[spatterson]

Just like the thread says.... So... How many playlists do you have in iTunes? I have 28 playlists right now. Basically now that I am digitizing my cd's, I create a new playlist for every cd I import....

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by spatterson:
Basically now that I am digitizing my cd's, I create a new playlist for every cd I import....

Why would you do that ? You can select songs on a per album basis.

And I have 3 playlists:

Favorite streams
Songs that have incomplete tags
Songs that need to be put on MiniDisc

Now after I receive my miniPod I'll probably add a few. I'm also ripping my CDs at the moment but doing what you're doing seems impossible, I'm already at +330 albums.

[spatterson]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Why would you do that ? You can select songs on a per album basis.

Would I vew it using the library? That was kind of a bad way of viewing it for me... Maybe you can suggest a new way.

[drive-thru]

95

Didn't realise it was that many, but I have a playlist for each full album I have imported (which accounts for most of them) then a few playlists I have made to group songs I like in certain genres.

One thing that annoys me is that if you have an artist called "The..." such as "The Starting Line", in the Library the artist name is filled under "S" ( ), whereas if I make a playlist (by selecting an album and clicking "New Playlist From Selection" it will call it "The Starting Line - (Album)" and file it under "T" ( ) in my alphabetical Playlist list (Playlist list (sounds funny))

If you have a band called "The Ataris", their music is near the top of my Library, but their albums are near the bottom of my Playlist list (confusing sometimes, that's all).
I guess I could re-name the Playlists to "Ataris, The - (Album)" but iTunes names them for me and that's the point of "New Playlist From Selection".

(One of my pet-hates I guess)

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by spatterson:
Would I vew it using the library? That was kind of a bad way of viewing it for me... Maybe you can suggest a new way.

Wel yeah, when in library view you can select songs using the Genre, Artist and Album panes (Browse). That's what I meant. If you don't like it use the playlists. It was just a suggestion

[RevEvs]

Just want to check that you know about the browse part of iTunes. I know someone who had a lot of playlists, one for every CD, as they were unaware of the Browse function.

revs

[zachs]

I have 18 playlists, not including the Purchased Music playlist A few are for individual albums I like, my On-The-Go Playlists for my iPod, Voice Memos (for the iPod), and then a few Smart Playlists (25 random songs, Top 10 Favorite songs & Least Favorites Songs).

[bimmerphile]

I stopped at 161, about 60% down

[SomeToast]

Originally posted by drive-thru:
If you have a band called "The Ataris", their music is near the top of my Library, but their albums are near the bottom of my Playlist list (confusing sometimes, that's all).
I guess I could re-name the Playlists to "Ataris, The - (Album)" but iTunes names them for me and that's the point of "New Playlist From Selection".

(One of my pet-hates I guess)

That's why using Browse in the Library is a good thing.

I have mirrored copies of playlists on the iPod (synced manually), a radio list, faves and a pile used for making CDs.

Since I use iTunes primarily for ripping and burning, not playback, my playlist set isn't too extensive.

[jcb9]

I have six smart playlists (including the included Top 25 and Recently played, plus one for songs I've given five stars, one for songs I haven't played yet, one for songs I have played, and one for songs that I haven't played it at least a week, haven't played more than 5 times, and gave more than 1 star), five manual playlists, and the Purchased Music playlist.

The Browse function works much, much better than creating a manual playlist for every single album. The only reason why you'd really need to create a playlist is if you're burning a copy of the album.

[wataru]

Originally posted by spatterson:
Just like the thread says.... So... How many playlists do you have in iTunes? I have 28 playlists right now. Basically now that I am digitizing my cd's, I create a new playlist for every cd I import....

I used to do that, but it's incredibly inefficient. And if your library ever gets screwed up you are SOL. It's much better to use the "Browse" view.

I have the following playlists:
Purchased Music (duh)
Top 50
Rarely played
Recently played
Newly added
Not yet played
iPod: Albums
iPod: Singles
iPod: Newly added
Party mix
Legal music ()

[SeSawaya]

204

Generally I'll have each album or group seperate but not always. Some 80s playlist, 50s ect

Party mixes ("Janet Renos Dance party" for new years eve!)

I love itunes and my ipod!

[iDriveX]

I have 286 Playlists. Those are all of my albums digitized. I don't like using the browse view, Playlist view seems to fit my brain better (I'm totally anal retentive, border line OCD), here's a shot of my iTunes Source List (a small part of it):



And no I'm not F'd if my library screws up because I don't let iTunes organize my music. I organize my music, here's a shot of my Finder's Music Folder:

[jfinete]

iDriveX, I know you have a lot invested in your song file management scheme, but you're wasting an incredible amount of your time and effort in maintaining it. It's time to embrace the metadata. Enable the "Keep music folder organized" option. Do it. Do it now and never look back. You'll be glad you did.

[spatterson]

I guess you could use the browse section. It may take a little while to get used to. But here is why I think its better. You don't waste as much time creating playlists, then draging the files over there... plus it becomes difficult using playlist mode when you have alot of playlists. So who knows I will try using browse mode for a while, and well if that dosent work then I will go back to my playlists...

Thanks for all the replies though!!!

[wataru]

Originally posted by iDriveX:
And no I'm not F'd if my library screws up because I don't let iTunes organize my music. I organize my music, here's a shot of my Finder's Music Folder:

Whether or not you're "F'd" has nothing to do with iTunes organizing your music. I'm talking about this: you'll have to recreate every single one of your playlists if something happens to your iTunes Library.

[drive-thru]

I prefer to make my own playlists as it, too, fits my brain better. I agree that it may be less efficient than the browse feature, but I like to have each part of the Info on my songs correct, so when I am importing an album and checking that the Info is correct for that group of files it doesn't take too much time to press Shift-Command-N and have iTunes create, and name, the playlist for me.

[drive-thru]

Btw...whenever I create a new playlist iTunes always makes the columns slightly wider than I would like, so they overlap the window. Is there a way to create a default width for new playlists?

[perryp]

Originally posted by drive-thru:
Didn't realise it was that many, but I have a playlist for each full album ..

You wouldn't need to do this if could see the album

[Apfhex]

I used to keep a playlist for each album, but there got to be quite a lot and was hard to maintain. Now I just use the Browse feature of the Library to listen to albums.

When I listen to music I just use the Library, but I also have one playlist for my iPod and one for new music that I get.

From time to time I feel like setting up a list to fit my current mood, or for a specific occasion, but I haven't done that in a while.

[iDriveX]

Originally posted by wataru:
Whether or not you're "F'd" has nothing to do with iTunes organizing your music. I'm talking about this: you'll have to recreate every single one of your playlists if something happens to your iTunes Library.

It's happened before to me and it's not that bad of a deal, All you do is open iTunes, and then drag the folders one by one into iTunes. The playlist will be automatically created, the songs in the folder will go into the playlist (and the library), and that's that. It's really that easy! This just fits my brain, fits my anal retentive lifestyle. Sometimes I will go out of my way, and make more work for myself, just to have things very organized.

[Amorya]

Originally posted by drive-thru:
Btw...whenever I create a new playlist iTunes always makes the columns slightly wider than I would like, so they overlap the window. Is there a way to create a default width for new playlists?

I think the default view is what you've set for your library.

Amorya

[Visnaut]

I used to organize my music just like you, iDrive. But then with Smart Playlists, and the ability for iTunes to clean up after itself and look after the file system organization, I stopped bothering.

I now have 11 gigs of music, and even before it was just too much to handle. But man, a playlist FOR EACH ALBUM? To each his own, I respect that, but I'd go mental if I had to deal with that.

Currently I have 67 playlists, 26 of which are regular playlists of custom mixes, soundtracks, or genres. The remaining 41 are Smart Playlists for most (not all) of the artists/bands i listen to. Then I simply sort each one by album. So when I rip a new CD by that particular artist, it just automatically shows up there. And if I want to listen to a particular album only, I simply use the search field to narrow the display down to just that one album in the playlist. Pretty efficient, in my book.

I don't like to use the Browse feature, because I simply have too many artists/groups listed, and it gets too complicated once you have songs that are collaborations between two artists and such, or tracks that are by "The Flaming Lips" as opposed to just "Flaming Lips". And sometimes I want to associate a particular artist's solo tracks with their band material as well. A good example of all this is my NIN smart playlist, because it lists all tracks that are by "NIN", "Nine Inch Nails" or "Trent Reznor".

I guess it helps to understand that I work at my computer for extended periods of time, and don't want to constantly be switching playlists. The average length of my playlists are about 4 hours. It's scary sometimes because i'll let it run through a 6-hour playlist, and be amazed at how seemingly fast time flew by while I'm working.

Now I just can't wait to afford an iPod to put all this great music on. I've even considered buying a second hand 5-gig'r. I've been suffering from severe technolust ever since they came out.

[rjenkinson]

Originally posted by iDriveX:
I have 286 Playlists. Those are all of my albums digitized. I don't like using the browse view, Playlist view seems to fit my brain better (I'm totally anal retentive, border line OCD), here's a shot of my iTunes Source List (a small part of it):

wouldn't using 0 playlists and the search window (for album names) be easier? you wouldn't ever need to scroll.

-r.

[iDriveX]

Originally posted by rjenkinson:
wouldn't using 0 playlists and the search window (for album names) be easier? you wouldn't ever need to scroll.

-r.

Scrolling doesn't bother me at all. But not having separate playlists for separate albums is like digitizing all your CDs and buring them onto one �ber-DVD and then just playing it from that one DVD. Yuck. Sometimes Consolidation isn't the best thing.

[wataru]

Some of you people are just weird.

[Cadaver]

I have about 15-20 playlists presently, but I'm always making new ones and removing old ones, so I never build up too much of a list, however.

[ryaxnb]

Almost 40, so I lied and said 40-80.

[3R1C]

I have 11 playlists. 9 are smart, 1 is regular and 1 is generated by applescript weekly. None of them are for listening to music, rather they are all for organizing and tagging.

1. Songs less than 128 kbit/sec
These are songs I need to get again because they are lower than my prefered bitrate.

2. Songs greater than 128 kbit/sec
These songs need to be down converted to 128, and this playlist is used by a custom applescript automatically nightly via cron. As each song is converted, the script moves the old file to the trash. I put them in the trash instead of deleting them, "Just In Case".

3. Flawed
These are songs I need to get again because they have a pop or glitch somewhere. I put "!flawed" in the comment tag followed by the time the flaw occurs. eg: !flawed 2:13

4. Short
These are songs I need to get again because they are shorter than what freedb.com says their length should be. I put "!short" in the comment tag followed by the time that cddb thinks it should be. eg: !short 3:27

5. Needs Album Tag

6. Needs Artist Tag

7. Needs Genre Tag

8. Needs Year Tag

9. Streams
This playlist exists for easy deleting of streams. You all know you can delete from smart/regular playlists by "option-delete" right?

10. No art
This playlist is 1 of 2 playlists I have that isnt a smart playlist. It is generated by a custom applescript I wrote that queries every song in my library to see if it has art. It is called by cron once per week at 6:00 am.

11. Massage Table
The other of 2 regular playlists. This is where I drag the nightly harvest to for tagging and such. It is the "Portal of Entry" into my Library. Entries gets tagged organized, checked, inspected, auditioned and possibly rejected via "option-delete".



As far as creating a new playlist for each new album, how does that look any different than simply scrolling the album column in the browser up top?

[toans]

Kind of off topic...but I was wondering what everyone's most played song is? and how many times has it been played?..

Before I lost all my playlist info...mine was Time - David Bowie

[Kenneth]

I am lazy... I don't like scrolling.

I use "search" or "browse".

I'm not on a Cinema HD display.. 1280x1024 here.

[WJMoore]

111, 85 Normal, the rest are Smart.

[Zadian]

I have 51 playlists (21 smart ones). About 15 are especially created to manage my iPod (essentials, special occasion playlists).

I use the browse view if i want to listen to an album. It's for me the fastest way to find the album (in the artist field type the two-three first letters of the artist, then select the album). If an album is selected in browse view, only that album is displayed in the library field.

Most of the time I'm listening to smart playlists based on genre, rating and last played.