I really want to use the iTunes ratings system, but I'm still on the fence as to how to use the stars. I mean, I know they are a rating system, but I'd just like to get some ideas of how people determine what each star means and if you change your ratings over time.
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Do you use the iTunes ratings system, and if so how do you classify your "stars"?
- Thread starter reubs
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Kermit the frog
macrumors regular
I'm a huge user of smart playlists. Whenever i hear a song on my computer or on my ipod and I like it i'll rate it. That way later on when I'm making a playlist I can specify it to play top rated songs. I think its awesome
iKwick7
macrumors 65816
I listen to my music strictly using playlists. The majority of my listening is in my "4-5 stars" playlist. Here's how I break it down:
5 stars: Absolutely fantastic song. These are songs I absolutely love and would never skip.
4 stars: Awesome songs. Sometimes I may not really feel in the mood for a song here, so occasionally I will skip a song.
3 stars: Good songs, like listening to a radio station that I like. I like these songs but there is a good chance I will skip a song.
2 stars: Poop, but not worth deleting.
1 stars: All my videos, so they don't find there way into the other playlists. I don't rate my videos. There are no "1 star" songs, because I would have deleted a song before it got that low.
Every single song I have is rated. Huge pain in the toosh, since I am somewhere around 4,000 songs that I have amassed since way before iTunes and they all needed to be rated. Gotta love the fact that if you change the rating of a song on your iPod, it updates when you reconnect your iPod. That was HUGE for me since I listen to music at work and I slowly dwindled my "0 stars" playlist from 4,000+ to 0. 🙂
Off topic, but I also have a few other playlists such as "Tiki bar" (for beach party music, "Sleep" (for songs when its time to go to sleep), "Learn to Speak Italian (self explanatory), and a couple playlists specifically containing artists of said playlist's name.
5 stars: Absolutely fantastic song. These are songs I absolutely love and would never skip.
4 stars: Awesome songs. Sometimes I may not really feel in the mood for a song here, so occasionally I will skip a song.
3 stars: Good songs, like listening to a radio station that I like. I like these songs but there is a good chance I will skip a song.
2 stars: Poop, but not worth deleting.
1 stars: All my videos, so they don't find there way into the other playlists. I don't rate my videos. There are no "1 star" songs, because I would have deleted a song before it got that low.
Every single song I have is rated. Huge pain in the toosh, since I am somewhere around 4,000 songs that I have amassed since way before iTunes and they all needed to be rated. Gotta love the fact that if you change the rating of a song on your iPod, it updates when you reconnect your iPod. That was HUGE for me since I listen to music at work and I slowly dwindled my "0 stars" playlist from 4,000+ to 0. 🙂
Off topic, but I also have a few other playlists such as "Tiki bar" (for beach party music, "Sleep" (for songs when its time to go to sleep), "Learn to Speak Italian (self explanatory), and a couple playlists specifically containing artists of said playlist's name.
Diatribe
macrumors 601
Pretty much the same as iKwick, I have 10,000 songs and all are rated. Definitely a pain in the butt but so wirth it.
5 stars: Absolute favorites
4 stars: Great songs
3 stars: Good songs (last rating that goes in playlists)
2 stars: Skits, Interludes, Intros and just plain bad songs that I won't delete because they're part of an album
1 star: Delete when song (easy way to mark songs to delete on iPod) or mark as 1 when language course, etc. so it doesn't get mixed up in music
Funny, actually it is pretty much spot on with the system iKwick uses.
5 stars: Absolute favorites
4 stars: Great songs
3 stars: Good songs (last rating that goes in playlists)
2 stars: Skits, Interludes, Intros and just plain bad songs that I won't delete because they're part of an album
1 star: Delete when song (easy way to mark songs to delete on iPod) or mark as 1 when language course, etc. so it doesn't get mixed up in music
Funny, actually it is pretty much spot on with the system iKwick uses.
yetanotherdave
macrumors 68000
5 - amazing song
4 - really like
3 - ok
2 - not too sure about this
1 - don't really like
I don't like deleting stuff, my tastes change over time and I have all my wife's songs on the iPod too for in the car.
I'm trying to rate everything, I have a smart playlist set up
conditions: live updating, random songs must have rating of less than 1 star (eg no stars) repeat, shuffle. When I'm in the mood I'll listen to that playlist and update songs as I go.
4 - really like
3 - ok
2 - not too sure about this
1 - don't really like
I don't like deleting stuff, my tastes change over time and I have all my wife's songs on the iPod too for in the car.
I'm trying to rate everything, I have a smart playlist set up
conditions: live updating, random songs must have rating of less than 1 star (eg no stars) repeat, shuffle. When I'm in the mood I'll listen to that playlist and update songs as I go.
kalisphoenix
macrumors 65816
I only have complete albums, which makes it a little tricky. Some albums *glares at David Bowie and Tom Petty, two terrible offenders* suffer from massive amounts of filler. Others don't. Anyway, I keep all the songs, no matter how lousy.
0 Stars -- means it's unrated, natch.
1 Star -- everything is at least this high.
2 Stars -- In the best 75% of my music. (It's much better for me to use numbers and logic to quantify my appreciation for a song. It keeps the ratings useful and the ratios apt)
3 Stars -- In the top half of my music.
4 Stars -- In the top 25%.
5 Stars -- In the top 10%.
Also, I do an album rating. For this, I add together the ratings of all the songs on the album and divide by the track number. Simple, no? I then multiply the number by ten and put it in the BPM field (ie, 45 = 4.5 stars). Theoretically, this would yield a 0-5 scale, but it really yields a 0-4 scale. Still, only a few bands (Nirvana, Leonard Cohen, Pink Floyd, Velvet Underground, etc) are in the 4-star category. The rest of them are distributed much like the song ratings -- 10, 25, 50, 75%. Might seem brutal for me to have a lot of 1-star albums, but I'm a pretty harsh critic and I have a lot of music 🙂
Of course, this system will likely change, at least in ratios. I'm rebuilding my library from scratch right now with lossless, good album art, meticulous ratings, etc. Mostly what I have right now are my favorite albums of all time as well as those that are just lying around -- so these ratios are pretty skewed no doubt. Instead of 10, 25, 50, 75, I'd like to have something like 5, 10, 20, 40, 80.
0 Stars -- means it's unrated, natch.
1 Star -- everything is at least this high.
2 Stars -- In the best 75% of my music. (It's much better for me to use numbers and logic to quantify my appreciation for a song. It keeps the ratings useful and the ratios apt)
3 Stars -- In the top half of my music.
4 Stars -- In the top 25%.
5 Stars -- In the top 10%.
Also, I do an album rating. For this, I add together the ratings of all the songs on the album and divide by the track number. Simple, no? I then multiply the number by ten and put it in the BPM field (ie, 45 = 4.5 stars). Theoretically, this would yield a 0-5 scale, but it really yields a 0-4 scale. Still, only a few bands (Nirvana, Leonard Cohen, Pink Floyd, Velvet Underground, etc) are in the 4-star category. The rest of them are distributed much like the song ratings -- 10, 25, 50, 75%. Might seem brutal for me to have a lot of 1-star albums, but I'm a pretty harsh critic and I have a lot of music 🙂
Of course, this system will likely change, at least in ratios. I'm rebuilding my library from scratch right now with lossless, good album art, meticulous ratings, etc. Mostly what I have right now are my favorite albums of all time as well as those that are just lying around -- so these ratios are pretty skewed no doubt. Instead of 10, 25, 50, 75, I'd like to have something like 5, 10, 20, 40, 80.
5 stars = Favorites
4 stars = Good songs
Everything else is unrated. Instead giving a low rating to something I don't like, I just delete it.
4 stars = Good songs
Everything else is unrated. Instead giving a low rating to something I don't like, I just delete it.
dukebound85
macrumors Core
5=awesome
4=really good
3=i recognize this song
2=dont use
1=dont use
0=most of my stuff which is subject to above ratings
i am on the ultimate quest to make a cd that includes songs i will never want to skip. no matter what, any burned cd will have songs id prefer to skip. this is my holy grail haha
4=really good
3=i recognize this song
2=dont use
1=dont use
0=most of my stuff which is subject to above ratings
i am on the ultimate quest to make a cd that includes songs i will never want to skip. no matter what, any burned cd will have songs id prefer to skip. this is my holy grail haha
balamw
Moderator emeritus
Same way I do Amazon.
B
- Don't like it, can't even understand why anyone would, remove from library
- Don't like it, but see some redeeming qualities, keep it around for a while
- It's OK, enjoyable on shuffle, but I could live without it and could skip
- Like it, enough to not skip very often
- Love it, must sync and listen to every time
B
Eraserhead
macrumors G4
for me it's 4-5 excellent (with 5 better than 4 generally), 3 ok, 2-1 rubbish (probably should be deleted) 0 - unrated, tbh I do like the WMP system of rating everything 3* to start with.
I use the star rating system, but it doesn't reflect how much I like the song.
5 stars: Audio mixes I made in Soundtrack Pro for video editing
4 stars: iTunes Plus songs
3 stars: iTunes songs
2 stars: Songs ripped from CDs
1 star: (No use yet)
5 stars: Audio mixes I made in Soundtrack Pro for video editing
4 stars: iTunes Plus songs
3 stars: iTunes songs
2 stars: Songs ripped from CDs
1 star: (No use yet)
dukebound85
macrumors Core
joepunk
macrumors 68030
At the moment I rate the really great individual songs w/2 stars. Then I have a smart playlist for just 2 stars.
5 stars mean that I need to trash the file. Either I've burned it already or I don't like it.
After looking over others rating systems I'm thinking of including some of those ideas.
5 stars mean that I need to trash the file. Either I've burned it already or I don't like it.
After looking over others rating systems I'm thinking of including some of those ideas.
I do something similar; use the star ratings as a quick way to mark things for smart playlists. 5 stars is for short melodic pop-rock songs; 4 stars for extremely mellow music from all genres; 3-1 not used yet.
zephead
macrumors 68000
I'd say I use the ratings pretty much like Diatribe.
5 - Absolutely love the song
4 - Great song, listen to it regularly
3 - I like this song, but just not as much as a 4
2 - Don't particularly like the song, but I'd listen to it because it's part of an album
1 - Ick, I'm only keeping it because it's part of an album, and even then I'd have to be feeling pretty generous for this song to get played. If it's not part of an album, it's gone.
I don't rate podcasts or videos, and I have most of my songs rated, unless the song didn't strike me enough to rate it yet, or if I was just too lazy to. I only rate songs that I've played though.
5 - Absolutely love the song
4 - Great song, listen to it regularly
3 - I like this song, but just not as much as a 4
2 - Don't particularly like the song, but I'd listen to it because it's part of an album
1 - Ick, I'm only keeping it because it's part of an album, and even then I'd have to be feeling pretty generous for this song to get played. If it's not part of an album, it's gone.
I don't rate podcasts or videos, and I have most of my songs rated, unless the song didn't strike me enough to rate it yet, or if I was just too lazy to. I only rate songs that I've played though.
siurpeeman
macrumors 603
five stars: newly purchases/ripped songs. these songs get added to my smart playlist of four/five star songs, and it gives me a chance to listen to the songs before i give them a final rating.
four stars: absolute favorites.
three stars: good/great songs. just isn't an absolute favorite.
two stars: mediocre songs. these are songs i usually download on a whim.
one star: songs i don't care much for. sometimes they get deleted. sometimes they stick around for reasons i can't explain.
four stars: absolute favorites.
three stars: good/great songs. just isn't an absolute favorite.
two stars: mediocre songs. these are songs i usually download on a whim.
one star: songs i don't care much for. sometimes they get deleted. sometimes they stick around for reasons i can't explain.
Mitthrawnuruodo
Moderator emeritus
*****: Excellent
****½: Almost there
****: Good
***½: Could be good
***: OK
**½: Could be OK; cut off point for many smart playlists (My rating is greater than **)
**: Barable
*½: Could be barable
*: Junk; excluded from most other smart playlists (My rating is not *)
½: Not really in use
-: Not yet rated 😉
[Add-remove a half star]
****½: Almost there
****: Good
***½: Could be good
***: OK
**½: Could be OK; cut off point for many smart playlists (My rating is greater than **)
**: Barable
*½: Could be barable
*: Junk; excluded from most other smart playlists (My rating is not *)
½: Not really in use
-: Not yet rated 😉
[Add-remove a half star]
Tom B.
macrumors 65816
5 Star: Amazing songs that i would almost never skip.
4 Star: Good songs that i really like, but may skip quite often.
3 Star: Fairly good, but not good enough to want to listen too.
2 Star: Not good at all, but for some reason it cannot be deleted (skits, intros, outros, etc.)
1 Star: Absoulutely awful, to be deleted straight away, unless they are handy when trying to annoy someone (Examples: Crazy Frog, O-Zone, etc.)
Not Rated: Podcasts, music videos, all other videos, and songs i have not had time to rate.
4 Star: Good songs that i really like, but may skip quite often.
3 Star: Fairly good, but not good enough to want to listen too.
2 Star: Not good at all, but for some reason it cannot be deleted (skits, intros, outros, etc.)
1 Star: Absoulutely awful, to be deleted straight away, unless they are handy when trying to annoy someone (Examples: Crazy Frog, O-Zone, etc.)
Not Rated: Podcasts, music videos, all other videos, and songs i have not had time to rate.
