iPod Why do I want to stream?

[dXTC]

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It may sound corny and cliche, but my music collection is the soundtrack of my life. Certain songs are strongly connected with certain times of my life.

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Same here. I know full well that some of the music on my nano's regular rotation were goofy as all get out when I first heard them, and still are today (I'm looking at you, Sigue Sigue Sputnik) but they were what was on at certain good times in my life.

I can discover new music without having to pay every month for the privilege, thanks to niche music blogs, Vevo and YouTube. I'd rather have the money I spend go directly to the artists I like, rather than to a service who splits the proceeds so razor thin that only the top acts get any sizeable revenue.

 

[BorderBobNY]

i mostly listen in my car and the gym. I don't want to burn data to do that so I don't use Rhapsody or Spotify or whatever. All I want is to be able to purchase music for my iPod and get it to sync properly. That has been all but impossible since iOS7 when they broke the music player with MATCH and now APPLE MUSIC. First with the "waiting for items to copy" bug and now with the broken 12.1 iTunes.



b.b.

 

[MH01]

Your potentially missing out on getting lower quality audio if you have HD music 🙂

I like my music collection, have not even bothered with the free trial.

 

[MH01]

Music discovery. #1 reason I like streaming.

That is one good reason .

 

[Jessica Lares]

I haven't tried the free trial either.

 

[JackieInCo]

I have my iPhones and iPad on 8.3 to keep iTunes Radio. I tried 8.4 on my 5S for a few days and went right back to 8.3. I didn't want to pay $9.99 for something I can still get for free in iTunes Radio plus I have the unlimited skips mod so there's that.

I've bought many songs over the years because I heard them on iTunes Radio.

I have XM in my car and I can also stream that for free on my iPad/iPhone.

I too prefer to have as much music as possible on my iPhone/iPad. I bought a 128GB Retina Mini 1.5 years ago just for that reason.

 

[throAU]

I must be missing the advantage(s) of streaming music. Why would I want this when I have my music stored locally on the device? Also, since I bought the music, I have it and can play/keep it forever. If I discontinue the streaming service, it's like the music is gone.

I know streaming is popular so I'm wondering if I'm missing out somehow.

Depends on how cheap/fast your internet is, and how much storage you have (and also how often you want to listen to a particular album).

If you have reliable fast internet, why waste the storage on it?

The choice to stream may vary depending on what device you are using. I don't bother too much about whether or not my music is streaming on my Mac for example, but obviously my iPod has no internet access and my iPhone has expensive 4g internet access...

 

[caseyfriday]

I have a 40GB library comprised of either 320kbps mp3 or ALAC files, mostly ripped from CD. I utilize Smart Playlists heavily (see attached guide), and I'm always very happy with how my music plays. It took a while to get it set up, but once it was set up, it all basically runs itself.

I also pay $36 a year for Pandora, for those times I want a little bit of a different set of tunes, but not necessarily music that I want to buy. The Smart Playlists plus Pandora combo works out great for me.

 

[AppleDApp]

I have a 40GB library comprised of either 320kbps mp3 or ALAC files, mostly ripped from CD. I utilize Smart Playlists heavily (see attached guide), and I'm always very happy with how my music plays. It took a while to get it set up, but once it was set up, it all basically runs itself.

I also pay $36 a year for Pandora, for those times I want a little bit of a different set of tunes, but not necessarily music that I want to buy. The Smart Playlists plus Pandora combo works out great for me.

Wow that document is super detailed I'll put that on my to do. Do you know how it scales? My library is about 120gb.

 

[caseyfriday]

Wow that document is super detailed I'll put that on my to do. Do you know how it scales? My library is about 120gb.

The bigger the library, the better. It makes sure you cycle through all the music you have. The way I make it manageable is by making the 6 (I actually use 7) 50-song playlists, so I can mentally keep track of what playlists I've heard and what song I'm on, until I sync again. That way is easier than trying to find your place in a 500-song playlist.

If you set it up and take the time to rate your music, it's almost better than a steaming service. I think of it as my own Pandora, with all the music I own.

 

[Jessica Lares]

I have been working on that smartlist setup. It's been pretty hard for me actually because I don't have much in my library that I can rate three stars or less. 😳

 

[caseyfriday]

I have been working on that smartlist setup. It's been pretty hard for me actually because I don't have much in my library that I can rate three stars or less. 😳

Remember that what you rate it has less to do with what you think of the quality of the music, and more to do with how often you want to hear it.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Remember that what you rate it has less to do with what you think of the quality of the music, and more to do with how often you want to hear it.

Good point.

 

[sracer]

The bigger the library, the better. It makes sure you cycle through all the music you have. The way I make it manageable is by making the 6 (I actually use 7) 50-song playlists, so I can mentally keep track of what playlists I've heard and what song I'm on, until I sync again. That way is easier than trying to find your place in a 500-song playlist.

If you set it up and take the time to rate your music, it's almost better than a steaming service. I think of it as my own Pandora, with all the music I own.

I neglected to thank you for posting that document. It has really helped me to develop playlists to explore my collection. These lists are serving up tracks that have me often thinking, "I forgot I had that!" 🙂

 

[caseyfriday]

I neglected to thank you for posting that document. It has really helped me to develop playlists to explore my collection. These lists are serving up tracks that have me often thinking, "I forgot I had that!" 🙂

Awesome! I initially set this system up in September 2007, so I've been enjoying it for 8 years now, and I knew more people would benefit from it if they had access to it.

 

[david91]

I'm happy to have iTunes than to pay $10 a month. It goes to my savings and could give me more time on other things.

 

[Traverse]

@caseyfriday That detail. 😱

I recently had iTunes malfunctions, so I deleted all my library metadata to start over. I manually restored the play counts but decided to listen to my entire library, redo my rating system, and utilize more than 8 puny manual playlists. This document is perfect! I actually spent a few days googling ideas a few weeks ago and this was exactly the type of information I was looking for. I've made 45 playlists (most of which are smart), but I'm still at the beginning phase of listening to my library so it's easy to adjust my system. I'm going to give this document a full read tomorrow. From my brief scan, it looks really helpful. I'll need to adjust some of my playlist.

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As for streaming, I just like to keep my local and cloud libraries separate. Especially since much of my music isn't on iTunes. I'd rather accumulate an expansive local library and use smart playlists to create my own radio-type service like caseyfriday mentioned. I'll continue to use Spotify to explore some new music though.

And since my library will soon be too big to fit on my non-iOS iPods, the use of playlists will be more important than ever.

 

[Traverse]

I have been working on that smartlist setup. It's been pretty hard for me actually because I don't have much in my library that I can rate three stars or less. 😳

This was my main problem with my old library. 90% of the songs had 4 or 5 stars! But I liked them all!

Remember that what you rate it has less to do with what you think of the quality of the music, and more to do with how often you want to hear it.

Why did I never think of it like that!? I struggled because there are some really good quality songs, but I don't want to hear them all that often. I think a rating by how often you want to listen as opposed to quality (which aren't completely unrelated) is a much better approach.

 

[caseyfriday]

Why did I never think of it like that!? I struggled because there are some really good quality songs, but I don't want to hear them all that often. I think a rating by how often you want to listen as opposed to quality (which aren't completely unrelated) is a much better approach.

Seriously, if you can either use your iPod and rate as you listen, or just go through your iTunes library and rate everything manually (even by album, to start), and just keep adjusting the ratings as you see fit, this system is the best thing since the introduction of the iPod! I'm constantly amazed at how good the playlists get. They play just enough of what I want to hear, and they add in the perfect mix of music I might not otherwise play, but don't mind hearing it every 20% or so.

 

[AppleDApp]

Has anyone tried the intermediate smartlist setup from caseyfriday's document?

 

[Jessica Lares]

Not yet.

I DID do a slight tweak though. HERBS is supposed to be a manual playlist, but I made it to a Smart Playlist that has the "Loved" option set as "is true". There's probably more I could do to make that work a little better, maybe only include stuff I've played in the last few months or something, and limit it to a X amount of songs, but I'll deal with it later. The SPICES playlist looks pretty good.

Just makes sense that if you "Love" something now, you want to hear it again in the near future.

 

[caseyfriday]

Not yet.

I DID do a slight tweak though. HERBS is supposed to be a manual playlist, but I made it to a Smart Playlist that has the "Loved" option set as "is true". There's probably more I could do to make that work a little better, maybe only include stuff I've played in the last few months or something, and limit it to a X amount of songs, but I'll deal with it later. The SPICES playlist looks pretty good.

Just makes sense that if you "Love" something now, you want to hear it again in the near future.

Very nice; I didn't even think of that option!

BTW, I'm only the messenger. The document was not written by me.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Successfully managed the intermediate smartlist setup. Good stuff. Initially I added unrated stuff to the exclusion list, so when I got there, I had to go back and remove that option. 😳

And yeah, I knew that. 😉 Thanks for the share though!

 

[AppleDApp]

Successfully managed the intermediate smartlist setup. Good stuff. Initially I added unrated stuff to the exclusion list, so when I got there, I had to go back and remove that option. 😳

And yeah, I knew that. 😉 Thanks for the share though!

Which playlist have you synced to your device? I am currently going through all unplayed tracks.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Which playlist have you synced to your device? I am currently going through all unplayed tracks.

MUSIC POOL[ON]
DYNAMIC POOL

And then those last playlists that pull from the DYNAMIC POOL, the ones in the examples "All of It", "Exploration", and then I made some custom mixes based off genres and artists.