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iPod Help designing a smart playlist

OrangeCuse44

OrangeCuse44

macrumors 65832
Original poster
Oct 25, 2006
1,504
2
Not sure the easiest way of implementing this (hoping I won't have to go back and add comments to each song), but I want to create a smart playlist that contains only purchased singles and excludes any full album purchases. Is this even possible or do I have to add coments like "single" to every song I want in there?
 
Hi, I don't think it is possible to set apart purchased singles just like that. I used to have a fixed playlist "Singles - purchased" for a long time but lately, I care no longer whether my singles are purchased or not. Therefore I have a solution for you to make a smart filter on all your singles. However, it may not be exactly what you are looking for. Here is the best practice that did it for me:

For all (purchased) singles:
1. Make the "Album" tag empty (clear that field). You will loose some metadata because for purchased tracks this should be filled in, but most often it is dumb info anyway like the songtitle followed by "(Single)".
2. Make a smart playlist filtering on the "Album" tag being empty. Now, if you are not just using iTunes but an iPod or other device as well, you may encounter a problem there. The filter that works in iTunes (Album = "") does not work on you iPod and the filter that works on your iPod (Album = "Unknown album" does not work in iTunes. I posted a workaround today on this forum:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/791668/

This solution may sound trange at first, but for me it was the only way to get my singles' artwork as I wanted it, as can be read in this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/788537/

I hope it makes sense and helps you further.
 
jtheelen said:
Hi, I don't think it is possible to set apart purchased singles just like that. I used to have a fixed playlist "Singles - purchased" for a long time but lately, I care no longer whether my singles are purchased or not. Therefore I have a solution for you to make a smart filter on all your singles. However, it may not be exactly what you are looking for. Here is the best practice that did it for me:

For all (purchased) singles:
1. Make the "Album" tag empty (clear that field). You will loose some metadata because for purchased tracks this should be filled in, but most often it is dumb info anyway like the songtitle followed by "(Single)".
2. Make a smart playlist filtering on the "Album" tag being empty. Now, if you are not just using iTunes but an iPod or other device as well, you may encounter a problem there. The filter that works in iTunes (Album = "") does not work on you iPod and the filter that works on your iPod (Album = "Unknown album" does not work in iTunes. I posted a workaround today on this forum:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/791668/

This solution may sound trange at first, but for me it was the only way to get my singles' artwork as I wanted it, as can be read in this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/788537/

I hope it makes sense and helps you further.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the response. Unfortunately, I may be worse than Monk when it comes to OCD and iTunes organization. Blanking out the album name would probably give me nightmares, haha. I do appreciate the detailed answer, though.
 
OrangeCuse44 said:
Unfortunately, I may be worse than Monk when it comes to OCD and iTunes organization. Blanking out the album name would probably give me nightmares, haha.
Click to expand...

Your issue is not solved. If you could explain in more detail how you are organizing iTunes (good or bad) and why blanking out the album name would give you nightmares (is it the blanking itself that bothers you, or the loss of information?), then other people or myself could help you further.

PS. No problem with the detailed answer. I saw all my issues solved in no less than two days (after one year of struggling with iTunes) thanks to this forum.
 
jtheelen said:
Your issue is not solved. If you could explain in more detail how you are organizing iTunes (good or bad) and why blanking out the album name would give you nightmares (is it the blanking itself that bothers you, or the loss of information?), then other people or myself could help you further.

PS. No problem with the detailed answer. I saw all my issues solved in no less than two days (after one year of struggling with iTunes) thanks to this forum.
Click to expand...

My organization is just that I have everything labeled correctly; song names, artist name, album name, tracks in order, art work correct, genres correct. Having a blank album name would send shivers down my spine, I want to retain all info for tracks and albums.
 
Ok, I see: you're a good citizen. But so was I, and I believe I still am. Half a year ago it took me a whole week to get the metadata of all my songs in shipshape. But in order to get past some issues with iTunes (especially with regard to album artwork cluttering up my cover flow), I had to follow good guidelines from other people on this forum. Even though I loose some information from these "singles", I believe that should not be a problem because a single should not belong to an album. Period. That's what iTunes expects. That's also what I think you should do to be able to set them apart from real album tracks.

The reason, I think, iTunes fills out the album tag for each song purchased is because the iTunes store is album-oriented. It is not possible to buy an albumless piece of music or single. That's just how the store works, but it does not mean, in my honest opinion, that those album tags really mean something.

I don't think I can be of any assistance any more. I leave it to others to help you further.

Good luck.
 
Honestly, I would do something like add an asterisk or some other unique symbol to the Comments or Grouping field—whichever you don't use. Then you can just use "Kind is Purchased" AND "Comments contains *" to get your smart playlist.

Not sure how that would mesh with your iTunes-OCD. :)
 
Kate. said:
Honestly, I would do something like add an asterisk or some other unique symbol to the Comments or Grouping field—whichever you don't use. Then you can just use "Kind is Purchased" AND "Comments contains *" to get your smart playlist.

Not sure how that would mesh with your iTunes-OCD. :)
Click to expand...

Haha I think that's the only unobtrusive way to do this
 
I am like you where I want all my tags to be correct. I think I have over 100 songs from Anjunabeats singles and I would be really mad if none of them had album art and correct album information.

The best way to deal with this (if you have correct tags on everything, I assume you can figure the best method of efficiency), to make a smart playlist by track number with range, or add "Single" in the comment line in the songs in question. You can have multiple items in the comment section and it won't mess with other stuff. My tags are set up in a way where I can expand if necessary.

- Name - Track Name
- Artist - Track Artist (for specific track, use feat. and & here)
- Album Artist - The artist of the entire album or the dj who mixed the album
- Album Name - Name of the album
- Track Number - # of #
- Disc Number - # of #, 1 of 1 if a single disc release
- Year - Year obviously
- Grouping - This is for specific genres. I label all electronic music as "Electronica" but tags like House, Trance, Techno, Dance, etc, fall under this section.
- Composer - I use this for collections. I have a huge collection of Anjunabeats releases, so I put Anjunabeats here.
- Comments - This is where I put things like, Purchased, Friend, Notes on the song, and I put specific release dates here, where I purchased it from, and I use it when I'm cleaning up my library to note whether I have fixed the track or not.
- Genre - This is where I put the broad genre the track belongs in.


You can add whatever you want in Comments and not have it interfere with all the other things you might be using it for now. Just create a smart playlist for songs with Comments that CONTAIN "Single".

Another great way to make a singles playlist is to set it so "Track Number" is "In the Range" of "1 and 1" or "1 and 2". Most of my singles actually have up to 3 tracks per release, some as many as 8, but those are EPs (Extended Play albums).

BTW, I would really hate it if all of this didn't have album art...




EDIT - After playing around with the playlist for Track range, it doesn't work in the way I thought it would. It pulls any track that is that number whether the total tracks is 3 or 30.
 
Thanks for the detailed response, much appreciated. Looks like comments are the way to go for this.
 
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