What I Tunes plays

[kcnemo]

I have 2400+ songs in iTunes currently. Have it to play shuffle by song. However many times hear the same song in the same day. A lot of the songs I never hear and on a given day seems to favor a few artists. Any ideas how to get it to give a broader selection?

 

[pigoo3]

I have 2400+ songs in iTunes currently. Have it to play shuffle by song. However many times hear the same song in the same day. A lot of the songs I never hear and on a given day seems to favor a few artists.

I'm pretty sure shuffle play is a totally random event...just like the outcome of rolling a pair of legal dice. So regardless of how large the iTunes library is...it's possible (although rare) to hear the exact same song 2 times in a row. Or possible (with 2400+ songs)...that you could go a year without hearing some songs.

Consider this as well. If the average song is 4:00 minutes long...and you have 2400 songs. 4 x 2400 = 9600 minutes of songs = 160 hours = 6.67 days.

I don't know how many hours/day you listen to music. But if you listened to 5 hours/day (everyday)...it would take at least 32 days to hear all of the songs once (if iTunes "shuffle" played every song once before repeating). Of course this could be a lot longer or shorter if you listen to music much more or less than 5 hours/day.

But I think that iTunes shuffle is totally random...which means the same exact song has the chance (very small chance) of being heard back to back. Or the chance that you could go a VERY long time without hearing one particular song.

- Nick

 

[chscag]

Using shuffle is a crap shoot. My wife complains of the same thing as you. The best way to avoid that happening is to use playlists. Might be a task setting up 2400 songs the way you want in playlists, but it works.

 

[RadDave]

I have 2400+ songs in iTunes currently. Have it to play shuffle by song. However many times hear the same song in the same day. A lot of the songs I never hear and on a given day seems to favor a few artists. Any ideas how to get it to give a broader selection?

Agree w/ the others - doubt that the 'shuffle' mode really tries to remember which songs have been played and then choses those not played, i.e. just a 'crap shoot' - I have a lot of 2 hr. playlists (like to listen when falling asleep) which frequently have two performers (e.g. Diana Krall & Nora Jones) - when I do shuffle, frequently I will hear a bunch of songs by one performer & then the other pops up - makes no sense to me - Dave

 

[MightyGem]

I'm pretty sure shuffle play is a totally random event

In a manner of speaking. Going to Shuffle should be like shuffling a deck of cards and then dealing each card in turn from the top until all cards have been dealt.

That's certainly the way it works in a 14 track playlist on my iTunes. Each song was played until all 14 had played with no repeats.

However, back a few years/versions, when you clicked on Shuffle, all the tracks in iTunes "shuffled" into the new order, and they played from the top. These days the listed order doesn't change, just the playing order. However, on my iPod Classic the order does still change and it then plays from Track 1 to Track 4000+.