I first noticed this with Spotify's "Shuffle" - it was so infuriating, particularly when I'd skip a song, it would just play another song from the same artist... sometimes even the same album! That's from a playlist with hundreds of artists and songs...
Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
11–20 of 152 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#12It sounds like you want a shuffle function that obeys the gambler's fallacy.
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#13I first noticed this with Spotify's "Shuffle" - it was so infuriating, particularly when I'd skip a song, it would just play another song from the same artist... sometimes even the same album! That's from a playlist with hundreds of artists and songs...
I noticed the same; and it seems to be getting worse...
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#14I've always assumed the royalty cost and popularity factored in, but I've never tried to dig to deep into it.
When I shuffle a playlist on Amazon Music, it wont repeat until the end of the playlist.
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#15Here's the problem: go ahead and ask a bunch of different people what they want/expect their shuffle/random button to do and you'll get a bunch of different answers.
1. I want it to play in a truly random fashion, with replacement (same song twice in a row is possible).
2. I want it to play in a truly random fashion, without replacement (each song is removed from the list once played).
3. I want it to "seem" random (don't play too many songs by the same artist in a row).
4. I want it to be random, but predictable (same "random" ordering if I start the playlist again).
5. I want it to play my favourite songs more often than my lower-rated songs.
6. I want it to play my less-commonly played songs more often than the stuff I listen to all the time.
So: what exactly do you want when you say random?
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#16Dunno about contemporary music players, but: > no tune was played twice until all of the tunes were played That is definitely not compatible with actual mathematical “randomness”. Try rolling a die multiple times and see whether you get all six numbers before repeats. It’s very unlikely (probability of all six rolls being unique = 6!/6^6 = 1.5%) Which brings up the interesting question — what do humans actually expec…
I don't think mathematics is the issue here, rather problem definition.
OP wants "Shuffle my playlist into a random order and then play it through"
You are thinking closer to "After this song is done, choose a new song at random among ALL available."
Spotify's is a mixture, while good offline clients tend to go to the first.
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#17Am just here to nitpick, but the 5 disk CD changer behavior that you just described is not true randomness (by definition).
It is randomness if you are "playing N tracks in random order" and not "select the next track randomly from N choices in a loop".
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#18Dunno about contemporary music players, but: > no tune was played twice until all of the tunes were played That is definitely not compatible with actual mathematical “randomness”. Try rolling a die multiple times and see whether you get all six numbers before repeats. It’s very unlikely (probability of all six rolls being unique = 6!/6^6 = 1.5%) Which brings up the interesting question — what do humans actually expec…
Personally what i want out of shuffle is that once a song has been replayed more than n amount of times, it gets temporily removed from the queue for that session or an amount of time.
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#19Here's the problem: go ahead and ask a bunch of different people what they want/expect their shuffle/random button to do and you'll get a bunch of different answers. 1. I want it to play in a truly random fashion, with replacement (same song twice in a row is possible). 2. I want it to play in a truly random fashion, without replacement (each song is removed from the list once played). 3. I want it to "seem" random (…
Or what about this:
I am indecisive about what music I want to listen to in this current moment and I want you to give me options that I will deny until I become decisive about what I want.
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#20Here's the problem: go ahead and ask a bunch of different people what they want/expect their shuffle/random button to do and you'll get a bunch of different answers. 1. I want it to play in a truly random fashion, with replacement (same song twice in a row is possible). 2. I want it to play in a truly random fashion, without replacement (each song is removed from the list once played). 3. I want it to "seem" random (…
I would say what people usually want is "I want my playlist shuffled in a way that feels like variety". But, I don't have any data to back that up ;)