Comments on: Harnessing the Power of iTunes Star Ratings

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:50:05 +0000

I realize this entry is years old at this point, but I happened upon it on a Google search, and thought I’d throw my two cents out there.

I use 2-5 to rate my music. 2 would seem like I shouldn’t keep the song, and I wouldn’t if it were standalone, but certain tracks work in a context of an album, and for that reason I will keep them. I also have a playlist of the 2-star songs that I set “skip shuffling” on, so the only time those songs will play is if I’m playing the album straight through.

1 star I use for “marking” a bad file, or a track that’s missing album art, while I’m on the go. When I get home, I’ll check and see. If it’s a tiny glitch, sometimes I take a screenshot at the exact time the glitch occurs so that I can more easily find/fix it later.

I put “Holiday” into my “Grouping” field.

Anyway, just thought I’d throw that out there. Later.

By: jweb

jweb — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:21:17 +0000

I create a playlist called “Everything”, which contains everything that is “music” or “podcast” (all my podcasts are music). I then create another playlist called “Rejected”, which contains anything with 1 or 2 stars or anything that has been skipped more than it has been played or been skipped more than 5 times. I call this the “skip rule”. Now I have two lists: Everything and Rejected. Next I create a playlist called “Base” and I copy a bunch of music to it that I might want to listen to. This allows me to add to my library and not overfill my iPhone. I call this the “Base Limit”. Now, I’m ready to create the three playlists that will populate my device. Each of these smart playlists will need to be on “Base” and not on “Rejected”. Anything that is skipped more than played, skipped more than 5 times or gets 1 or 2 stars — disappears. The first playlist is my “Top Rated” and gets the additional condition of “greater than 3 stars”. The second playlist is called unheard and has the additional conditions of having never been played or skipped, and no stars. The third playlist is called “Undecided” and has the additional conditions of either having 3 stars or having been played and still having no stars. I handle the “Everything is a three” problem by admitting that a 3 star rating is not a decision whether one likes a song or not. One more thing. I also create a playlist that is on playlist “Everything” but not on playlist “Base”. This way, when I add new music It shows up on this playlist and I know what to add to “Base”.

By: Dave Mac

Dave Mac — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:34:15 +0000

Stars? Well I have an app that might help.

‘My Hit Radio’ is an app that takes this all into consideration….

By: caserrr

caserrr — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:01:02 +0000

This is all fine and good, but the problem still remains of having to sit for hours and put star ratings on all your music. I know that I can give ratings to the songs on my iPod (or in my case, iPhone) itself, but is there any way I can set it so when i Sync it, it also copies those ratings from my iPod, to the music in my iTunes library on my computer? (Depending, of course, on if those songs are still in your iTunes library [they haven't been moved or re-named or anything.])

By: Apple News » Become a Mac Power User: iTunes

Apple News » Become a Mac Power User: iTunes — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:16:17 +0000

[...] playlists would seem like an obvious topic here, but we’ve covered them several [...]

By: Become a Mac Power User: iTunes

Become a Mac Power User: iTunes — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:01:56 +0000

[...] playlists would seem like an obvious topic here, but we’ve covered them several [...]

By: billp

billp — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:20:02 +0000

Create a playedout playlist…Exception not in playedout, xmas, etc

By: eric

eric — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:26:19 +0000

1 star- bad
2 srar- average
3 star- good
4 star- very good
5 star- N/A

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:18:57 +0000

I use the grouping column, first it gets an ABC for how much I like the song, then it gets a number for speed ..1 fast 2. 3. 4. 5 slow.. 6 if its classical or instrumental, 7 if its oldies, 8 if its 80s 90s etc.. 9 if its newer, 0 if its seasonal. then i might put in other info as well, S designates that its worthy of a sleep playlist, X designates its a speech or something, Z is for audio books, R if i’m not willing to play it in front of my mother, U for unplugged, E for electronic, M if i dont want other people to hear me listening to it :) .. G for songs my girl likes but i could care less about, O for anything broadway or similar

you get the idea.. basically make up a coding system so you can have a smart list that will weed out any letters or numbers you dont want, you dont need that many.. its just the ones i’ve created as i go along.. you dont need to go through and rate each song at once, when i make a smartlist if stuff i dont want on it shows up then i go and edit the ones i dont want on there, mostly just when you download them or just as you listen do the ones that you really like or don’t like at the moment.. eventually you’ll have a fairly specific setup and you can weed out any catagory easily.. I can make a smartlist in just a couple minutes, most of the time they work out really well, at least better than genius : )

By: fontgoddess

fontgoddess — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:21:57 +0000

@liebezeit
I do back up the xml file frequently as well. It just doesn’t have the benefits of putting the ratings in the mp3 id3 comment field (shows up in multiple libraries, info stays with mp3 file, etc.).