Shuffle vs Random

NecroJoe

NecroJoe

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So, I recently joined the 21st century and am using Winamp now, after using Musicmatch Jukebox for years and years.

One of the things I liked about it so much was the shuffle function.

I know, I know..."You were using antiquated software because of a feature you probably don't know how to use on any other pieces of software?" Well, not quite.

Media player designers seem not to really "shuffle" and instead use a "random" function, but still call it "shuffle."

Ever notice how sometimes you'll start to hear songs repeated before you've heard all of the songs in the folder/playlist? This is what bugs me.

Here's how they are different:
Shuffle: You have a deck of 52 cards. Now shuffle the cards, and put them back in the deck. Now, every card is still there, there is just a new order.
Random: You have a deck of 52 cards. Put them in a hat, and shake the hat. Now, pull out a card. When you are done with the card, put it back in the hat, re-shake the hat and draw out another card. Odds are that you will pull out a different card...but as you do it more and more, the odds that you will pull up a card you've already pulled go up.

The way MusicMatch worked, was it actually took your playlist and put the tracks in a new order that you can then browse through. Don't want the first few songs it wants to play to come up first? Hit shuffle again, and there: new order.

It seems almost every piece of software out there now just has some sort of randomizing algorithm that is...adequate most of the time, but I still hear songs repeating before I've heard everything.

Are there options for this in Winamp? Is there other software that works well that can really "shuffle"?

I know, I know..."Dude, if that's your biggest problem you can bitch about..." Screw you. It bugs me. :p
 
All you have to do is open Winamp, go to the bottom of the Playlist Editor >> Misc. >> Sort >> Randomize List.

It will completely remix your playlist (or "shuffle" it as you defined it) , and then you can see the results and tweak from there. You'll never hear a song repeat till it gets to the end of your playlist. Once you've listened to it all the way through, then you can randomize it again.

I have a huge playlist with all my music in it. If I do this once a week or so, it keeps things very fresh.
 
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I nod in agreement to your annoyance. Shuffle > Random.

I hate that my MP3 player doesn't seem to come with Shuffle, ie it doesn't "remember" which songs I already played, it just selects another one everytime, regardless if it's been played or not
 
When you select shuffle in iTunes, it does shuffle, you see all your tracks in the random order which you can browse without problem.
 
killpanda said:
When you select shuffle in iTunes, it does shuffle, you see all your tracks in the random order which you can browse without problem.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but...then I'd have to use iTunes, so...yeah. :lol:
 
The shuffle button in Winamp is exactly a shuffle function - it doesn't repeat songs, until you have played them all.
...but as I say this, I realize I am still using Winamp 5.32, so this might have changed in the new version.
I know they did the "Random" thing in the Winamp 3 debacle, which didn't last long.
 
_HighVoltage_ said:
The shuffle button in Winamp is exactly a shuffle function - it doesn't repeat songs, until you have played them all.
Click to expand...

Sadly, no. I had 4,000+ in the "cue" and I was starting to hear repeats after only an hour. The "randomize list" function worked perfectly, however.
 
Which version are you using?
 
Whatever the one was that I could download about 3-4 days ago...
 
NecroJoe said:
Sadly, no. I had 4,000+ in the "cue" and I was starting to hear repeats after only an hour. The "randomize list" function worked perfectly, however.
Click to expand...

Just stick with "randomize list", because that allows you to see what songs are coming up, you can tweak the list if you want to hear a certain song next, etc.
 
NecroJoe said:
It seems almost every piece of software out there now just has some sort of randomizing algorithm that is...adequate most of the time, but I still hear songs repeating before I've heard everything.
Click to expand...
Actually making a totally random stuff is impossible with computers, there is always a algorithm behind the randomness. What this means is that the order of music will always form patterns. Some songs are likely to come after some other song and some songs come up very rarely. Making the algorithm more complex would of course make the order more random, but as you said they work most of the time, so there is no point of making them too complex.
 
geeman said:
Actually making a totally random stuff is impossible with computers, there is always a algorithm behind the randomness. What this means is that the order of music will always form patterns. Some songs are likely to come after some other song and some songs come up very rarely. Making the algorithm more complex would of course make the order more random, but as you said they work most of the time, so there is no point of making them too complex.
Click to expand...

I wish my Sony Walkman Phone would have put in a "more complex" randomizer. Its random function always is more likely to choose songs of roughly the same age as the current song (as in the time since placed in the library) and will have many, many repeats before they are all done; usually the repeats will be of the same single song over and over. (At least they mark it as "Random" and not "Shuffle")
 
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My big clunky old Creative mp3 player's random picked usually about an hour to and hour and a half worth of music, then repeated it... in the exact same order. Itunes' random seems to work well enough (having a bajillion songs helps though). But yeah, on mah ipp odd I just do the shuffle playlist.
 
I just did an experiment. I played one album, on "shuffle." It was repeating before it played all the songs from the album. Glad it has the "randomize list" function.
 
Well in my case my KMPlayer and the PSP handles the "Shuffle" function brilliantly....my phone on the other hand, N70 so called "Music Edition" has a "Shuffle" button but it only does the random bit.

Dosent bother me that much but sometimes it repeats the same song TWICE in a row...that gets annoying (
 
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