Propose New MediaMonkey Video Tutorial. Crafting Autoplaylists for the Most Fickle Musical Tastes

Discussion about anything that might be of interest to MediaMonkey users.

Moderator: Gurus

Vinyl Monkey
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:12 pm

Propose New MediaMonkey Video Tutorial. Crafting Autoplaylists for the Most Fickle Musical Tastes

Post by Vinyl Monkey »

I am a retired software engineer and, over a year on the MediaMonkey learning curve, I have been fascinated with its data structures. So, my first practical effort about 6 months ago was that I used Send To Virtual CD to write about 1000 tracks to a USB flash drive to play on my car stereo.

I found myself in a discipline-fickleness clash. Over my programming career I learned strict software discipline. Nonetheless, while playing on my car stereo, I was shocked with my own restless fickleness. The Seek-next-track button was my favorite button. Rarely did any one track play to completion.

So, I got to thinking about what MediaMonkey features lend themselves to the best possible flexible fickleness. That, in turn, led me to my writing this posting. The idea here is to pick a simple set of my most powerful basic autoplaylists and to refine from there. Perhaps, on reading this, some of you may find my ideas too simple. What’s crucial is to drive a stake somewhere in the ground and to proceed from there. I found no MediaMonkey YouTube tutorial that did so. And, in particular, I am not interested in producing such a video tutorial myself, so I hope that I can interest one of you.

First, Autoplaylists are the most flexible way to play music. Sure, you can create Playlists and Collections, but they’re not as good.

Next, let’s divide track properties into 2 groups, into qualitative and descriptive properties. Let’s drill down on only the qualitative properties and dismiss all the others as simply descriptive.

I believe the following bullets list all of MediaMonkey’s most basic and important qualitative properties.

• The track or title that I choose to buy and save. I buy only what I want and ignore the rest.
• The Genres that I organize, where each of my Genres organize each of my musical tastes. Again, I choose only the
Genres that I like and ignore the rest.
• The Ratings that I give each of my tracks. I can score each track on a scale from 1 to 5 or, if we use half ratings,
e.g. 1.5 or 3.5, then the scale is effectively 1 to 10.

Here are my such autoplaylists, each based on its own Genre:

1. Favorite Choral
2. Favorite Classical
3. Favorite Pops
4. Favorite Rock n Roll
5. Favorite Shows
6. Favorite Vocalist

Each chooses a Genre, and, for me, “favorite” means that any track’s rating must be exactly 5, the maximum. Throw in a random sort, and each playlist-playing is a fresh as the last one.

Even with hundreds of tracks in each Playlist, these lend themselves to a remarkable surgical precision. Namely, each favorite autoplaylist deserves a careful shakeout or test run. Because I have hundreds of tracks in each genre, some of their ratings were years old. If so, stop the track and edit its rating. Continue that way listening and editing track ratings to the end of the playlist’s music.

At this point, if you wish, then you may widen the range of “favorite” to mean rating ranges, say, of 4-5 or 3-5.

Next, even further, you might wander away from my just-qualitative-property tests and to also include tests on descriptive properties. A word of warning. With hundreds of tracks, and for each more refined favorites-test, the greater the risk there is of having strange omissions. Remember each IF test determines both included and excluded tracks. Exclusions on such a scale require very, very careful thought, or otherwise, accidentally, certain tracks will get omitted, and thus never played. Finding how they got there can easily require hours of work. Not fun.

Bottom line. Simplicity is important. It guarantees more fun.

Might someone produce such a tutorial video? It should strengthen our shared affection for MediaMonkey.
Peke
Posts: 17446
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 7:21 pm
Location: Earth
Contact:

Re: Propose New MediaMonkey Video Tutorial. Crafting Autoplaylists for the Most Fickle Musical Tastes

Post by Peke »

Hi,
Thanks for lengthy post. There is one unclear thing?

Are you able to sync the way you wanted or still not? Also what device you use in car (eg. stereo with usb, Android Based Head unit, Factory infotainment, ...)?

FYI you can use simple <Playlist> mask as folder name and <Auto Number:3> as first mask of filename to have them sorted the way in playlist (eg. \Music\<Playlist>\<Auto Number:3> <Title> - <Artist>) and you will end on duplicates but all will be in same folder and played in order.
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
Image
Image
Image
How to attach PICTURE/SCREENSHOTS to forum posts
Vinyl Monkey
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:12 pm

Re: Propose New MediaMonkey Video Tutorial. Crafting Autoplaylists for the Most Fickle Musical Tastes

Post by Vinyl Monkey »

Hi Pavle, this is Dave; we’ve corresponded over 2 support tickets.

Regarding syncing, it sounds like you meant syncing between my office PC and my car stereo, sitting in the garage. Right now, my car stero and my PC MediaMonkey communicate only through all-music copies on to a USB flash drive. As I change my PC music, I have to make new copies on the flash drive; at least an hour of work each time.

Could I really sync from my office to my car stereo? Like turn on my car stereo stand-alone in the garage, and communicate via my WiFi router from my office? I checked Google; no good tutorial appears to exist. If I really could do it, might you please write up some instructions?

Next, your “simple <Playlist> mask as folder name and <Auto Number:3> as first mask of filename” idea sounds elegant too. I would like to play with it later.

Now, about my posting itself. Here’s a rewording of my goal. I want MediaMonkey to create my genres’ greatest-hits playlists (figuratively), with hundreds of tracks in each such playlist. Unlike music stores and radio stations, my playlists would not test my patience. No more junk music, period! My playlists are all mine; they are squeakily clean MY greatest hits; no commercial interests.

Next, among MediaMonkey’s YouTube videos, one to create such a playlist fills an important hole. Right now, the tutorials are skewed towards organizing, but NOT how to powerfully automate my very own tastes. Beginners need the help. Without it, any instruction about how to assert MY tastes is seriously flawed.

Next, given the scale of MediaMonkey’s features and thousands of tracks, when I go to play what I want, it is important to provide a strong starting point; to drive a stake in the ground. From there, then and only then, do tweaking and adjusting become easy.

Better?

Dave Owens
Feeding Hills, Massachusetts
Peke
Posts: 17446
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 7:21 pm
Location: Earth
Contact:

Re: Propose New MediaMonkey Video Tutorial. Crafting Autoplaylists for the Most Fickle Musical Tastes

Post by Peke »

Hi,
I know, it was constructive for both of us.

You disabled PM for forum :) I will send you email with instructions.
Best regards,
Peke
MediaMonkey Team lead QA/Tech Support guru
Admin of Free MediaMonkey addon Site HappyMonkeying
Image
Image
Image
How to attach PICTURE/SCREENSHOTS to forum posts
Vinyl Monkey
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:12 pm

Re: Propose New MediaMonkey Video Tutorial. Crafting Autoplaylists for the Most Fickle Musical Tastes

Post by Vinyl Monkey »

Pavle,

I still look forward to receiving your email.

Dave
Post Reply