Better way to shuffle?

[Syncourt]

Is there any way to improve the shuffle system? Every time, I go to artists, play a song while the mode is set to shuffle all available tracks and it always randomly picks some 1 or 2 favorite artist(s) and plays their music much more than others. I have 50 different artists albums yet 3 in 5 song will be tend to from the same one.

What is the ideal way to shuffle all tracks and is there any way to prevent the same artist from playing too close to their previous tracks?

[blaubär]

19 minutes ago, Syncourt said:

Is there any way to improve the shuffle system? Every time, I go to artists, play a song while the mode is set to shuffle all available tracks and it always randomly picks some 1 or 2 favorite artist(s) and plays their music much more than others. I have 50 different artists albums yet 3 in 5 song will be tend to from the same one.

What is the ideal way to shuffle all tracks and is there any way to prevent the same artist from playing too close to their previous tracks?

You start via Library, choose an artist, then choose "All Artist Songs" or one of the artist's albums ?

Then you tap on one song in the list view and this starts playing.

Then Poweramp automatically switches to the main playing screen ?

What shuffle mode is display there ? "Shuffle All", "Shuffle Songs" or "Shuffle Songs/Categories" ?

The effect then is the following : shuffling of all songs, not just the artists, but the songs aren't randomly distributed across the artists. 

Correct ?

[Syncourt]

I just start it on one of the artists songs (whichever particular song I feel like at the time), then yes the rest is more or less correct. It does not completely randomly distribute the songs. Its like it picks 1 or 2 artists (completely at random) and decides to play their music more than the others. It never seems to select more than 2 'favorites' to play in one session and these 'selected favorites' tend to change every session. 1 session being about an hour while I drive to and from work.

I've been using the player for these trips for just over 3 years now and everyone I've played it to can also see the pattern. Before the recent update It used to pick only 1 favorite artist and every second song was from them, every time. The recent update has spread that out slightly more but now I can get 2, sometimes 3 songs from the same artist in a row and it happens too regularly to be just coincidence.

[blaubär]

1 hour ago, Syncourt said:

I just start it on one of the artists songs (whichever particular song I feel like at the time), then yes the rest is more or less correct. It does not completely randomly distribute the songs. Its like it picks 1 or 2 artists (completely at random) and decides to play their music more than the others. It never seems to select more than 2 'favorites' to play in one session and these 'selected favorites' tend to change every session. 1 session being about an hour while I drive to and from work.

I've been using the player for these trips for just over 3 years now and everyone I've played it to can also see the pattern. Before the recent update It used to pick only 1 favorite artist and every second song was from them, every time. The recent update has spread that out slightly more but now I can get 2, sometimes 3 songs from the same artist in a row and it happens too regularly to be just coincidence.

Do you choose from "All Artist Songs" or one of the artist's albums ?

Which shuffle mode do you use, "Shuffle All", "Shuffle Songs" or "Shuffle Songs/Categories" ?

[andrewilley]

PA does not choose favourites of bias its shuffles, so I suspect this is just the nature of randomness showing it's head again. The only thing you can be sure of is that you won't hear the same song again in one session. You can force things by choosing a mode that shuffles one album before going on to the next, but that would be very obvious if that were the case here.

Andre

[Syncourt]

I use the first setting 'shuffle all available songs'.

 

See, that's just the thing. I know it sounds really weird, it's not designed to do it, It shouldn't do it. I see no reason why it would. But it does. Every time. Its actually predictable to the point where after hearing around 3-5 songs, I can tell the person I am with that it will overplay that certain artist. And then it does. I've never even one time been wrong about it either.

I tell anyone I'm with, every time just to make sure and prove to myself that I'm not crazy in thinking it's actually working like that lol.

If only there were a setting to restrict it (where possible) from going back to an artist until a set amount of tracks have passed. That would honestly make my daily trips that much better.

[andrewilley]

Are there more songs on your device by some artists than by other artists perhaps? Because by random choice you are bound to hear an artist pop up again sometimes, sooner or later (could even be next track).

Andre

[Syncourt]

That's the even stranger part, yes there are some artists with more tracks than others. But this random favorite is just as likely to be an artist I've kept only 3 songs (or 3 albums) by and it will play them all across 9-12 tracks out of what are hundreds on my phone. Where I have 1 personal favorite artist with 7 full untouched albums that is rarely the one that gets repeatedly played, even though realistically it should have the highest odds to be. Every other artist has near half the albums or I have deleted at least half of their tracks, yet they hold the same odds.

 

I can pick that an artist with just 7 songs is about to be played more than others out of hundreds of songs.

The same song never play twice, just to make sure there isnt any confusion there. Where I say repeated I just mean repeatedly going back to the same artist every 2nd or 3rd song and often twice in a row. Now it occasionally within more believable chance plays 3 in a row, the chance i'd more beleivably expect it should be playing the same artist at all. But the other, it does this every 2nd or 3rd song, every time I've used the player since the update and every 2nd song since before that. It's never not done this in 3+ years.

 

There are even songs by each artist that are played much more often than others too for some reason, while some few that have actually sat on the list for the whole 3+ years and never played even once by random selection. That is more believable though given the amount of tracks I have and not really an issue to me. Just thought i'd mention it.

[andrewilley]

I still think that's the nature of random, it can often beat the odds and seem to do strange things!

Andre

[Syncourt]

Ok so for another example, this mornings random selection of artists.

Song 1 - Ghost (manually selected).

Song 2 - Avenged Sevenfold (20 songs)

Song 3 - Bliss'n'Eso (59 songs)

Song 4 - Sia (35 songs)

Song 5 - Sia (again)

Song 6 - Bliss'n'Eso (again)

Song 7 - Avenged sevenfold (again)

Song 8 - Churches (25 songs)

Song 9 - Skrillex (16 songs)

I also found the total tracks number in settings, which is 721. My artist with most songs is 79 songs (and rarely plays more than once every 5 songs), my second most is bliss n Eso with 47, then Sia with 35, every other artist has 30 or less songs across 36 other artists.

I do understand this sort of thing can happen with random play on occasion, but the odds of this happenning every time I use it shouldn't be even remotely close to 100% should it?

[andrewilley]

That still looks random to me. Random could sometime play all the songs in one album back to back. OK, not very likely, but randomness is just that, unpredictable. There's not much further I can add unless the dev thinks there is a problem that needs to be addressed I'm afraid.

Andre

[Syncourt]

Well, its very predictable to me after about 5 songs. It goes on like that longer during longer sessions. It would have played a lot of avenged sevenfold in this case, most commonly the 2nd track (the very first randomly chosen one) is one of the selected repeat artists. I don't usually get 3 doubles like I did this morning though.

 

Anyway, thanks for the having a look. Hopefully the devs may consider implementing an advanced setting for shuffle in future. One that lets you restrict it from going back to already played artists until a set number of songs have passed. Or calculating the percentage of songs by a set category for better distribution across a shuffled list. Anything to help provide a good variety of music on a shuffled list.

[Damonb]

I agree with Syncourt.   I want to shuffle all songs on my device.  I do not have a single playlist, but Poweramp plays some of the same songs over and over.  After certain songs , I can predict the next song.  I have some songs on my device that NEVER play on shuffle.  The only way i here them is if I specifically select the song. I have tried every shuffle option.  Am i missing something     My current settings are -Shuffle all and repeat off.

[andrewilley]

40 minutes ago, Damonb said:

I Am i missing something  

The subjective versus objective nature of randomness I guess.

You could hear the same song within different shuffle sessions, or there could be some songs you don't hear for years.

However if you keep the same shuffle session going though, without any actions which trigger a re-shuffle, you shouldn't hear any given song again until your entire music collection has been played.  To avoid some events that would trigger a re-shuffle, try enabling Settings > Library > Lists > No Reshuffle.

Andre

[24th Grand Master of K.T.]

Ahh, Poweramp could have been so beautiful. Syncourt: After looking around on the internet, I learned that it's a known Poweramp issue, it did the same thing on my LGv60. After selecting random and I know that it's on completely random because it plays a few songs by different artists like your post covers (you paying attention yet wiley? Heheh) ALL THAT IT PLAYS after those few songs are one artist's songs. If you press pause at any time and the phone goes dark, when you resume what's in cue it will all be by one artist, how it picks that artist who ****ing knows. To make this extra clear: I can press forward (next song) 100 X, and Poweramp had somehow shifted from 'shuffle all' to 'shuffle artist' without me touching the app.  Every song in the cue is suddenly by that artist until there are no songs by them left on the phone. Sounds crazy I mean it should be on full random not full ***. The blunt explanation is that Poweramp wasn't done app building. They already know about this issue. Here's a suggestion for the admin:  Instead of trying to cover your *** from your own **** and saying that it's the user who had issues with their own luck or dumber yet, subtly implying that they must have had mental problems, just prompt whoever built it to fix the app, dummy. Some companies put out updates on a weekly to monthly basis it wouldn't kill you to put in 1 or 2 well deserved updates (that isn't the only issue with the player).

A workaround? When you start playing music again (after your phone goes dark) you have to go back to the folder and select random again. We could try removing all of the music, putting it on again and never selecting artist random, or what seems to work sometimes is pressing next song lots of times until you get past as many songs as your'e likely going to listen to, and pressing back that many times again. I know it sucks but obviously Poweramp didn't plan on doing any updates ever. Some time consuming nightmare (I'm an audiophile who doens't like touching his phone if I shouldn't have to). Disappointing considering that Poweramp makes it possible to select presets without choosing them individually for each song (most music players didn't even let you assign presets to specific songs) this is supposed to be an app for audiophiles and they can't even make it shuffle songs. On my rooted ROG phone (best audio by far on any phone) I use Viper4Android (it's free).

Edited January 22, 2022 by andrewilley
Profanity removed

[maxmp]

@24th Grand Master of K.T. Thanks for the details, I will definitely look into issue and polish this if I’m able to reproduce the bug. The only problem it can break some other person preferred way of shuffling, I hope not.

[andrewilley]

@24th Grand Master of K.T. When you say "after selecting random...", what do you mean? Are you starting playback by tapping one of the small Shuffle icons at the top-left of one of the Library Category lists - e.g. in the Artists or Albums views, or perhaps All Songs? If so, which Library Category are you starting from? If it's the top-level Artists view, then the default method of shuffling is to pick any artist at random and shuffle all of their available material and then pick another artist at random and shuffle all of their songs (which might just be a single song in some cases of course; I have lots of one-off songs in my collection) and so on. Which does sound rather like the mode you are describing.

Or are you just using the main Shuffle icon on the Player Screen, which is more versatile and has five options (long-press to see them)? If you choose 'All Available Songs' from that button it should never drop back to shuffling by any of the three Category-based modes - such as shuffling by Artists in the example you give, or whatever Category you are currently using - such as Folders, Albums, Genres, etc.
 

To confirm what is actually happening in your case and help diagnose your problem, please keep an eye on the small counter in the centre of the row of icons just below the cover art in the player screen (it's an optional item, so you may need to reenable it with Settings > Look and Feel > Player UI > Show Track Counter). When shuffling starts, it should show the current position within the total number of songs in the current sequence. So if you select 'All Available Songs' via the main Shuffle icon on the player screen, the counter should initially show as " 1 / <total library songs> ", then move on to 2, 3, 4, etc until everything in your whole Library has been randomly played. Does that happen for you?

When you then tap the '>>' button to move on to forthcoming tracks, that number should keep incrementing all the way through the whole of the randomised library until you reach the end total. And if you use the '<<' button, it should move backwards through the same list. Does the counter ever get reset back to 1 again for you? If you were shuffling by (for example) Artists rather than All Songs then you would see the counter reset to "1 / <available artist songs>" every time playback of a new artist commences.

Here's a bit more information on how it works:

Max has said he'll look into this and see if he can find some All Songs bug remaining, but if there is I've not been able to duplicate it on my devices.

Some more step-by-step information from you - on exactly how you commence playback and where from, which Category mode, and what happens to the track counter during playback - would be a lot more productive than an expletive and insult laden rant commenting on a three-year-old post... 

Andre

[suedeboogie]

 

 

I have the same issue  .    I have 1522 songs.  Poweramp will only shuffle about 200 songs.

I have hundreds of songs that have NEVER played during shuffle.

I have tried all shuffle modes. shuffle just songs, shuffle just categories, shuffle categories and songs,  etc.    I have even moved ALL songs and put al 1522 song only in one folder on my phone.   damonscott71@gmail.com if you have a solution

[andrewilley]

@suedeboogie There is a new feature in PA build 928 onward which allows you to 'bias' the shuffle system towards playing songs that have never been played on your phone first. See Settings > Library > Shuffle > Shuffle Randomisation. If you don't enable this mode, a single Shuffle session is completely random.

Shuffle will NOT repeat any tracks though, until it has played through your whole library (or the current subset if you are in one of the limited categories such as a Playlist, or Top Rated, etc). If you stop or change shuffle modes, an entire new shuffled list is created and that of course may play tracks again. You can see when this has occurred as the track counter will revert from however far it had got through your library back to "1 / nnnn".

To test this, set the Shuffle mode to 'All Songs' and the counter should start at "1 / nnnn" (where nnnn is the total number of songs in your library). Keep tapping the Next Track >> button and the count will increment all the way up to the end of the library (if you give it long enough) without ever repeating anything.

 Andre