iPod Why do I want to stream?

[HandsomeDanNZ]

I consider myself a bit of a modern, forward thinking, connected old fogey, so I am also quite torn between the want/desire to own and control my own library and also to embrace the new and shiny, enabling me to discover new artists, old artists I haven't heard or rediscover music I may have overlooked in the past.

I have all of my 6.9K tracks on my iPad, around half of those in selected playlists on my iPhone and then stream the curated stuff and anything else that isn't in my collection via Apple Music.

What I do like is that it gives me the opportunity to try an album before i buy it...but if I do like an album I WILL buy it.
I am a creature of habit and will buy the music I like so I can own it...

 

[AppleDApp]

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.

Great thank you.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Great thank you.

Yeah, no problem. If you didn't want to do the manual handling of it, you could also just pull stuff from that MUSIC POOL list. What the OFF and ON lists do is make it live updates without having to sync everything.

It was a bit confusing to read.

 

[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.

Going back to this, I decided what I'm doing is:

LOVED is TRUE
* DATE ADDED in the last 3 MONTHS
Limit to 25 ITEMS selected by MOST RECENTLY PLAYED

* If you don't add to your library that often, it makes sense to stretch this out a bit.

Going to have a little play with that "Love" option on some other lists. Combining it with the limitations, and last played options should give some interesting results in those custom mixes.

 

[0x100]

.

 

[caseyfriday]

I stream my local library from my networked server ;-) I rip my cds in raw format then i stream them to all my devices.

Do you use Plex for that? Their recent update to Music was great.

 

[AppleDApp]

Perhaps we may have to start a thread related to smartlist questions.

Does anyone know how I could go about creating a smartlist of

Songs all grouped as an album (this is my preferred way of listening)
That I have played the least recently
prefer albums that have 0 plays as a group
limit the playlist to a certain size without cutting out songs from an album

 

[roadbloc]

I do it occasionally to discover new music. But once I've discovered it, I've downloaded it. The internet in my area is in the stone age somewhat and these new streaming services work like absolute dog-**** on it.

 

[gnasher729]

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.

I'd be much happier if you could rate from 1 to 100.

 

[Jessica Lares]

I'd be much happier if you could rate from 1 to 100.

Ha, yeah, I could be messing with that all day though. It's as daunting as trying to rank your favorite songs of all time.

Would help with randomizing the playlists more though.

And oh yeah, AppleDApp, that isn't possible sadly. Not with just iTunes anyway. Would have to use some AppleScript.

 

[Traverse]

I'd be much happier if you could rate from 1 to 100.

I wouldn't want that much, but I do wish there was something more than just 5 stars. There are many songs that aren't 3's, but not quit 4's. Rating my library is actually really difficult because tastes change over time, but ratings are one of the only ways to utilize smart playlists on a meaningful level.

 

[Traverse]

@caseyfriday
@Jessica Lares
@sracer

Have any of you noticed that using the intermediate method, your final playlist doesn't update on iOS?

I have Base Pool and Dynamic Pool set up. I have a "Listen Now" playlist that pulls 25 items from "Dynamic Pool" but no matter how much I listen, this playlist never changes.

Does iOS not support linked playlists?
[doublepost=1496100688][/doublepost]It appears that linking to Manual or Smart playlists breaks it. So all this organization was almost pointless.
[doublepost=1496101869][/doublepost]I think the way I'll get around this (and I'll check after each update if it's working) is that manual [ON] playlist that I thought I could bypass, I'll keep that but instead I'll just "LOVE" everything in this playlist since I don't use that option and my "Listen Now" playlist will only take in songs that are loved. That is essentially the same as pulling from "Music Pool [ON]" I just can't pull from it directly.

*sigh*

Sometimes Apple really irritates me.

 

[caseyfriday]

@caseyfriday
@Jessica Lares
@sracer

Have any of you noticed that using the intermediate method, your final playlist doesn't update on iOS?

None of my smart playlists update on iOS, and I have my entire music library on my iPhone, so I guess they just removed that feature.

 

[Jessica Lares]

My smart playlists that AREN'T linked to another one do update, but no, the ones setup via those instructions don't.

 

[Traverse]

My smart playlists that AREN'T linked to another one do update, but no, the ones setup via those instructions don't.

This is my situation. Really annoyed at Apple. I don't want Apple Music and only basic smart playlist like "My Top Rated."

My workout around is when I copy stuff from the smart [OFF] playlist to the manual [ON] I then "heart" everything.

My daily use smart playlist then pulls from my whole library, but only he hearted songs. The hearts replace the manual [ON] playlist.

I just have to unlove and relove my refreshed [ON] playlist after each sync.