Smart Playlist Dumb User

[Proteosome]

I have been helping my parents setup their iPod and iTunes software but I am having problems with smart playlists. I need to make a playlist from a playlist. Here is the scenario:

My dad has made a basic playlist with all the music he likes from the main library. He now wants to make subplaylists for his various activities, ex cruising, working out. He wants to make sub-playlists based on various artists from his main playlist.

Ideally I am trying to say:

Sub-playlist 1 = Look for artists X, Y, and Z only in playlist A.
Sub-playlist 2 = look for artists R, S, X only in playlist A.
.
.
.

Can this be done?

[PokerChip]

Yes, it can.

Let's assume your main playlist is called "Main". And each sub playlist will be called Sub A, Sub B, Sub C, and so on.

Once you have Main created, you need to create a new smart playlist called Sub A.

In the dialog window, you will need to set more than on condition to meet so a song ends up in Sub A. First, you'll need to say "Playlist is" and type "Main".
Then, you'll need to add a 2nd condition by clicking the plus sign. The second condition will be "Artist" than "is" than type the artist's name. Finally you need to make sure that, at the top of the window", you select "meet all criteria" rathe than "any of the following criteria".

You can add as many conditions as you want, as you can see from the vast selection in the pop up list.

That should do the trick.

[Proteosome]

Thanks. Unfortunately that was the first thing I tried. However, that method limits you to only one artist because the playlist must match all conditions. So for example, if I set conditions:

1 - playlist is Main
2 - artist is/contains Beatles
3 - artist is/contains abba

than the new playlist will have no songs in it because each song must match all three conditions. Ideally, I need a way to use AND OR NOT language for each condition, i.e. Match Condition 1 AND (Condition 2 OR Condition 3).

[PokerChip]

Thanks for correcting my flawed logic. Here's something else that comes to mind.

Use keywords in the Get Info window of your songs. Using your example, if Abba and the Beatles are music suitable for an activity, like cruising, you could enter the keyword "cruising" for each of your Abba and Beatles songs.

Now, create a smart playlist telling it to look for the keyword cruising. If you name the playlist "Cruising", I think you're set.

If you also think Abba is suitable for everyday listening, you could enter the keyword everyday beside cruising in the keyword box. That way, when you create a smart playlist looking for the keyword everyday, Abba will make it in there, but not the Beatles.

Does this make more sense?

[Proteosome]

Yes. I think that will work. It sounds like one extra step so I was trying for something simpler. Not that your approach is difficult, merely my parents are inept. For example, my mom did not know how to open the disk tray to put a CD in for ripping. They are not exactly very old either.

[Dog Byte]

I was trying to do a very similar thing and discovered that smart playlists are pretty limited. You can do what you want using a bunch of intermediate playlists:

Start with Playlist Dad
Create playlist Dad X (playlist = Dad and artist = X)
Create playlist Dad Y (playlist = Dad and artist = Y)
Create playlist Dad Z (playlist = Dad and artist = Z)

Create playlist Dad Cruising (playlist = Dad X or Dad Y or Dad Z)

Adding tags to the comment ("Cruising", "Workout", etc) is a more elegant way and you can multiselect to update a lot of songs at once.

[RogerRoll]

How about making one list of artists X, Y , and Z
Then call for this list AND the A list.

[Dog Byte]

RogerRoll beat me to it.

Create playlist Cruising Artists (artist = X or artist = Y or artist = Z)

Create playlist Dad Cruising (playlist = Dad and playlist = Cruising Artists)

I tried it and and it works. That boolean logic course I took in 1978 is really paying off now.

[Proteosome]

I had thought of doing it like Dog Byte initially said. However, I was trying to keep the number of playlists to a minimum. Although, I suppose I could use folders to organize the artist playlists and keep them hidden. I only recently learned that I could create a folder in iTunes. I personally don't use playlists too much. I prefer to rely on Genre tagging.

RogerRoll's amendment to the technique would clean it up a little. I haven't had the opportunity to go and fix the problem yet so I'll have to keep this trick in mind. My goal is to make it as simple as possible so they can do it on their own without my help.

It's funny how they can be so dumb when it comes to computers. I believe they are afraid of breaking something so they don't bother to play around with the software to see what different functions do.

Thanks all for the help.

[urbanlegend]

In a smart playlist you can set the playlist to match ALL or ANY of the arguements you list. This will allow you to list multiple artists, genres, etc that you either want or don't want in a list.