shuffle Play every song once before restarting playlist

[Slickvath]

As I checked this forum, I found out I am not the only one with a large music collection on his/hers/its/etc... phone. Hell... that's why I use Poweramp for over 10 years now.
I got over 7000 songs in my playlist that's playing on my phone on shuffle.
I know that shuffling is some kind of magic to pull off and that's why I would like to add some extra magic to it...

With the 7000+ songs I still encounter that some songs come by more frequently and other songs never come by.
Wouldn't it be nice to add the following feature to playlists: play every song once before restarting playlist...

I myself don't use Apple/Mac but my wife does. I have seen an option in iTunes that does this

I recon this could be done by giving each song from a playlist being played a mark which tells Poweramp to leave the song alone.
When the complete playlist has been played (all songs have said mark), the marks get reset.

[andrewilley]

When you are listening to any given Playlist in Shuffle mode, all the songs in that Playlist are simply re-ordered into a long randomised sequence (like shuffling a deck of cards) and then the list is played from the beginning of that random order to the end - like picking cards from the top of a shuffled deck one at a time until you've used all the cards. So as long as you leave a list playing, it will remain in its shuffled order until all of the songs in that list have been played once. Nothing can be repeated, any more than you can pick the Ace of Diamonds several times from a shuffled deck of cards.

If you re-shuffle the Playlist again (by starting a new type of playback session for example, rather than just pausing the existing one) then of course all bets are off and you may well hear some songs again in the new sequence that you might have heard fairly recently during previous shuffled sessions. That's just the nature of randomness. You can slightly bias the true randomness of the algorithm by using PA Settings=>Library=>Shuffle=>Shuffle Randomisation, which has a prioritising slider that can prefer that songs which have lower play counts to be moved nearer the start of the sequence - meaning you are less likely to hear something again that you have already listened to recently in another session.

To check the progress of a playback session, make sure you have PA Settings=>Look and Feel=>Player UI=>Show Track Counter enabled. If you have (for example) 7,000 songs in a shuffled Playlist then you will start off seeing the counter at 1/7000 and it will gradually increase song-by-song until it gets to 7000/7000, at which point PA will move on to the next Playlist (or reshuffle and start the same list again if that's how you have the Repeat mode set). If the counter is back at 1 again, you have done something to trigger a re-shuffle.

One other thing you can do with Playlists is to physically re-order the whole original list. While you are viewing any specific song-list in the Playlists Library Category, use (menu)=>Re-Sort=>'Shuffle (random sort)' to re-order the whole list. Then you won't need to use Shuffle button at all, you can just play the newly ordered list from start to finish. You can even opt to return to an existing position within any given Playlist by going into (menu)=>List Options for that list and enabling both the 'List Position' and 'Per Track Progress' memories. Then when you go back to that Playlist at a later time, use the 'Play' icon at the top of the list to recommence where you left off. Note: List Memory options are available for Playlists and for Folders, but not for the other Library Categories, and it is an individual Playlist/Folder setting so you'd need to active the option separately for each Playlist or Folder.

Andre

[Slickvath]

Hey Andre,

Thanks for this fast reply. Also thanks for the excellent explanation. In the past i have played with these settings but I guess not in the right way. I will try the things you said above.

[MotleyG]

7 hours ago, andrewilley said:

To check the progress of a playback session, make sure you have PA Settings=>Look and Feel=>Player UI=>Show Track Counter enabled. If you have (for example) 7,000 songs in a shuffled Playlist then you will start off seeing the counter at 1/7000 and it will gradually increase song-by-song until it gets to 7000/7000, at which point PA will move on to the next Playlist (or reshuffle and start the same list again if that's how you have the Repeat mode set). If the counter is back at 1 again, you have done something to trigger a re-shuffle.

This is definitely the best way to watch your play order. If it resets to start at 1/.. at some point, it means you reshuffled and started a new order.