    To stay on track, I also want to go on record to say that with the iPod 2.2 update, randomness seems as good as with iTunes 4.5. Im hearing more different music.
  • Reply 7 of 16
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    I've already found 3 gems I had forgotten about. Something's gotta be different.
  • Reply 8 of 16
    akumulatorakumulator Posts: 1,111member
    I haven't listened much yet since the update, so I haven't noticed....but yes, I was constantly hearing the same songs over and over again.
  • Reply 9 of 16
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    Now if they would only update the randomizer on the iPod.
  • Reply 10 of 16
    cam'roncam'ron Posts: 503member
    i noticed that but i thought it was just a fluke. guess i was wrong, its nice to see random actually go random. i noticed the new randomness while walking with my iPod today as well. its the best imporvement that came out imo and went unmentioned. anyone notice iTunes can be slow in response at times now? the music is fine, but switching from library to party shuffle etc seems slower.
  • Reply 11 of 16
    futuremacfuturemac Posts: 242member
    add me to the list



    i tried party shuffle out yesterday and went from:



    propellerheads-to-the rolling stones-to-craig david-to-michael jackson-to-the cars,



    i was like, wow that was an odd combination...



    but it was good because it exposed me to songs i never played much like the "boston" album, i love "rock n roll band" i found that i gave that album almost all 5 stars! and michael jackson NAILED the song "butterflies" i had never heard it before, and now its a favorite.



    and when bruce hornsby's "try anything once" first started up i thought it was a rap tune! (i have party shuffle setup to hide the next song coming up so i can be surprised, and i was)



    and belive it or not i actually made my FIRST playlist yesterday as well. i had never used the function before and made a "bookmark" list called "songs to buy" as i browsed the store. pretty neat function.
  • Reply 12 of 16
    666666 Posts: 134member
    i'm currently deleting the stuff I don't love. 40 gigs just doesn't go that far!!
  • Reply 13 of 16
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    Anyone else noticing that the 'new' shuffle sucks as much as the old one?



    I wanted to see how random shuffle really was, but iTunes kept going back to the same artists and same albums. I've got 6,200 songs, there is no reason 1/5 of the songs on shuffle are off one album. iTunes also seems to have inherited the iPod's shuffle bug where if you pick the same song to start, the progression will be the same.
  • Reply 14 of 16
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    I know it's poor form to post twice in a row, but this has to be said.



    Shuffle is now completely useless to me. I did a little testing and only 50 albums are being selected for shuffle. If a song is not on one of those 50 albums it will not play at all from my library of 747 albums. I've sent a report to Apple about this, but seems like I'm the only one having this problem.
  • Reply 15 of 16
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    Whoops. The post directly above wasn't showing up so I reposted it only to find it as soon as I hit the reply button.



    Torture me if you must</Mel_Gibson>
  • Reply 16 of 16
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by HOM

    Anyone else noticing that the 'new' shuffle sucks as much as the old one?



    I wanted to see how random shuffle really was, but iTunes kept going back to the same artists and same albums. I've got 6,200 songs, there is no reason 1/5 of the songs on shuffle are off one album. iTunes also seems to have inherited the iPod's shuffle bug where if you pick the same song to start, the progression will be the same.




    Ouch. Using the first song as the seed for the pseudo-random algorithm? That's just cheap.



    There's a clock on there, for Steve's sake. Use that!
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