Making Complex iTunes Smart Playlists

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Making Complex iTunes Smart Playlists

I'm trying to make a playlist that has a certain group of artists specified, limits itself to a certain number of songs randomly, updates live and has only songs with a rating greater than 3 stars.
The problem is, when I put those settings in, I get a blank playlist.
If I don't have a limit for a certain number of songs randomly, I get a playlist, but then I can't play them in a random order (which is really what I want to do).
If I use the limit and only specify one artist or only specify the song rating, I get a playlist that works fine but only has one artist or includes all of the artists in my itunes when I really don't want all of those artists.

Anyone got any tricks to make my playlist work or how to edit my Party Shuffle to do the same thing for me? It may not be life or death, but I would love to have this playlist....Thanks!

iMac G5, Mac OS X (10.3.9), iTunes 6.0.5

Posted on Sep 1, 2006 1:14 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 1, 2006 4:15 PM in response to mereditj

I've got some ideas on how to do this:

First, since you have multiple artists BUT also have a 3-star rating, these criteria can't work with an ALL or ANY criteria. What you need is build two (or more) playlists which build off each other.

For example:

Playlist 1--Favourite Artists (this will gather up your favourite artists): Match ANY Criteria/
[Artist] IS "Kylie Minogue"/[Artist] IS "Yazoo" [set as many of these "Artist IS" criterion as you like].

Playlist 2--Fave Artists Three Star Collection (Gather up 3-star songs of fave artists): Match ALL Criteria/[Playlist] IS "Playlist 1"/[My Rating] is [Greater Than] two stars.

Next, you'll want to check the "Live Updating" checkbox on both playlists BUT on "Playlist 2" you'll set the song limit setting.

Then, Playlist 2 will be the playlist that does as you wish.

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