iPod Multiple Versions of the Same Song

[striovatti]

In my itunes library I have multiple versions of the same song - live versions, alternative takes, remixes, etc. Is it possible to combine all those versions into one placeholder. For example:

"David Bowie - Space Oddity" would be the song that is shown, and it would have a triangle or something collapsible that would take me to:
-- Space Oddity Live
-- Space Oddity alternative version

I am pretty sure this isn't available... What are your thoughts on this?
When itunes would come across a song like this it would play one of the different versions rather than have a saturated library with one song taking up 3-4 places (more probability of a song or artist coming up [I have a lot of live Radiohead])

 

[GGJstudios]

iTunes can't do that, and it shouldn't. How would iTunes know which version you wanted to play? Also, the songs you mention have different names. iTunes can't recognize different names as duplicates of the same song.

 

[striovatti]

I'm saying if it is possible to manually assign a cluster of songs to one another. And iTunes would just randomly choose one of those songs to play if it came on shuffle and if you don't want to hear a particular version you can cycle it or manually select it as a collapsible item.

I wish iTunes could do this...

 

[iMacmatician]

In my itunes library I have multiple versions of the same song - live versions, alternative takes, remixes, etc. Is it possible to combine all those versions into one placeholder. For example:

"David Bowie - Space Oddity" would be the song that is shown, and it would have a triangle or something collapsible that would take me to:
-- Space Oddity Live
-- Space Oddity alternative version

I am pretty sure this isn't available... What are your thoughts on this?
When itunes would come across a song like this it would play one of the different versions rather than have a saturated library with one song taking up 3-4 places (more probability of a song or artist coming up [I have a lot of live Radiohead])

YES PLEASE I would definitely like this feature (was in my wish list for iTunes 8). Right now the only "way" to do this is to go in the Finder and replace one song/video with another one, which is not really a solution. I would also like the triangle (not the individual items) to (at least have the option to) display the total play count of its constituent items and use that when sorting lists etc. And I guess the cluster could be named after the "selected" song/video (like "Space Oddity Live cluster").

 

[slu]

Sounds like a playlist to me. Or a combination of playlists to be more specific.

Create a playlist folder called "David Bowie".

Then in that playlist folder create a playlist "Space Oddity" and put all the versions of that song in that playlist. Then create another playlist in the folder called "Suffragette City" and do the same thing. Repeat as much as you'd like.

The beauty of doing it this way is you can play the whole playlist folder or just the individual playlists within the folder.

I have a similar setup for what I call "5 stars by artists". I have a playlist folder called that, then inside that folder I have smart playlists setup for my 10 favorite artists or so where songs are rated 5 stars. Works out well for me.

EDIT: Then you could create another smart playlist that is limited to a set number of songs from this playlist folder and it selects the songs based on play count or last played date so you get a bit of variety. Experiment with the smart playlists. They are quite powerful.

I know this is not exactly what you are looking for, but it is the best I could do.

 

[striovatti]

Thank you, I'll suggest it to I guess.