Section 39. Use the Party Shuffle Playlist


39. Use the Party Shuffle Playlist

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

9 Import a Music CD into iTunes

33 Find and Play Music


SEE ALSO

41 Create Crossfades Between Songs

44 AutoFill Your iPod shuffle

60 AirTunes: Connect iTunes to a Stereo with AirPort Express


iTunes and a well-stocked library are perfect for providing the background music at a party, particularly if you use an AirPort Express base station to broadcast your music wirelessly to your living room's big stereo system (see 60 AirTunes: Connect iTunes to a Stereo with AirPort Express ).

However, you don't want to spend time putting together a manual playlist for an hours-long party, or trust the automatic ordering of a Smart Playlist ; in fact, you might want to be sure that certain songs show up at a certain time of the evening, or that certain pairs of songs flow into each other when the mood is just right. This need is answered by the Party Shuffle feature, which is like a specialized, dynamic playlist you can edit on the fly. Party Shuffle takes songs at random from a specified source (for instance, a playlist or Smart Playlist of your choice), shows you a certain number of upcoming songs and the last few songs it's played , and gives you the opportunity to fine-tune the random upcoming choices at any time by deleting selections, rearranging them, and adding new ones from the library. You can micromanage the Party Shuffle playlist during the party to make sure that it chooses all the right music, or leave it alone to pick its own random selectionsit's up to you to be the perfect host by orchestrating the ideal musical atmosphere.

NOTE

You can see a maximum of 100 upcoming songs in the Party Shuffle playlist, so that's the extent to which you can engineer the list before the party begins. Party Shuffle is intended to work from automatic random selections as it goes, but it gives you the option to change selections that are soon to be played.


1.
Select the Party Shuffle Source

Click Party Shuffle in the Source pane of the iTunes' window. A random selection of 15 upcoming songs, randomly chosen from your library, is displayed in the track listing, with a shiny blue selection bar indicating the first song in the list.

2.
Choose a Source Playlist

The first order of business is to pick the Source from which the music is going to come. You might want to pick a Smart Playlist that's designed to filter only the best songs of a certain genre , such as Reggae songs rated three stars or higher. See 35 Create a Smart Playlist for more information on creating such a playlist.

TIP

Click the Refresh button in the upper-right corner of the window to discard the current list of upcoming songs and grab a fresh random lineup of songs from the selected source. Keep clicking until you're fairly satisfied with the list of upcoming tracks.

3.
Choose to Weight Song Selections by Rating

If the Play higher rated songs more often check box is enabled, Party Shuffle gives a higher "weight" to songs with more stars when it's making its random selectionsfor example, a song rated five stars is five times as likely to appear in the list as a song with one star. Disable this check box if you want to give all your songs an equal chance of being heard , regardless of their rating.

39. Use the Party Shuffle Playlist


4.
Configure Song Display Options

Use the drop-down menus to configure how many recently played and upcoming songs are shown. You can choose to show up to 100 of either one; if you show the maximum number of recently played songs, you can relive the evening after it's over by perusing the list of songs that iTunes played during the course of the party.

5.
Organize Upcoming Songs While Playing

Click Play to begin playing songs from the Party Shuffle list. As the current song plays, you have plenty of time to fine-tune the upcoming music selection. Select a song and press Delete or Del to remove it from the list (this action doesn't delete it from the library). Click and drag songs into a more appropriate order, just as you would in a regular playlist, to make sure that songs flow naturally into each other. Add new songs to the list by selecting the Library option, navigating to the songs in question, and dragging them to the Party Shuffle option.

TIP

To really impress your guests, be sure to turn on the crossfade effect (see 41 Create Crossfades Between Songs ) and the full-screen Visualizer ( 38 Use the iTunes Visualizer ).

With these options at your disposal, you can be sure you'll have the perfect musical backdrop for your event. Just don't get so carried away with it that you forget to serve hors d'oeuvres!


40. Auto-Level Song Volumes

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

9 Import a Music CD into iTunes

33 Find and Play Music


SEE ALSO

41 Create Crossfades Between Songs


One of the most useful hidden fields in the headers of digital music files is the preamp setting , which is a level of correction to the volume of each individual songeither amplifying or quieting the audio signal in song files to compensate for the fact that every CD is mastered at a slightly different volume level. With a feature called Sound Check , iTunes evaluates every song in your library as it's added, finds its most extreme high and low volume levels, and adjusts the preamp setting for each song accordingly . Then, when iTunes plays the song file, the preamp setting is applied to the output volume to ensure that each song plays at approximately the same loudness. Never again will you have to turn up the volume to hear a quiet movement of a Beethoven symphony, only to have your ears blasted out by the Sisters of Mercy immediately afterward.

1.
Open the Audio Preferences

Open the iTunes Preferences window (choose iTunes, Preferences on the Mac; choose Edit, Preferences in Windows). Click the Audio tab.

2.
Enable Sound Check

If it's not checked already, enable the Sound Check check box. Click OK .

If the Sound Check option had not previously been enabled, iTunes now evaluates all the songs in your library to determine and apply a preamp setting to each one. This process can take a long timeseveral seconds for each trackbecause every song must be examined all the way through for extremes of volume. Be prepared to wait a while before the process is complete.

40. Auto-Level Song Volumes


From now on, whenever you play your music, each track is adjusted to match the volume level of the surrounding songs. As long as the Sound Check option is enabled, each new song you add to the library is evaluated for its preamp setting at the time you add it to the library.

3.
Enable Sound Check on the iPod

You must enable the Sound Check feature on the iPod so that it can realize the same benefits as music played through iTunes. On the iPod, navigate to the Settings menu then scroll to the Sound Check option; press the Select button to toggle the setting On .

NOTE

On the iPod, only the music played through the headphone jack is automatically leveled with the Sound Check option; music played through the Dock connectorfor example, by connecting headphones to the back of the Dockor by using an FM transmitter that connects through the Dock connectoris not leveled with Sound Check .

4.
View Individual Song Volume

If you're curious about a song's preamp setting as determined through the Sound Check option, select the song and choose File, Get Info . Click the Summary tab of the Information dialog box. In the block of information in the middle of the window, the Volume field shows how many decibels of correction are applied to the song during playback. The higher the positive number, the quieter the music and the more it has to be turned up by Sound Check .

Sometimes Sound Check might apply an improper volume adjustment to one of your songs. If this happens, don't panic and turn off the whole featureyou can manually adjust the preamp setting for any individual song by choosing File, Get Info , clicking the Options tab, and moving the Volume Adjustment slider to a more appropriate setting.



iPod + iTunes for Windows and Mac in a Snap
iPod + iTunes for Windows and Mac in a Snap (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0672328992
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 152
Authors: Brian Tiemann

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