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Intelligent Playlists - GET THIS FUNCTION UPGRADED PLEASE

Hi Guys,

Ran across some rather surprising limitations on this:

(btw have spent weeks tagging my entire collection)

1. Wanted to make a combined playlist of 7 artists that are also rated above a certain star rating - CANT DO IT, very basic function, very surprised

2. Cant build an intelligent playlist based on other playlists, pretty obvious function

3. limited to 128 intelligent playlists (even though I paid for the DJ version) - absolutely no reason for this, if its 'technical' as I see you have mentioned before then this talks to bad software planning, there is never any reason that such a basic function cant be employed

There was a post "Product & Feature Suggestions" about this (6 September 16) - you ignored it, given it no response 

There was a post rekordbox May 20 2015 on the 128 playlist limitation, its been 2 years.

You are obviously under serious budget constraints and being owned by a private equity company (KKR) is the probable cause, I've worked with them before, I know their style.

 

The system is full of rather surprising 'issues' as you well know, and I know you are just repping the company Pulse because that is your job....but for example having to reduce the resolution of some of my AIFF files so that Rekordbox can cope with them is shocking.

Anyways, please get your intelligent playlists out of the stone age, there are very easy basic changes that don't cost too much as above.

Please give us all an update on them, thanks!

 

Lynchun Answered

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These are all on the roadmap for future rekordbox releases. They have not been ignored (even in the event there was no reply to the post - especially in the case of the one in the Product Suggestions forum where not everything gets a reply), but we also don't disclose if/when a feature will be included in an update.

Sit tight, good things are coming.

Pulse
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35 comments

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+1

Please,  add more filter options/choices to smart playlists, like more better handle of "AND" and "OR", and also a possibility of "cascading" smart playlist.

asfx33 2 votes
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The ability to also to be able to reorder the default ordering of intelligent playlists would be great!

Samuel Alexander Spratt 0 votes
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@Samuel > Intelligent lists can be sorted by any column, but a default order (eg. a "numbered" order) can't be retained as the list is dynamic by nature.

Pulse 0 votes
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We have been promised better intelligent playlists for over two years so I wouldn't expect anything drastic to happen soon. Just face it, with the release of Rekordbox DJ the development of the export section is in hiatus until, in a modest estimate, forever.

There are ways you can use the existing intelligent playlists to make them work. If you use, for example, the comments filed as a global variable you can accomplish wonders even though the lists are very basic. But theres sadly no work around for the baffling 128 limit.

Let me know if you want me to elaborate on global variables and other techniques with the intelligent playlists, I managed to move a very complex system from iTunes to Rekordbox without dropping functionality. 

The Henrik Maneuver 0 votes
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@Pulse - surely the function to allow you to decide what default ordering the list is built on when you setup the filters would work? Then every time you add tracks it will pull them in by order.

For example, my playlists by a particular artist would be so much easier to use on the fly if the tracks were sorted by track title by default, so I don't have to search through maybe 30 different tracks in the order in which they were added to my library (totally random order)

Samuel Alexander Spratt 0 votes
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@Samuel > Clicking a column to sort by that item will always keep the intelligent playlist sorted that way, regardless of when the list was last refreshed. Here, I have my tracks sorted by Track Title. Any time I add new tracks to my collection, the intelligent list adds them based on the criteria, and they'll automatically be sorted by track title. If I change the preference to be BPM or Time, it will keep that preference for that playlist.

Pulse 0 votes
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@Pulse > But the order you set in Rekordbox will always be ignored on export! There is no way to keep the order in an intelligent playlist on the exported device! We went through this a few years ago, this is how I came up with the global variable hack...

The Henrik Maneuver 0 votes
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Because when you export it, it's no longer "intelligent" - the exported list is now a fixed playlist. Should you wish to keep that sort order on the device you can select your sort preference then re-number. 

Pulse 0 votes
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But the whole point with an intelligent playlist is to KEEP the order! Of course you can re-sort it on the device but if you use different sort criterias for different lists they are completely useless. There is NO reason the export the lists in random order, it just renders the "intelligent" playlists stupid and very difficult to work with.

As I wrote earlier, we have been through this several times before during about 2 years time. Same questions, same answers, no solution or fix.

The Henrik Maneuver 1 vote
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But when you export the list, it retains the order within rekordbox, so simply right-click and renumber the list to that particular order and it should be good, no?

Pulse 0 votes
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AH! There's the issue. I didn't realise you can re-order on the USB,  but you can't actually within Rekordbox (Seems a bit stupid?) 

Bit annoying that if I have 3 USB's I have to do this for all of them, I can't just do it at source within RB.

Samuel Alexander Spratt 0 votes
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@Henrik > As I mentioned above - are you sorting AFTER you have exported the playlist to the USB? Because in my testing, it retains the order I give it...

Pulse 0 votes
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@Pulse > You are looking at the exported playlist through Rekordbox aren't you? Load up the USB in a CDJ and the result will be very different. No exported intelligent playlists will ever keep their order, the only way to achieve it is to sort manually on the CDJ.

1) Intelligent playlist sorted on comments:

2) Exported playlist viewed through Rekordbox, all looks hunky dory:

3) On the CDJ the track order is completely random:

 

The Henrik Maneuver 0 votes
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Ah, so it doesn't work. It surely cannot be hard to get it select an order to show your playlist in by default.

For example, I have an "Artist = Andy C" Intelligent Playlist, why can I not sort that by track name, and whenever I add a track by Andy C, it places it in the list in alphabetical order by the track name.

Surely it's not that difficult?

Samuel Alexander Spratt 0 votes
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@Henrik > I'm not sure what to tell you, but every time I export an intelligent playlist to my device, sort the playlist on the device, renumber the order, then load it on a CDJ, it retains that order.

Are you taking that second step of after the playlist is exported, to sort by the criteria you want, then renumber?

Pulse 0 votes
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 @Pulse > You can't re-number an intelligent playlist.

The Henrik Maneuver 0 votes
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@Pulse -> I see how you manage to sort and call it for what it is - a work around. For me it's quite clear that intelligent playlists isn't the biggest part of your DJ life, the whole point with them is to automate your workflow, not adding more manual steps. Most of us that rely on intelligent playlists have lots of them, myself over 100, that populate automatically from changes in our collections. To manually sort each playlist for each device for each export is ludicrous and cannot be the way the intelligent playlists were intended to work. The fact that the sorting works almost all the way makes it very clear that the work with them was left unfinished at 99%. I have my own work around with a global variable that works if you always sort on the same criteria, but when you play on older gear like 1st generation 2000's / 900's it becomes a bit of a hassle.

Don't get me wrong, I can work with the intelligent playlists as is, but admit that they are in an unfinished state and does not work as intended. I dug around a bit in the threads I linked to above, as long back as 2015 we were promised major updates to the intelligent playlists but well, along the way came Rekordbox DJ.

The Henrik Maneuver 0 votes
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The reason the intelligent lists haven't changed is due to the structure of the database; big changes are in the pipeline, but I can't say specifically what will be available / when.

I understand the frustration, I'm just trying to provide an option for you to save a step elsewhere.

Pulse 0 votes
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Hey "The Henrik Maneuver" I'm keen to learn about your hack so that we can access these basic function, can you share with us mate??

Lyndon

Lynchun 0 votes
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Btw PULSE its now 6 months later, any update?

- when can we organise the order of our intelligent playlists in Rekordbox and then export the lists as is for use on CDJs without having to manually update it on the Device as...

 - how about creating intelligent lists by putting together the order ourselves (what would appear as default in a CDJ) instead of the current random arrangement...

- How about creating intelligent lists to include certain tag but exclude others?

 

Lynchun 0 votes
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@Lynchun>

To sort intelligent playlists you have to introduce a global sorting variable. Choose a tag field you don't use, for me it's "Comments", and manually enter a sorting number for every song. The best way to do this is to order your songs in a normal playlists and then enter an increasing number from top to bottom. Start at 1000 to avoid false sorting and increase with 10 for each song so you easily can make small changes to the list order.

Now, do your intelligent playlist magic and even though they all get scrambled you can easily sort them on your CDJ device by selecting "Sort -> Comments". On the Nexus series the sorting sticks but on original 900's and 2000's you will have to re-sort every time you go between playlists. To make it less of a hassle, prepare your sticks so that the first sort option is "Comments" (if this is the field you use).

Happy sorting!

The Henrik Maneuver 0 votes
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Is there any update on these requests? Specifically the issues I am having are the same as above, but when in Link mode with XDJ-1000Mk2 connected to Laptop with rekordbox via Ethernet cable. For this use case the workaround does not work, as you are not exporting anything to a device you can then sort manually.

Specifically:

In Link Mode, intelligent playlists have a default sort on the XDJ that seems to be random. Why can it not just reflect the sort order I have specified in Rekordbox?

Dash Badcock 0 votes
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As posted May 3rd; we are aware of the issues and do not have any additional information available at this time. Sorry!

Pulse 0 votes
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Hello, i'm also searching for a solution to this problem, please

Mark Stegeman 0 votes
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