[bigjohn]

I'm just getting into this digital music lark i.e. mp3's and shite like that.

And am trying to get my head round the concept of "playlists"!

What EXACTLY do "they" mean by that term?

Because, I'm trying to get some tracks onto my partners Creative" Zen Touch" and I keep coming up against the term.

I'm probably being thick, cos if it means what I suspect, why the hell would anyone what to make a "playlist" from shitloads of tracks - presuming that they just rip whole CD's of music?

Surely, they'd just rip the tracks that they want/like and sod the rest.

I mean, why on earth would you want to make specific lists of tracks, if you only rip the tracks you like - that would defeat the point of only ripping your favourite tracks.

Plus, given the relatively limited space of mp3 player storage memory, logic says that you wouldn't bother ripping whole CDs and then just tell it to play specific tracks, you'd just rip your favourites???


Oh Bollocks. I don't know! Google seems to (probably), but given that it gave me over 7 million hits for the word "playlist", I wouldn't know where to start to find a "proper" definition!

Any advice/clarification is much appreciated.

regards

John

[budman7]

I don't know if this is what you are looking for but...

http://www.sockpuppet.org/tqbf/sss.html

And "mp3 playlist" returned fewer results.

[jasonlambert]

search google with "define:KEYWORD" to get definitions.

eg:

http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aplaylist

please try and keep the swearing to a minimum in the future please

[Xenon]

I make playlists as I go off some music and just want to listen to some certain tracks. You could even make different playlists depending on your mood, just a suggestion :P

[jaboua]

I don't save my playlists mostly, I just drag some files over in BMP when I want to hear something....

[bigjohn]

Well, I checked the thing that jasonlambert posted. Ha! it didn't even occur to me to try the "define:KEYWORD" idea - how stupid of me (nothing new!).

It's strange though, I still don't quite "get" it.

A straight random facility, a play directory facility if thats how music/media apps want to save tracks i.e. the album/CD being the dir, and tracks being individual files, finally just a play track facility.

Anything else seems pointless. So many "media players" seem to default to selecting playlists. It's as if "they" are saying "well if you're a professional, then you'd be using playlist technology, so thats what you MUST need".

Rubbish, it might be something handy that could be added on. As I say, I just can't see the point!

Oh, and when it would open, I did find a facility to "play directory" (in a odd place I thought, as I had to right click the "play" button) in XMMS, but mostly, it just would start to open and then stop! Couldn't work out why though. Should've worked "out of the box" as it was something that installed by default.

So I just uninstalled "it", as amarok seems to work OK, but it's a bit of a swine to find all the "facilities".

Oh well!

regards

John

[cayalee]

all a playlist is, is a set list of tracks that you want to play.
if you've recorded a few albums by different artists eg metallica, BBking and britney spears, but today your not in the mood for metal or pop, you can select a playlist youve made of your favourite BBking blues songs to chill out to, or anything. we've got an ipod at home and when we have people round we have a party playlist and just leave it on playing through the stereo, plays the list we made of songs by stevie wonder and diana ross and the likes.
you dont have to use them, but its quite nice to do if you just want background music or your off for a run and cant be bothered to keep scrolling through to find the next song you like.
have a look at a program called 'JuK' its like a music jukebox type thingy for linux (comes with suse 9.1) its dead good, playlisting is ridiculously easy with it (drag and drop) and totally optional.

[bigjohn]

Hum! JuK "rings a bell". I think I might have read about it a while back in Linux format mag.

Thanks for the explaination of "playlist" cayalee, that clears it up in my mind.

I think I'll see if theres any mandriva rpms available for JuK (preferred medium as I've had mega probs with tar.gzs' and non mandrake/mandriva rpms - Still can't get gnubg working properly!).

HA! playlist definition might be clear in my mind, but I still don't see the point of them. Surely, using your example, if you didn't want to listen to the metallica or britney, you'd just go straight for the BBKing ? i.e. why would anyone want to have to have made up a "mood based" playlist, unless they are Radio/Broadcasting professionals - and even then, they don't often use mood as a base do they, that kind of playlist are usually management decisions and related to finance etc....

It seems that these "things" are a good example of over complicating apps with seemingly (IMO) pointless abilities...

regards

John

[jamey112]

i use playlists for genres. i listen to all different types of music, and one day i might want some rock, reggae, ska, or some rap, or even some country. just all depends on the mood. (usually always have sublime in every playlist though). sublime is awesome

[benjamin20]

ive never been one to do the whole playlist thing since i fel the same way you do. "i just selected my favorite songs, now im suspose to do it again?" of course i only have 20 songs on my mp3 player (256mb). however if you are one of those people who can actualy find like.. 300 songs. you might want to organize them. and thats where the playlist comes in. its almost like seperationg them into different files. but some songs might belong in more than one file. so to save space you organize it in playlists rather than in individual files so as to keep from copying. most common examples of playlists are music types. of course whatever songs you feel are best kept together, well, its your choice. however if you are like me and only have a handfull of songs you want than playlists are wastefull.