Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

#91

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 8:46 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #75

ilikehurdles wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for that claim? For me, random means: "I want to hear every song in this selection exactly once, chosen randomly". Random should mean uniformly distributed and I don't care whether the same artist or album is played back-to-back. I feel like this is exactly what "shuffle" has meant for decades before some UX quack at Spotify headquarters decided they knew better.

So... what you're saying is that you don't want to hear the same song too soon after hearing it before?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

#92

Post by declnz » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

saghm wrote: post #30

A 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…

Actually, I almost implemented this a few times over the years in Quod Libet (https://github.com/quodlibet/quodlibet/issues/703), my use-case being mainly for classical pieces or DJ mixes... but never got round to it.

Eventually someone kindly wrote a plugin that did pretty much this using what we all agreed was the best way: the under-loved `grouping` tag. Caveat: I haven't actually tried it yet...

(Please file a Github issue if you try it but it doesn't work...)

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

#93

Post by ricardobeat » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

Why do you need to remind me of Rdio again? :(

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

#94

Post by zamalek » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 9:05 PM UTC

Because random doesn't look/seem random to humans. The problem is that these players aren't randomizing the order of the songs, they are randomizing the next chosen song.

You'll want to shuffle the entire playlist at once; or use a player that attempts to avoid this issue (Winamp would let you bias the RNG to choose songs further away from the current one, for example). If you decide on the latter, there is always the chance that you'll hear repetition, because repetition is valid in random sequences.

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

#95

Post by alanbernstein » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

abrowne wrote: post #56

jbob2000 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is basically what want too, so I like Quod Libet's "Random Album" (and Random Artist and Random Genre) command. It simply focuses on a new album each time I press Ctrl+M, which I can play or queue up.

This was my favorite feature in winamp and itunes. It doesn't seem to exist in many music apps. I couldn't find an android app that does it, and spotify doesn't do it on any system. On desktop, It's possible to script spotify behavior, so with some work I was able to define a global keyboard shortcut to choose a random album and play it. Not perfect, but gets the job done.

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

#96

Post by apaprocki » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

Not all music players. I highly suggest you give Roon (https://roonlabs.com) a try, if you haven't already.

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

#97

Post by ringshall » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

This talk by Sid Meier is a good description of the problem of true randomness, from a game perspective:

https://youtu.be/MtzCLd93SyU?t=1166

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

#98

Post by dec0dedab0de » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

I haven't listened to randomized music since Winamp 2 was my primary player.

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

#99

Post by alanbernstein » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

eterm wrote: post #58

fmajid wrote: post #52

Not related to the OP’s complaint, but a shocking few can shuffle by random album. Apple regressed: the iPod could but the iPhone can’t.

This is something my main music player had circa 2003 when I used a linux desktop player. Since then I've not had it any service or software I use, it's the missing killer feature for me. I want "random"/recommended albums not recommended/random songs.

You can hack the functionality into desktop spotify, if you care enough (on linux and mac at least).

Re: Ask HN: Why are modern music players so bad at playing music in random order?

#100

Post by alanbernstein » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 9:22 PM UTC

gvb wrote: post #7

dilutedh2o wrote: post #2

Am just here to nitpick, but the 5 disk CD changer behavior that you just described is not true randomness (by definition).

Nitpicking your nitpick, the difference is whether the random sampling is with replacement or without replacement. Wikipedia's definition of "simple random sample" defines it to include both ways: [S]ampling is typically done "without replacement", i.e., one deliberately avoids choosing any member of the population more than once. Although simple random sampling can be conducted with replacement instead, this is less…

nitnitnitpick: GP is likely (and overly pedantically) referring to the use of a PRNG to implement the shuffle, rather than using a true random source.