Welcome to Dean Cheesman's Blog

So it turns out that I'm one of those people who only posts once or twice a month, but I do read a ton of blogs every day and I "share" the posts I like. So be sure to check out my "shared items" on the right side of the blog. Also, be sure to check out what music i'm listening to on my last.fm page and feel free to click the chat link to talk to me. 

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Creating a great discovery playlist in Itunes 8 using Genius playlists

I was excited to see what the new iTunes 8 had to offer when it was announced today. Once I downloaded it I started to check out the new "Genius" options which create custom playlists based on a song you choose. It's not bad. According to Apple it will continue to improve as more people come in to the program. The problem I saw at first was that although it does create good themed playlists, it doesn't ignore songs that have been played or skipped a lot. These are usually songs that I'm not as interested to listen to because they're either worn out or they were never that good to me in the first place. So here is what I've done....

First I created a folder to hold all of my Genius playlists based on songs I really like.Then its just a matter of creating a smart playlist that looks at that folder and filters out songs that have been played or skipped more than once and also leaves out songs that have been played in the last little while. This should leave you with a fresh playlists of songs that you have not yet discovered in your iTunes library. Enjoy! and let me know if you have any other suggestions of good ways to use Genius playlists.


2 comments:

Chris Rusch said...

I think the Genius feature is ingenious. A couple of years ago, I bought a bunch of electronic and ambient music in Europe but have had a hard time getting into it. Genius has fixed that situation. I love it.

lisa forsyth said...

you need to update on your life please! :) love you!