Playlist Generator Pro - "Random" versus "In Order" mode

[radiodungog]

Hello Dmitry,

We are using Playlist Generator Pro to create 7 static playlists each with 12 hours of music content to get us through the day.  We name the static playlists:  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday .... Sunday.

Our master source playlists of content are typically called:

50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s ... and Easy, Gold and Soft Rock.

Each source playlist has been shuffled.

Some source playlists have plenty of songs in them - a few of them do not have many songs - but certainly enough to give us a no repeat format for the whole week.

We use the Generate "In order" setting in PGPro.

We have the "Start Position" ... "Advance on each generation" box ticked.

We are noticing that some songs are repeated frequently during the week - typically 3 or 4 or 5 times - and our listeners are telling us that - and we have verified this to be correct from the station logs.


Can you explain briefly the maths involved with the Generate "In order" and "Advance on each generation" functions ?  I can see that the "Start Position" number change after each generation.


Are we doing this the correct way ?


A while ago you and I spoke about having a feature to generate a large playlist (in this case 7 x 12 = 84 hours) and then having the PGPro automatically cut it up into many separate playlists so that the "do not repeat song" rules would work over the whole range of the playlists generated.



Thanks,  Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

Can you explain briefly the maths involved with the Generate "In order" and "Advance on each generation" functions ?  I can see that the "Start Position" number change after each generation.

It's pretty simple: it remembers the "Start Position" and when PLGen needs to take a track from the playlist, it'll take a track  located at the Start Position, and then increase it, so the next time it'll take track at Start Position+1.

If you have no-repeat options activated, and track at Start Position doesn't fit the rules, PlGen will move on to the next track, skipping the track at Start Position (this will repeat until it finds a track which can be inserted).

As tracks are skipped, soon it can reach the end of the playlist, and then start again from the beginning (Start Pos = 1). Probably this is what you're experiencing.

You turn on the "Ignore do repeat rules" for the category to avoid this.

A while ago you and I spoke about having a feature to generate a large playlist (in this case 7 x 12 = 84 hours) and then having the PGPro automatically cut it up into many separate playlists so that the "do not repeat song" rules would work over the whole range of the playlists generated.

Yes, this is still planned and will be implemented in one of the next updates.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

So as an example, if the start position was set to 1 and the number of songs in the source playlist was 1,000 and the number of cycles in the generate function called for 100 songs from that category or formula, the next start position would be 101 ?  And so on ... until after 10 runs of Playlist Generator Pro it would consume 10 x 100 = 1000 tracks and then the start position would be back to 1 again ?

Is that correct ?

But if you generated a very large playlist that called for 1,100 songs then the last 100 songs would end up being duplicates .....

Is that also correct ?

So with 10 contributing source playlists each with 1,000 songs in them EXCEPT for one which has only 100 songs in it then the weak link will be the underpopulated one - and it will be the major contributor of duplicates over successive PGPro cycles ?



Thanks,  Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

Yes, all what you said is correct.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

Okay good, I now understand the mechanism.


Thanks,  Jamie C.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

On a related matter, can you tell me what RB does to shuffle a playlist in the following options - and if these methods of shuffling or random selection are related and use much the same mechanism:

Top Menu > Playlist > Extra > Shuffle


And, is that the same mechanism as is used in the old "Playlist Generator":

Top Menu > Playlist > Extra > Playlist Generator > Step 2 > Generation Mode > "Random" ticked  ?


And, is that the same mechanism as is used in the new"Playlist Generator Pro":

Top Menu > Playlist > Playlist Generator Pro > Categories (edit) > Tracks > Tracks selection > "Random" ticked ?


Thanks,  Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

On a related matter, can you tell me what RB does to shuffle a playlist in the following options - and if these methods of shuffling or random selection are related and use much the same mechanism:

Top Menu > Playlist > Extra > Shuffle


And, is that the same mechanism as is used in the old "Playlist Generator":

Top Menu > Playlist > Extra > Playlist Generator > Step 2 > Generation Mode > "Random" ticked  ?

Those use the simplest shuffle method. I also don't recommend using the old Playlist Generator (non-Pro) - it's kept in the package for compatibility purposes only, for people who still have presets for it. It's not recommended to be used now as we have Playlist Generator Pro.

Top Menu > Playlist > Playlist Generator Pro > Categories (edit) > Tracks > Tracks selection > "Random" ticked ?

PlGen Pro uses a different shuffling method, which is "deeper", better shuffling.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

Okay, thanks for the answers.

So if we had a single playlist that was a master source of music (1970s for example) we might be better to use the PLGPro to do the shuffling once every now and then instead of the simpler methods.  And in fact, because PLGPro can be called up and executed automatically from a batch file or the scheduler we could do this automatically late at night every week or month.

Cool  !


Thanks,  Jamie C.

 

[djsoft]

There's no need to shuffle playlist and use them "In Order" in the playlist generator. Just switch Pl Gen to use "Random' and it'll shuffle playlists for you.

 

[radiodungog]

Dmitry,

Okay thanks ...


Jamie C.