Making the most of your MP3 collection
This mainly applies to those that use iTunes but it can probably be adapted to other MP3 music players.
I've got nearly 4000 tracks in my MP3 collection, some of which I love and some of which I've never heard. I wanted to redress that balance so that the music I hadn't heard or had only heard occasionally was played in preference to tracks that I heard lot of times.
Luckily, iTunes has a solution to this, Smart Playlists. Since iTunes is really just a database of your music, Smart Playlists allows you to create a detailed query of that database beyond the standard by Artist or Album.
As well as the expected information about tracks, like Artist, Title and Genre, iTunes stores some other useful data. You can see a full list of this data within the "File -> New Smart Playlist..." option.
The piece of information I used for this is "Play Count". When a track is imported into iTunes, its Play Count is set to 0. Whenever the track is played, its Play Count is increased by one, giving you an idea of how many times you have heard it. Most significantly, Play Count is only increased when the track finishes, which means if you press skip to next, it doesn't record as having been played.
Using a Smart Playlist that selects all the tracks with a Play Count of less than one, iTunes will play all the tracks you haven't heard before, or skipped over.
Obviously, as the playlist plays, it gets shorter until, after a couple of months, all that is left on it is the tracks that you just can't bear to listen to and have to skip. It's then simply a case of deleting these and then starting again by altering the playlist to play those tracks with a Play Count of less than two.
I have found this to be an ideal way to get to know the music I have bought over the years and to discover hidden gems in my collection.
Step-by-Step How-To
- Open iTunes
- Click File -> New Smart Playlist...
- In the dialog box that pops up, change the first drop down to "Play Count",
the second to "is less than" and the text box to "1". Ensure that "Live
Updating" is checked. and click "OK"
- The playlist appears in your list of playlists, give it a useful title like
"Low Play Count" and enjoy. Notice The icon
has a gear on it not a musical note to denote that is is a Smart Playlist.