iTunes 4 Advanced Smart Playlists

bauman · July 10, 2003 12:32AM

Okay, I've started to reorganize all my music (all 9,000 songs of it), and I want to create smart playlists that match similar genre and a minimum rating. However, when I go to create a smart playlist, I can only match all or any of my criteria. For example, I would like to do something like (genre==Classical OR genre==Instrumental) AND rating>3.

Now, I have a foggy memory of an 'Advanced' tab in iTunes 3? Did they remove this functionality in iTunes 4? Is it elsewhere? I would really like to get my nice boolean function working... is it possible? Thanks!

stupider...likeafox · July 10, 2003 7:39AM

I think you can hackishly achieve this by choosing Match All, and then addings lots of criteria in the form "Genre is not every-other-genre-but-classical-and-Instrumental" and similar boolean logic tricks for other cases.

Yes, I know it's ugly.

What would be cooler would be if you could chain smart playlists together so you could create a "classical & instrumental" playlist then ask only for sub-selections from that list.

Simple yet effective.

bauman · July 11, 2003 5:25PM

Dag nab it :grr: I was hoping that wasn't the only option. I have about 90 or so genres, and even if I do a "does not contain" it will probably take more than the 15 or so forms that will fit on the screen. How hard could it be to add boolean smart playlists... I mean they used to have an advanced tab. Did that have that option?

I guess I could just get creative about it... For example, do something like 'genre ends with al' AND 'genre does not contain 'i' AND 'genre does not contain 'o'. Ah, I understand now. Apple is just trying to foster 'outside the box' thinking

I'll just have to play around with it, I suppose.

drawnad · July 14, 2003 5:52PM

Here's my 2 cents (keep in mind -- it's my first post, so be kind if you already thought of this) --

I use the "comments" section of the song description to make smart playlists. For example, soft songs, that I have on a playlist for plane rides (where I like to fall asleep) I put the word "sleepy" -- then a make a playlist whose criteria is Notes contain "Sleepy".

In your situation, select all songs from one of the two genres you want to include (sort by genre -- then group select all of the classical) and put a word in the notes section ("whatever"), Then select all of the songs from the other genre (I forgot what it was) and put the same word in the notes section. Then make a smart playlist whose only criteria are your rating (3 plus stars) and the word "whatever" in the notes section.

This sounds harder than it is, but if select your whole library, sort by genre, and do it, it'll take less time than it took me to type this!

P.S. This is not my idea -- I think it was David Pogue's.

bauman · July 15, 2003 12:24AM

Hey, that's a great idea, drawnad. And welcome, by the way.

I think I've got it sorted out... there aren't too many genres that I need to combine that already don't have words in common. Thanks though.

And for those of you still hung up on the advanced feature in iTunes 3, like I was, apparently it was no more advanced than the standard options on iTunes 4.

I suppose they did away with the simple option, not the advanced one.

drawnad · July 15, 2003 2:47PM

Thanks for the welcome. I'm glad that worked for you.

iTunes 4 Advanced Smart Playlists

Comments