[Macworld]

Post your comments for Spinning songs with iTunes DJ here

[haylo]

(If there’s music you never want to appear in the iTunes DJ playlist, select the tracks, click on the Options tab, then check Skip when Shuffling. This also affects Shuffle Songs on the iPod.)
Can you help with this? I'm struggling to see figure this out. What is the "Options Tab" in iTunes?
thx
Neil

[haylo]

I now understand this is once you have used "get info" for a track or bunch of tracks. The options tab is present then. A bit hidden but ok....

[kirkmc]

Select a group of tracks, then press Command-I (it looks like that part got lost in the edit). Then click the Options tab, and you'll see that option.

[asmeurer]

iTunes DJ adds one annoying 'feature' that was missing from Party Shuffle. Double clicking on the track just before the on that is playing causes it to add and play in front of the one that is playing. Previously, it would just shift the playlist. The way it is now, you never hear the one that is playing again unless you move it as well. And if you go back and forth between the two (as I often do when I am trying to set the stop time on live recordings so I don't have to hear the applause at the end), your iTunes DJ history gets filled with the two tracks.

[kirkmc]

If you do that often - want to eliminate applause - check out this article:
http://www.macworld....trimtracks.html
I use Fission for such things. Just the other day, it was very useful eliminating a lot of radio chatter in a Brad Mehldau FM recording I had downloaded.

[meta]

I've never understood why you can't use the DJ feature with tracks from a shared library or network device. Why is it crippled to only work with tracks on your local hard disk?

[macavenger]

Is it just me, or does the "Enable Voting" option (under settings) in the new iTunes DJ disable your ability to manually drag tracks to the desired position within the playlist?

[kirkmc]

Um, in the article I say:
"Note, however, that if voting is enabled, you can’t manually drag songs in the list to change their order."
Kirk

[Plan_K]

The coolest thing about Party Shuffle/iTunes DJ is the checkbox "Play higher rated songs more often." It really seems to play 3 or 4-star songs while not forgetting to throw in an occasional 2 or even 1 star song. The bad thing about it has always been and still is this: It has no qualms about throwing a duplicate song into your upcoming playlist. If you leave iTunes DJ unattended, there is a chance (especially with shorter playlists) that you are going to hear songs repeated. It should have a setting wherein it disallows songs to be placed on the upcoming list more than once or that have already been played.
I don't want to have to babysit my music, I want to set it and forget it. So I haven't used Party Shuffle/iTunes DJ for its intended purpose in a long time. I use it as a smart, random picker. I set it to select 50 or 100 songs from a specific playlist. I drag those songs into a new playlist and then I have to go to File>Show Duplicates to get rid of the duplicates that iTunes DJ should have a setting to leave out. Then I delete the duplicates from the playlist (but not the library, of course) and play the resulting playlist. This provides a playlist of mostly higher rated songs without forgetting the occasional lower rated song.
One criticism about the change from Party Shuffle to iTunes DJ: The settings for how many songs to show on the list were once in plain sight within the Party Shuffle playlist, along the bottom of the iTunes window. Now, in iTunes DJ, those settings have to be accessed by clicking the Settings ... button. Hiding the feature like this behind another button makes it unnecessarily harder to use.

[macavenger]

kirkmc said:

Um, in the article I say:

"Note, however, that if voting is enabled, you can’t manually drag songs in the list to change their order."

Kirk

Oh. Oops. Missed that. My bad :P

[Imaginos1892]

WHY is almost every function crippled when using a shared library? DJ/Party Shuffle will not see it. Cover Flow and Cover View are disabled. Sorting is completely broken - if I want to play "I Robot", first I have to look between Al Stewart and Aldo Nova to find it. The instant the title track starts playing, it JUMPS to a new location between Ozzy Osbourne and Pat Benatar, and when it ends, it starts playing "Treat Me Right" instead of "I Wouldn't Want To Be Like You". Select the album, you say? No dice - "I Robot" VANISHES from the list and when it finishes, playback stops.
I do not want to have to maintain a separate copy of 600 CDs on every computer. I want them all stored on one machine with a big hard drive and streamed to all the rest. Unfortunately, Apple makes that a colossal pain in the tookus. And WHY is there iTunes for MS-WINDOZE, but not for Linux? A Linux port should be trivial since it is essentially another variant of UNIX.
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Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

[cabelaj]

Ill be using iTunes DJ this Friday night at a party. Its a bit skimpy. I was hoping it would fade into the next song if you change it manually and such. But the right click on a song and play next is a very nice feature. I hope it improves. As it should. Its iTunes

[FarmerBob]

I use(d) Party Shuffle all the time. That's all I would use with iTunes and see no similarity with iTunes DJ. I don't get the variety and "shuffle" that would produce delightfully surprising combinations whether at the office, in the car, at the house(s), or a party that I use to get with PS. I see the "guest services" as a great feature if used in a party/nightclub and let the patrons do the programming. But . . .
I have started using Shuffle in a PlayList and found it the closest to the old Party Shuffle.
Just my 2 . . .
. . . fb