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Topic: [fb2k v2] Random Pools (foo_random_pools) (Read 175308 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #250
If I use option "Add, when the playback position is 1 items or less from the end" and the option "Determine probability for picking groups based on group size" is selected - random_pools will see all the songs (and artists and albums) which were played before. But you say, it can't understand what is artist repeating and how to avoid it?

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #251
From the 6 groups created by this, I was hoping to get 1 track each from the 3 largest groups (total 3 tracks) at any given time, but I am getting all 3 tracks from 1 largest group.
Also this is not possible.

Thanks for the clarification. It was not clear from the description, which said picking groups, which led me to believe it will pick more than one.

...  is it possible to configure this plugin so that within 2 hours no artist are repeated?

Should be possible if you have enough number of artists in your library.

Set group to %artist%
Disable 'Determine possibility for picking groups based on group size'
Number of groups to add: (Should be equal to or greater than the number of artists in your library)
Number of tracks to add: 1
Enable Limit after sorting
Sort: $rand()
Enable Sort/Limit each group
Enable Filter with content of the target playlist

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #252
It was not clear from the description, which said picking groups, which led me to believe it will pick more than one.
Yes, it does. But all groups are independent from each other if you check "Determine probability for picking groups based on group size", while distinct groups are picked, if this option is not checked. In both cases this is not want you want to achieve.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #253
It was not clear from the description, which said picking groups, which led me to believe it will pick more than one.
Yes, it does. But all groups are independent from each other if you check "Determine probability for picking groups based on group size", while distinct groups are picked, if this option is not checked. In both cases this is not want you want to achieve.

OK. I was hoping to have a single pool where the priority is calculated automatically based on size, rather than having six different pools,, in which case I have to set the priority manually once in a while based on the  number of tracks (which keeps changing) in each group. It's fine though. Thanks again for your reply and the wonderful plugin. :)

P.S: Also because, with six pools I have to set/change the filter (usually same) six times. :)

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #254
...  is it possible to configure this plugin so that within 2 hours no artist are repeated?

Should be possible if you have enough number of artists in your library.

Set group to %artist%
Disable 'Determine possibility for picking groups based on group size'
Number of groups to add: (Should be equal to or greater than the number of artists in your library)
Number of tracks to add: 1
Enable Limit after sorting
Sort: $rand()
Enable Sort/Limit each group
Enable Filter with content of the target playlist
Indeed, with this approach you can come at least close to the reqeust von @takora. But if the number of artist in the library increases, you need to adjust the pool settings accordingly each time. Furthermore, if the number of groups to add becomes too big, you can run into serious performance problems.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #255
I tried it with your options, but now I got only one item in my playlist and it would not increase. :D

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #256
I tried it with your options, but now I got only one item in my playlist and it would not increase. :D

Can you please post a screenshot of your settings?

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #257
It's my mistake. I tried again

group - %artist%
determine probability... - no
number of groups to add - 62
number of tracks to add - 1
limit after sorting - yes
filter - nothing there
filter with the content of the target playlist - yes
sort - $rand()
sort / limit each group - yes
priority - 1

Now I got 62 songs and no artist is repeated (so far), but there is a problem. Most of the songs in generated playlist are from Various Artists albums (only 10 songs are from non-Various Artists albums). But in reality Various Artists albums are less than half of my library. And so the majority of artists got virtually no playtime. I tried to increase number of groups to 128 but with same results.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #258
Well, you need to adjust your settings, as it appears to have picked out exactly one song by each artist, no more, no less.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #259
Sure... Asking for advice, as always. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that in my collection only Various Artists albums got Album Artist tag? (Just a very wild guess...)

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #260
Most of the songs in generated playlist are from Various Artists albums (only 10 songs are from non-Various Artists albums).
That is no big suprise. A Various Artists albums with 20 tracks has usually 20 different artists, so you would need 20 "normal" albums from 20 different artists to have a 50% probability to pick an artist, which is not on a Various Artist album.

You could define two pools like the one you already have, with the following differences:

Pool 1 (for the normal albums):
filter: album artist MISSING
number of groups to add: The number of tracks you want to have from this pool

Pool 2 (for the Various Artists album):
filter NOT album artist MISSING
number of groups to add: The number of tracks you want to have from this pool

After adding a bunch of tracks from both pools to the same playlist you can mix the results with "Edit -> Sort -> Randomize"


Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #261
62 tracks also seems like about right for the collection you have, if you have an average of 22 tracks per artist.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #262
Most of the songs in generated playlist are from Various Artists albums

If the %album artist% tag is present only in your VA albums, you can use $if(%album artist%,%album%,%artist%) to reduce the number of tracks picked from VA album. May result in artist repetitions, but they will be very limited. Total number of groups (tracks) added will also be reduced, depending on average tracks per artist, and the total number of VA albums in your collection.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #263
With some tweaking I found the balance when 40 songs are selected from non-Various Artists albums and 22 songs from Various Artists albums. It's more than 4 hours playlist and no artist or song were repeated. But I'm beginning to believe that if I try to get more songs into my playlist there will be trouble. My library structure is not that simple and it includes non-album singles from Various Artists albums (I'm talking about the same artists that are mostly represented with non-Various Artists albums). Anyway, I will try it to see what the results are.
How the radio stations are doing it? Well, first you define some amount of "boxes". Then you put similar songs in the same boxes and define the boxes' order. For example, if I put similar and/or related artists in the same boxes, then there is no way the artist will be repeated before 1 song from all other boxes have been played. In my case, it would be over 4 hours. And the radio station software usually has some kind of additional artist and song repeat protection. Don't know how the song repeat protection works, though. But I guess all songs with the same title are considered the same song.
Thank you all for your patience and advice but I'm afraid random_pools can't replace commercial playlist generator. As they will work very differently. Random pools vs fixed order boxes.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #264
Hi all
Is it possible to achieve a kind of shuffled playback order which shuffles artists but only plays a one random album at a time?
IE i have 10 artists in playlist, some with 10 albums, and some with only one, and would like to hear each artist with the same probability, but not more than one album at a time.
Currently if i use 'shuffle albums' i listen artists with 10 albums way more often than artists with one.
Or perhaps this is better done in core foobar or some other component?

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #265
Actually, I see no practical way to achieve what you want, neither with this component nor with any other component.
Sure, you could add for example 100 album to a playlist and remove all "duplicate" artists manually afterwards, but this is far away from convenience, error prone and the final result would give you always an unpredictible number of albums.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #266
Thanks, fbuser. I'll try with core foobar.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #267
Any chance of implementing a global filter which will be appended to each individual pool automatically?

For example, this filter is identical among all my pools:
Code: [Select]
%length_seconds% GREATER 120 AND %length_seconds% LESS 300
Maintaining these during experiments means manual editing and copy-pasting to every pool I have to propagate changes. This is a fairly redundant and painful process if you have more than a couple of them.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #268
Sorry, user error. :| Ignore post.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #269
Hi, I'm a new user of this plugin and it's so amazing! Thanks so much!

I have a particular pattern to listen to my songs and wonder if it can be achieved.

Say I have a folder "D:\to be listened" which contains 10000 songs, I want to randomly take 10 songs from it, listen to them in a playlist, and then for each of them I'll make a decision between either "I like it, move the file to D:\good" or "I don't like it, delete the file from disk". No matter which I choose, the song is removed from the playlist, and also the original folder.

This is my mission, pretty straight forward. It's the simplest pool setting and I already got it working. In the end I imagine the 10000 songs will turn into 1000 songs in D:\good. 

Now my question is, as I am removing songs from the playlist, the playlist shrinks. I'll need to replenish them manually. I hope there's a way to automatic replenish so it keeps at 10 songs, and every time I delete one, a new random one would be automatically added. I tried playing with the auto add feature, but didn't get it to work. I must be missing something really obvious. How should it be done? Thanks so much!

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #270
Is your folder part of the media library? If not auto add can't work. If yes, please post your settings here.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #271
I have to admit that because my goal is so simple, I just made the simplest setting that works, without properly learning it:
1. My media library contains only one folder, which is "D:\to be listened" - because I don't use media library for any other purposes other than random pool.
2. I have only 1 pool, and configured this way: Group: %% , Number of groups to add: 1; Limit: 10 0 0 ; Filter: empty ; Sort: empty
Now I'm able to use the "File" menu to add 10 random songs into current playlist.

What I wish to have is whenever I delete a song from the playlist, a new random song is replenished, so that the playlist maintains 10 songs. What I tried: in Autoadd, I picked the desired playlist from the dropdown, then put 10 0 0.  And of course that doesn't work, I think I'm missing some fundamental knowledge about how this component works.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #272
Three things:
1. You didn't mention the setting for Priority. Therefore and because of the not working Autoadd, I guess it's still 0. As Autoadd is picking its tracks from all pools with a priority greater than 0, you need to increase this value, no matter to what.
2. With your settings for Limit you always add 10 songs to the playlist, when the Autoadd condition is met.  So you probably want to set it to 1 0 0.
3. You should also tick "Filter with the content of the target playlist", if you want to avoid duplicates tracks in the playlist.

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #273
OMG it's now working!!!!!!! Exactly in the way I hoped, Like a charm!!!!! Thanks so so much!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: foo_random_pools

Reply #274
I use random_pools to jury-rig a "next random album" button that I wish already existed within foobar. The way I have it set up is through a script that clears the playlist, then hits play. As it's set up, random_pools kicks into gear by automatically adding a new random album anytime the playlist is cleared. So far so good.

The only real issue I have is a surprisingly high number of repeats. I saw above the thread ways to get rid of duplicates but that involves summoning the entire pool all at once, and if I do that I won't be able to use my hacked up 'skip to next album' button. Does anyone have a suggestion? Either for random_pools settings or  a better method for a "Skip to next random album" button?