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voxnj

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 16, 2008
161
0
Dark Side of the Moon
I've been testing Genius. It does a great job of building suggested playlists on the fly. You pick a song from your library, click the Genius button (on lower right) and presto --Genius opens a pretty cool play list of "matching/similar" songs from you library. Kinda like a DJ on tap button!
 

andrea25

macrumors newbie
Sep 9, 2008
15
10
I've been testing Genius. It does a great job of building suggested playlists on the fly. You pick a song from your library, click the Genius button (on lower right) and presto --Genius opens a pretty cool play list of "matching/similar" songs from you library. Kinda like a DJ on tap button!

GENIUS is a joke.
it's based on the iTunes Store, and it doesn't analyze the song.
it simply recollect data such as "genre" and then buld a playlist.

try to find similar songs of The Beatles. you can't.

so called "GENIUS" can't build a playlist because The Beatles aren't on the iTunes Store.

I thougth the "genius" would have done some sort of "fingerprinting" on the tracks on your library...but it's simply a tool for those people who don't have time to enter information such as genre, year on their itunes....
 

kcha295

macrumors newbie
Jul 25, 2008
5
0
GENIUS is a joke.
it's based on the iTunes Store, and it doesn't analyze the song.
it simply recollect data such as "genre" and then buld a playlist.

try to find similar songs of The Beatles. you can't.

so called "GENIUS" can't build a playlist because The Beatles aren't on the iTunes Store.

I thougth the "genius" would have done some sort of "fingerprinting" on the tracks on your library...but it's simply a tool for those people who don't have time to enter information such as genre, year on their itunes....

actually some songs werent in nearly the same genre as what i was looking for and i liked them... i think it takes into account year and the rest of the songs... i doubt its just genre...
 

voxnj

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 16, 2008
161
0
Dark Side of the Moon
GENIUS is a joke.
it's based on the iTunes Store, and it doesn't analyze the song.
it simply recollect data such as "genre" and then buld a playlist.

try to find similar songs of The Beatles. you can't.

so called "GENIUS" can't build a playlist because The Beatles aren't on the iTunes Store.

I thougth the "genius" would have done some sort of "fingerprinting" on the tracks on your library...but it's simply a tool for those people who don't have time to enter information such as genre, year on their itunes....

That's not my experience.

Since the play lists are based on your own library, Genius' utility will be a function of the number and diversity of songs in your library.

For example when I tested Cocaine by Clapton, Genius reached across four genres (rock, blues, folk and pop) to pick its list (from 17 artists) and ranging from 1965 to 2001.
 

Trajectory

macrumors 6502a
Nov 13, 2005
741
0
Earth
Does the Genius feature not work on tunes ripped from your own CDs? That would suck royally if so, cause 90% of my music library originally came from CDs, not iTunes Store.
 

voxnj

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 16, 2008
161
0
Dark Side of the Moon
Does the Genius feature not work on tunes ripped from your own CDs? That would suck royally if so, cause 90% of my music library originally came from CDs, not iTunes Store.

It works on your entire library -- and definitely includes the songs you ripped from your own cd's (98% of my library).
 

TSquares

macrumors newbie
Sep 9, 2008
14
0
That's not my experience.

Since the play lists are based on your own library, Genius' utility will be a function of the number and diversity of songs in your library.

For example when I tested Cocaine by Clapton, Genius reached across four genres (rock, blues, folk and pop) to pick its list (from 17 artists) and ranging from 1965 to 2001.

Indeed.

Plus, Genius will get better and better because millions of people will be adding their data to the system.
 

andrea25

macrumors newbie
Sep 9, 2008
15
10
That's not my experience.

Since the play lists are based on your own library, Genius' utility will be a function of the number and diversity of songs in your library.

For example when I tested Cocaine by Clapton, Genius reached across four genres (rock, blues, folk and pop) to pick its list (from 17 artists) and ranging from 1965 to 2001.

yes, but it's still based on the iTunes Store.
and on the iTunes Store the genres sometimes are very vague and "incomplete"

i still prefer Last.fm, it's far more complete
and music recommendations REALLY works.
(also with the beatles, ac/dc....and 梶芽衣子)
 

TSquares

macrumors newbie
Sep 9, 2008
14
0
yes, but it's still based on the iTunes Store.
and on the iTunes Store the genres sometimes are very vague and "incomplete"

I think far more than just the iTunes store's genres are involved. And if so, it will get better when time advances.
 

gloss

macrumors 601
May 9, 2006
4,811
0
around/about
It's been pretty fun to experiment with, that's for sure. Sadly, there's a chunk of my music it can't find any information for, and therefore won't work with. Wonder how we can fix that.
 

Karpfish

macrumors 6502a
Sep 24, 2006
661
0
I think we have to wait until people's data starts getting uploaded to the system before we make any real judgements. That being said, I don't think that Genius should recommend me songs by the same artist. I mean if its the same artist, I probably know it is similar.
 

UbuntuFu

macrumors 6502
Aug 16, 2007
278
196
Dude, Genius is still analyzing my music.

24" imac 2.8ghz

52,000 songs

It's been nearly 2 hours. It's not even half way done yet.
 

voxnj

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 16, 2008
161
0
Dark Side of the Moon
I think we have to wait until people's data starts getting uploaded to the system before we make any real judgements. That being said, I don't think that Genius should recommend me songs by the same artist. I mean if its the same artist, I probably know it is similar.

Ever hear of Two for Tuesday?

Seriously, it's assembling a play list. It only seems to pick a couple from the same artist -- which in a list of 25 to 50 is fine by me.
 

Steve Jobs=God

macrumors 6502
Apr 13, 2007
399
0
So far i'm finding it to be just a version of the just for me feature that was on the store, just that you don't have to access the store to use it
 

UbuntuFu

macrumors 6502
Aug 16, 2007
278
196
Might be why.

Why the hell do you need that much music? Trying to start your own online store?

I buy albums and have a wide range of music tastes.
Sure, some albums I'll only listen to 1 or 2 songs but I just like having the entire album.

It's still analyzing....
 

redgaz26

macrumors 68020
Mar 6, 2007
2,298
6
Glasgow
ok if i get a genius playlist it shows them with the artwork but when steve does it it just shows the list of songs????????
which looks much better
 

jacg

macrumors 6502a
Jan 16, 2003
975
88
UK
I already have playlists that go together. Seems a shame that I can't just select ALL those tracks and get much more accurate suggestions based on those. (although Steve did say iTunes analyses playlists so who knows...)

I'm sure it will get better but at the moment I'm getting some fairly contrasting selections in the 25 suggested from my library of 5000.

The way I listen to music, I really like the idea. Hope it catches on.
 

Fiveos22

macrumors 65816
Nov 20, 2003
1,080
1
I am quite intrigued by this...I've been hoping that iTunes would attempt something like MoodLogic for years. While this is not quite a mood selector, it is a step in that direction.

Kick ass.
 

Wolfgang

macrumors member
Jun 12, 2006
56
0
I've just been giving Genius a try. I listen to alot of electronic and dance music, which isn't one of the most popular genres in the US, so I decided to give it a try with Genius. The first song I tried was "Ride On Time" by Black Box, a fairly common house track. The playlist included quite a bit of trance and hands up, which both happen to be genres I have quite a few songs in, in comparison to house. A few house tracks were in the playlist, but less that I would expect. I tried a few slightly more obscure songs, one hands up and one electro, both of which I couldn't create a Genius playlist for. Next, I tried a happy hardcore track, which surprisingly created a very accurate genius playlist. A bit of other hhc tracks, but also some of my more melodic drum 'n' bass tracks and some more intense dance, techno and trance. There were a few misfits, but overall that one was mighty impressive.

I tried some tracks in some more popular genres, interestingly "Wouldn't Get Far" by Kanye West couldn't generate a playlist. I thought that was a fairly popular track. Generally, the more popular R&B/Hip Hop/Rap, Rock, and Pop tracks geniused quite well. However, it appears that genius takes a song's artist into account with alot of weight, because the playlist I generated off of Chris Brown's "With You" included the Freemason remix of "Green Light", probably because it is by Beyonce, even though the genre is listed as house, a stretch from "With You".

I would imagine that over the next few weeks, however, Genius's accuracy should improve quite a bit because of all the extra information it gets from new users. Looks to have quite a bit of potential. As well as just being able to quickly generate a playlist of songs to listen to, I imagine that it could be very useful for parties. I often end up "DJing" friend's parties (I DJ as a side job) off an iPod/my cd player and sometimes get stuck as to what to play next. Being able to just create a playlist based on the current song would be a great way to quickly get a list of similar songs to pick from.

One question: Could someone explain to me why iTunes restarts the song you create a genius playlist off of if the song is still in the first few seconds? I would think that it would be better to always continue to play the song and just jump to the playlist.

Wolfgang
 

36183

Guest
Jun 24, 2004
418
0
does anyone have details on how "genius" works. Does it analyse the waveforms of the songs ? or is it just using iTunes Music store purchase trends ?
 

anotherarunan

macrumors 6502
Sep 18, 2007
372
61
London, United Kingdom (UK)
Yknw i actually thought genius would suck, but its actually damn good. Although, i dont think its working the way its supposed to. The music DEFINATELY isnt the same genre/type as the one i selected, but as I like a mixture of music - its playing the best bits of my library and I LOVE it!
 
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