MediaMonkey forum

I would like an option in playlist sort order to group by "Last Played BUCKET".

Right now, "Last Played" will play the same tracks in the same order every time (assuming no other playlist or random is selected), as the currently playing track will go to the end of the line - in the same order, over, and over - i.e. FIFO.
Meanwhile, "Random" is completely random - if you re-select the playlist (or re-sync), you might get something you just heard 5 minutes ago (this happens more than expected).

Rather, I would like to hear stuff I haven't heard in a long time - but shake it up a little.

Meaning: sort tracks by "time since last played", but group them into ranges (buckets), so that anything in that bucket is considered "equal".
For example:
< 1 hour
1-12 hours
12 hour - 1 day
1 day - 1 week
1 week - 1 month
1 month - 6 months
6 months - 12 months
> 12 months+
(if you're really nice, you'd let me define my own bucket boundaries Or maybe you could automatically figure out a good logarithmic grouping based on actual values in the autoplaylist.

THEN, let me choose a second sort order - like "Random". That would randomize *within each bucket*.

I have a few "Galactic" playlists, like one for all my Rock, all my Jazz, etc. They contain thousands of tracks.

SO, I would now sort them by "Last Played BUCKETS", in descending order (oldest to most recently played), then randomized within each time range bucket.

This means I'd always play stuff that I hadn't heard in a year or more first, but in a different order than the last time it came around.

If I just wanted to distinguish things older than 6 months, I could just create 2 Buckets: <6mo, and > 6 months. Or I could do 1 week - whatever.

add rule to auto playlist for last played x days ago. like ? : "Last Played >7" days ago nothing played in the last week will show up on the list and the songs will change provided the whole list is played when you start playing it, if not then the non played songs have a chance to be added the next time you open the list

Thanks - never saw that option in the list!

Here's what I did with that: not quite as elegant, but I've managed to make something close to my original idea by combining a number of separate playlists into one "master" playlist that I actually sync to my phone:

Rated 3-3.5, last-played > 3 years (limit = 700 tracks of ~4,000)
+
Rated 4-4.5 > 1 year (limit = 700 tracks of ~2,000)
+
Rated 5 > 90 days (no limit, but currently about 700 tracks)

This way, I can adjust the ratio of my rating groups & last-played's to balance things, and the sheer number of my lower-rated tracks don't dominate - but still make sure I play older 3's (whereas 5's are likely to come back around repeatedly every 90 days). I just finished rating all of my tracks, so it will take a while to see how the experiment plays out - those tracks without a "last-played date" match any date, so technically it might take a couple of years to see how fast I rotate through things Obviously, I'll track where things are falling, and adjust the date ranges & count limits as I go - hopefully it will settle down into a steady state eventually.

A couple of possible additions, by adding new component playlists:
3-3.5, 6mo-3 years (50 tracks? Least-played first?) - to mix in a small, limited repeat - but limit to 6mo-2 years, so they're NEVER repeated within 6 months
4-4.5, 3mo-1 year (50 tracks?) - same reason
5, 7-90 days (50 tracks?) - same
"Hot Tracks" - a standard playlist that I can add & remove things I want to listen to regularly - but mixed into the bigger mix

The reason to mix in "a few" somewhat recently played tracks is that otherwise, tracks will rotate in a larger cycle - ie things I haven't played for 3 years will move to the front of the line, get played, then have to age to the back of the queue (i.e. 3 years) to play again. So while the base "> 3 y" rule makes sure old songs don't languish there, it just sets me up for a playlist that has a 3-year cycle to it. The short-term small seeding above adds some good churn to that.

Note, I haven't done anything with "Played #" yet, as this is *loosely* related to "Last Played" (esp. if counts are only at 0 or 1). I could see using this either way: i.e. make sure to include tracks that haven't been heard much, OR use it as a way to automatically repeat tracks that I choose to play manually because they're "hot"/in my "short rotation" - opinions?

If anyone has other ideas on how to make a great "rating + age-since-last-played" weighted playlist, I'm all ears!

PS My rating system, in case it helps understand the above:
1 = junk - never want to hear it again - DELETE
2 = so-so, don't sync to phone, but don't delete - i.e. keep around in case I'm really in a mood for an artists' deeper tracks
3 = good stuff, I want it sync'd in my regular, everyday mix, but not repeated often
4 = really good stuff - I could hear this repeated every month or so
5 = awesome, play-anytime, could hear it every day
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PS 20160605 Update

Loving this playlist with some new additions. I get some oldies, some new, and hear my all-time favorites often enough, but interspersed with stuff I still like, but haven't heard in ages.

I enhanced it to balance decades. So, under the 3's & 4's "last played" playlists, I now have an autoplaylist for each decade:
3-3.5 Auotplaylist, consisting of all of:
Date unknown, last played > 1095 days, limit=100 tracks
< 1970, 3-3.5, last played > 1095 days, limit=100 tracks
1970-79, 3-3.5, last played > 1095 days, limit=100 tracks
1980-89, 3-3.5, last played > 1095 days, limit=100 tracks
. . . etc.
Same for 4-4.5's

Now, if I could balance on mood, and tempo....

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PS 20160901 Update: adding a little short-cycle churn

In order to mix the list up a little more, so that a few tracks break the rule of "Only play a song once, until all songs of that rating have been played", I've added an extra group for each rating:
3-3.5: 6mo-3 years (100 tracks) - allows a few repeats before 3 years - but NEVER repeated within 6 months
4-4.5: 3mo-1 year (100 tracks) - same reason
5: 30-90 days (50 tracks) - same
"Hot Tracks" - a standard playlist that I can add & remove things I want to listen to more regularly - but mixed into the bigger mix

This is turning out to be an AWESOME playlist - I'm constantly surprised by good tunes I haven't heard in a long time, with more frequent plays of higher-rated tracks. It also mixes up the decades and ratings, so I don't get 50 "5's" in a row, followed by 50 "3's" - that constant "good....best....better....good....best" and date mix changes it up so that every track is "fresh" and "noticed" more, because it is likely to be a different decade, or rating, and thus style, than the previous song.

Next, I'm going to do this with all my other playlists, like Jazz....

I've found some odd behavior: on my decade sub-lists (60's, 70's, etc.), I limit the track count to 100. Then the parent auto-playlist, which just consists of the 7 decade sub-playlists (i.e. <60's, 60's + 70's + 80's +.....), the count is not the same as the total of each of the sub-playlists. I might have 105 from the 60's, 120 from the 70's, 103 from the 80's, etc.

Any idea why this would happen?

It's like it's ignoring the Track count limit......

NEVER MIND - Problem solved - I updated to 4.1.12, and found an error buried in one of my own deeply nested component playlists.

toyzrme wrote:NEVER MIND - I updated to 4.2.12, and found an error buried in one of the deeply nested component playlists.

Can you please elaborate?

Sorry! I meant I found an error in MY playlist definition, not MediaMonkey. (I had a couple of overlapping dates)

Rather than delete the post, I just added the "Never mind" in case someone had already looked at it.

Problem solved!