iTunes Smart Playlist Help Please..

[dalvin200]

I've got a problem and not sure how I can solve it using the Smart Playlist in iTunes..

Please bear with me - you may need to read it a few times to understand.

Basically, I have my Library, and then I have a bunch of playlists (which are mostly of album nature)

Each month, I create another playlist of ALL tracks for that month (they can be from the general library and/or from playlists also). This is a standard playlist - Lets say "Best of month - ALL"

At the end of the month, I have another playlist which has an audio CD worth (say 17-20 tracks) from the playlist of ALL the months tracks - kinda like the Best of The Month playlist. This is a standard playlist. Let's say "Best of month - FINAL"

At the end of the month, anything not making it to the "Best of the month" playlist, I don't want anymore in iTunes or on my HDD taking up space. I only want to keep final playlist intact.
So, I then have Smart Playlist which states "Playlist IS ALL and Playlist IS NOT FINAL" to filter those tracks that didn't make it onto the final version out ready to delete. Lets call this smart playlist "To Delete - Not on Final"

The problem is, that some of the tracks in the "To Delete - Not on Final" are located in other playlists (albums etc..) and not just in the general Library. I do not want to really delete these tracks that are in other playlists.

How can I set another Smart Playlist (or add to the existing one) witout actually specifying IS NOT playlist name, as there could be tracks from a total of 5 or 6 different playlists, so I would always have to edit the Smart Playlist.

Is there a way to say IS NOT in ANY OTHER PLAYLIST but this smart playlist?

I hope the above makes sense!!

If I'm making a big meal out of this process and you can think of a better way, then please suggest.

Your feedback is much appreciated

Thanks

 

[dalvin200]

bumpin..

someone must have some ideas? pretty please?

 

[rockstarjoe]

The long way to do it would be to say "Play list is not (Playlist 1)" and "Playlist is not (Playlist 2)" etc, until you have excluded all of the playlists from which you do not want any tracks deleted.

Or, create a smart playlist of all of your other playlists, and then say "Playlist is not (Playlist of every other playlist)."

 

[GimmeSlack12]

My research into this problem led me to what Rockstarjoe said. Choose songs played in past 30 days by playcount and exclude if the songs are on however many number of other playlists you have. This isn't a total solution to your problem though.

I must ask though, if you have a new iMacintel then why are you worried about Hard drive space? You should have plenty of space. But I guess everyone has their quirks regarding their music libraries.

 

[Sayer]

Okay so you want a monthly playlist with some number of songs in it. Sounds like this is a manually created list? Not too important...

And you want a month-end list with the best songs of the month, automagically selected.

So you need some way to promote one song over another, using a metric that a Smart Playlist can use as a filter. And you also want to delete solo songs that are not in any other playlist you already have.

Your solution is to simply use the Star Ratings and Smart playlist features of iTunes and make a single folder for all your other (album) playlists.

So make a Folder in the Source list (File menu-> New Folder). Place ALL your album/manual playlists in this folder. Call it "My Albums" or whatever.

For your month-end Smart Playlist simply create the rules (more or less) as follows:

Month End Smart Playlist:

Match -all-:
-Playlist- is -My Monthly Playlist-
-My Rating- is greater than -**...- (or some other value of Stars you want)

Limit to: -650- MB -most often played- (to fit on a single CD, or 700 for 70 minute CDs)

And then to get items to delete (permanently):

DELETE BLAH SONGS Smart Playlist:

Match -all-:
-Playlist- is -My Monthly Playlist-
-My Rating- is less than -**...- (or some other value of Stars you want)
-Playlist- is not -My Albums- (the name of the Folder of playlists)

So you now have two auto-updating lists. One automagically takes the "best" songs from your (manual?) Monthly list and captures the most often played up to approx. one Audio-CD in size.

Any song in the Monthly list and NOT in the other Album lists AND has a low rating gets stuck in the To Delete Smart Playlist - automagically as well. This way you can "save" a song you may not want to delete right away, and will NEVER delete any song in the other existing playlists.

Notes:

You can set Star ratings on every iPod except the shuffle, and via the Dock menu for iTunes. Now the only playlist you must manually edit is your monthly selection of songs. Everything else is automatic. And to add a new playlist to the DONT DELETE group simply add it to the "My Albums" Folder.

My scheme uses the Star ratings so that you can quickly and easily make adjustments to songs you do/do not like compared to others while you listen. By simply tweaking the Smart playlist you can capture only higher ranked songs for inclusion on CD even if you only listen to the song a few times. To do this just change -most often played- to -highest ranked- in the CD-collecting Smart Playlist.

What makes this very easy to set up is the fact that iTunes treats a folder of playlists as one BIG playlist, making it very easy to check if a song is in any inclusive playlist in one step.

Sound good?

 

[dalvin200]

I must ask though, if you have a new iMacintel then why are you worried about Hard drive space? You should have plenty of space. But I guess everyone has their quirks regarding their music libraries.

Clutter I don't want to keep stuff I don't want.. why would I want to do that?

 

[dalvin200]

Sound good?

That sounds like a viable solution..

I will give it a try over the weekend and post back my results..

I find your method better than having to manually edit the smart playlist stating playlist IS NOT xxx numerous times..

star ratings.. i've never used those!! lol.. sounds good

thanks