iPod classic shuffle question

Shuffle by Album.

Either, by going into the Settings/Shuffle and pressing the centre button which will toggle between Off/Songs/Albums or if you are already playing something, selecting the centre button until it gets to Shuffle, (the order is Now Playing/Time Scroll/Rating/Shuffle) and once there, you use the scroll wheel to highlightAlbums and simply press the centre button to select that choice.

Don't forget, if you use the second method, then if you are playing (for example) track 3, then the album will then play 4, 5 etc and miss out tracks 1 & 2. You would also need to start this from an appropriate menu, such as Songs or Albums.

You need to use the shuffle by album feature, but select a track out of a playlist. That way all the albums in the playlist can play in a random order.

tt2

Hmm, I don't have a classic to hand for testing and its a long time since I used one. What I do recall is that if you drill down to an album through the menu system then you only get to play that album. The iPod doesn't automatically go into single track or album shuffle afterwards (though of course that would be ideal).

It may be that if you drill down to Songs and start playing there it will do what you want. Otherwise a smart playlist of all your music isn't hard to generate. You may even have a "Music" playlist already.

tt2

Curlermon:

since you said you had achieved this before, I was trying to avoid padding out my post with unecessary information. My apologies.

As turingtest2 says, if you drill down to the allbum itself, then only that album will play. I.E. from either the Main Menu or the Cover Flow Menu for instance; Albums/Album name/<track1>, then only that album will play.

So if you want to shuffle albums, then in addition to the pointers I mentioned before, you have to start the songs from, either:

1. Main Menu/Albums/All Songs/<pick a song>
2. Main Menu/Artists/All Albums/All Songs/<pick a song>
   
3. Main Menu/Songs/<pick a song>
   

But, note that unless you pick the first track of an album, then the play sequence will only play that first album from the track you selected but it will not play the tracks previous to that one.

So, for example: Let's assume you have 1533 songs on your iPod and that 13 of them are set to Skip on shuffle. We'll look at the album "Love Over Gold" (Dire Straits). {Look it up on Amazon if you don't own it}.

• If I go into menus 1 (Albums) or 2 (Artists) from the list above, and I choose the song "Industrial Disease" at random, then the number sequence you see at the bottom of the Now Playing screen will be 3 of 1533, because it's track 3 on the album. Tracks 1 & 2 on the album "Love Over Gold" will not be played, but every other song will, shuffled by album. So when track 5 on Love Over Gold finishes, another album will be chosen at random. You will eventually hear 1531 songs.
• However, if I go into the third item I mention above (Main Menu/Songs/<pick a song>); because songs are listed in alphabetical order, I can easily find the song "Telegraph Road" (which is track 1 on the album). If I start that one playing, then the number sequence on the Now Playing screen will be 1 of 1533. Every single song will play, but album by (random) album. Exactly what you want, I assume.

So in other words, you need to go down to the All Songs option of a menu and start playing a song from there.

There is another option for you. Suppose you want to play albums at random, but you want the first one to be "at random" too. Simply have the iPod in stop or pause mode. Go into Main Menu/Albums. At this point, the highlighter will be on All Songs. Don't go any further down, simply press the Play button, not the centre one. Once again, the number sequence will be 1 of 1533 and the first track of an album at random will be played.

Just so you know; if you have your iPod set to Shuffle/Songs, and you start the song "Telegraph Road" playing, then you will notice that the number sequence on the Now playing screen will start as 1 of 1520. This is because you have 13 songs set to Skip on shuffle, so they will not be played. You will however, hear (eventually) the other 1520 songs, played in a random order. Each "next song" will be from a different album.

It will be useful to know if my further explanation has helped you, so please let us know.

P.S. I still use my iPod Classic - along with my iPod Touch.

Message was edited by: the fiend

Ah, this is part of the issue I discuss in One cover, too many tracks. The iPod firmware mixes up all tracks with the same album name even when they have different artists. Giving each distinct album a unique name is the only way to resolve the issue (short of a firmware rewrite which isn't likely).

tt2

Yep, I sometimes worry that I seem to spend more time organising my music than listening to it. 😝

Check out the rest of that article for more tips on getting your iTunes collection really organised...

tt2

^ Currently listening to The Very Best Of Canned Heat 😉

I think you're getting there Curlermon. But as you've found, it's thrown up a different problem.

To be honest, I usually rename the Greatest Hits albums to include the artist name to the title.... assuming of course that the artist's "further greatest hits" is actually given a slighlty different title. 😁