Auto vs Manual Playlists
July 24th, 2011 | Author: admin
Thinking of playing music at your next party? How about making a mix for the gym? Tired of searching through your entire music library for your favorite songs? Most digital media software such as iTunes, Media Monkey, Windows Media Player, and other 3rd party programs allow users to create playlists. Playlists are a collection of tracks that can be played in your media player or PMP that allow you to quickly and easily select the music you want to hear. Playlists are also a great way to gather and listen to music that suits a particular mood or occasion. But before crafting your next 80s throwback house mix, it is important to understand the two types of playlists: manual and auto.
Manual playlists can be formed by clicking and dragging songs into a new playlist. This is perfect if you know which tracks you would like. However, you do have to find each track in your library.
Auto playlists remove the tedium of creating playlists by using metadata criteria to filter the tracks in your library. As auto playlists, large playlists can be created in seconds rather than minutes or hours as manual playlists. However, auto playlists have flaws of their own. With auto playlists you sacrifice the minute control you have over the list of songs as compared to manual playlists. This can be rectified by spending time and effort to get good metadata onto your tracks. Over time this will increase an auto playlist’s ability to get the right music for the right situation.
Manual vs. auto playlists
Both manual and auto playlists have advantages and disadvantages. They should be used at different times.
Manual playlists:
- are a list of ordered tracks
- have a set order (set by you), but you can randomize the order in which tracks are played.
- tracks are picked from you digital music library.
- give you complete control over your playlist.
- are not metadata determined and are not updated automatically.
- are controlled and maintained by the user by clicking and dragging from the library.
The pluses and minuses of auto playlists:
- are criteria-driven and maintained. Auto playlists are generated through user-dictated filters. These filters search for tracks that match its criteria. Songs that meet the requirements of the filters, are added to the playlist.
- are defined by their criteria. What you see on the screen when you look at an auto playlist are the results of filtering your collection by the auto playlist’s criteria. The software only stores the criteria and generates the result when the auto playlist is viewed.
- automatically update their contents when tracks’ metadata change. For example, if you have a playlist that is all of your four-star-and-up tracks, this playlist will automatically add new tracks that are rated four stars and up when you add a new track or change an existing track’s metadata.
- cannot have tracks manually deleted one at a time. In other words, if the playlist contains a song I did not like, I cannot simply delete it. The filter criteria or song metadata must be altered to exclude it from the list.
- have no set order and cannot be ordered as exactly as manual playlists.
- are created by specifying the playlist’s criteria to the media player and then having the media player show the results as a playlist.
How to Get the Most from Auto Playlists
I use auto playlists for certain categories of music that I expect to change and evolve. For example, I have playlists for:
- Favorite indie rock (Genre = indie rock, rock & roll, etc; Rated four stars and up)
- Favorite pop (Genre = pop, popular, pop rock, soft rock etc; Rated four stars and up)
- Favorite new music (Acquired in last three months; Rated four stars and up)
- Favorite 80s (Release year = 1980-1989; Rated four stars and up)
- Favorite relaxation (Occasion = relaxation; Rated four stars and up)
- Need to rate (no rating)
The “favorites” auto playlists will continue to update as I acquire more music. The favorite new music will always contain my newest, highly rated music, letting me easily listen to my favorite new music. The “need to rate” list will always show me the tracks that need to be rated. If I had made manual playlists of these tracks, they would not update and would not be nearly as useful.
At other times, I use manual playlists to create mixes for sporadic events like birthdays or Christmas. One of my favorite techniques is to use an auto playlist, then copy that list into a manual playlist for me to edit. Next, I will rework my manual playlist. Next, I will add or delete tracks. For example, I will start with my favorite dinner playlist (occasion = dinner, rated four stars and up) and then edit it for a specific event. At big family parties, I’ll make a list of 50s, 60s and 70s music. At parties with my friends, I like to make mixes of songs that we all enjoy. After I craft my mix, I name it. For instance “Greg’s Birthday” will have all his favorite songs.
In summary, manual playlists are best for situations where you want exact control over the content and order of a playlist and never want it to change. Auto playlists are best for situations where you want a playlist to grow and evolve over time and the order doesn’t matter. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages and provide great ways for you to get the most from your music collection.
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