> no tune was played twice until all of the tunes were played... That doesn't sound random. I use Google Play Music and it "randomizes" things in the way you desire. It takes your playlist and shuffles the entries; you can even press a button to see how it's sorted it. That ordering sticks around forever if you take no further action, though, so it will repeat that random ordering indefinitely unless you press the sh…
If its programmed like youtube, it only shuffles the last 100 you have visited in your list, not the whole list.
Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
41–50 of 152 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#42Here'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 (…
This could have the appearance of #4.
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#43It seems like pretty much no matter what song I start listening to on YT, it eventually falls into a rut where I start hearing the same handful of songs that I've heard a million times. It's like it's too good at figuring out "what I like" and tries to only play songs it "knows" I like. Or more likely, since plenty of what I like are "deep cuts", it's just playing the most popular few songs by the given artist(s).
The order within a given session is probably shuffled up OK, but it still sucks from a variety standpoint because I don't want to hear "Eighteen and Life", "Round and Round", "Kickstart My Heart", "Livin' On A Prayer", "Rock You Like A Hurricane", "Fallen Angel", "Shot In The Dark", etc., day after day after day after day after day... as much as I like all of those songs.
It does seem to be at least somewhat genre aware though. If I start out listening to classical music, it doesn't jump to metal/rock, or if I start out listening to synthwave, it doesn't bridge to classical. But the problem I just described seems to exist within each genre. :-(
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#44Here'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 hate the trend from product managers of responding to "wow there's a lot of things people might be intending here" with "let's just pick one in the name of simplicity." Give me the hooks to let me make my own solutions for the other possibilities!
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#45Here'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 (…
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#46Seems to me like a perfect opportunity for a simple neural network or machine learning model to predict the next song to play based on the last k songs having been trained on a bunch of existing playlists.
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#47Here'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 (…
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#48Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#49Here'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 (…
Um, no? I would argue most people would say they want 1 or 2, and the rest of those are mostly things that developers convince themselves are adequate substitutes for these things.
It also sparked a lively debate about whether people actually wanted what they said they wanted or were just being difficult.
People are weird and English is imprecise.
Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?
#50A bit tangential, but for a while I've wanted the ability to "pin" certain songs together for the purpose of random shuffles so that they always get played back to back. One good example of this is the second half Abbey Road; if I'm shuffling some Beatles songs, I really want "Carry That Weight" to come immediately after "Golden Slumbers" (and if I'm being honest, I want "The End" coming right after both of those). I…