Genre and Playlist Shuffle

[vierwood]

First time here and could not find an answer for this issue:

When I am trying to shuffle songs that are in a single Genre (or Playlist), what is the correct shuffle setting to shuffle ONLY songs in that Genre? I've tried all of the settings, but it seems to jump to other Genres or Playlist a lot instead. So, what I'd like to set up is a setting that allows me to do this by swiping the album art to the left to shuttle to a different song in that Genre. That, or by pressing the "double arrow" or "triple arrow" next to the play button to shuffle songs in that genre. 

I'm playing this on my 2-year-old Motorola One 5g Ace phone, android version 11.

Thank you!

 

[maxmp]

It's either shuffle Songs or Shuffle Songs/Categories. The later is applied when shuffle button is pressed in the list header. Poweramp will still move to the next category (next genre) if repeat mode allows that.

[andrewilley]

@vierwood  There are two factors you need to consider when setting up a shuffle sequence, the Shuffle mode and the Repeat mode. Taking Genre playback as an example, you can trigger listening in several ways.

1) If you open the category view for a Genre (let's use "Electronic" as an example) you can simply tap on the 'Shuffle' icon in the header area for random playback to commence. The sequence will be to pick one album at random from that genre first, and shuffle all of its songs. After that album is finished, playback will move on to another randomly chosen Electronic album and that will be played in shuffled order, etc.

2) However If you want to listen to every individual electronic song in your collection completely randomly (i.e. with no album grouping) there is one extra step. First tap on 'All Genre Songs' at the top of the Genre list, and only then tap the 'Shuffle' icon. Playback will be a completely random selection from all of your Electronic songs - 176 of them in my example case.

Note: if you always want to shuffle all of the songs in a Category, i.e. never grouped by albums first, you can avoid that extra 'All Genre Songs' tap by choosing Settings=>Library=>Shuffle=>Category Items Shuffle = Shuffle Songs.

 

 

Finally (phew!) what happens at the end of each album - or at the end of the whole genre song list if that's the method you have chosen - is governed by the Repeat icon on the Player Screen:

• If you set it to 'Repeat Off', playback will stop at the end of each album (or at the end of the genre songs list).
• If you set it to 'Repeat Category', playback will restart again with the current album (or the same genre songs list) in a newly re-shuffled order.
• If you set it to 'Advance Category', then at the end of the current album (or the full genre songs list) playback will move on to a new album (or genre category). This is not what you asked for, so this is unlikely to be the right mode for your needs. 

The wording of those Repeat options is a bit of a legacy throwback - which hopefully might get updated in some future build to help avoid confusion for new users - but basically think of 'Repeat Off' as really meaning 'Play Current Category', while 'Advance Category' means 'Play All Categories'.

Manually pressing the '>>' or '>>>' buttons will override the automatic Repeat action by the way. So '>>>' will always move on to the next album/Category, as that is what you have explicitly asked to happen.

For more info on using the different Repeat and Shuffle modes, see:

Andre

[vierwood]

Andre,

You explained everything that I needed to know.  I was hitting the shuffle and repeat buttons AFTER I started playing, which gave me missed results. So here is what thinks look like when I follow your instructions, and everything works:

 

Related to your comments on always wanting to shuffle all of the songs in a Category, I have that set correctly, but did I also want to turn on the "Shuffle All Songs In Folder Hierarchy" setting, as shown here:

 

Lastly, some players keep "breaking up" some of my albums, basically showing one album as two albums, with some of the songs in one and the rest in the other.  I've created and checked the tags on my desktop using Media Monkey, and these albums show as one album there, not two. What's going on here? Example below where all of the songs are in one R.E.M. album and a single track is in the other album next to it:

 

I'm glad that I found the Poweramp app.  I was using Pulsar or Media Monkey for years and this one blows them out of the water!

Thanks a lot!

Vierwood

 

[andrewilley]

Most likely the Album Artist tag in one of the files for that album does not exactly match with the other songs from the same album. PA groups songs into albums based on the Album Title AND Album Artist tags.

Andre

[vierwood]

I'll take a look. Thanks again Andre. 

[andrewilley]

There's a bit more background discussion in this Guide, which might help:

Andre

[AVCPL]

On 2/22/2024 at 8:10 PM, maxmp said:

It's either shuffle Songs or Shuffle Songs/Categories. The later is applied when shuffle button is pressed in the list header. Poweramp will still move to the next category (next genre) if repeat mode allows that.

Is there any way you can make this behavior selectable?  I would love it if the former (Shuffle Songs) is applied when shuffle button is pressed in the list header...

[Fitzian]

2 hours ago, AVCPL said:

Is there any way you can make this behavior selectable?  I would love it if the former (Shuffle Songs) is applied when shuffle button is pressed in the list header...

Just choose that option in category items shuffle.

[AVCPL]

That's what I do but it's extra steps and sometimes I forget and chaos ensues! 

I would like to just select the playlist and hit the shuffle icon. As it is now, I select the playlist, hit the shuffle icon, go into the category and cycle through/hold down and select the shuffle songs option. 

 

Ideally I wish Shuffle Songs and Shuffle Off were my only options as I never, ever shuffle categories.

It would be nice to be able to choose what options we want included on the Shuffle and Repeat menus. 

[Fitzian]

55 minutes ago, AVCPL said:

That's what I do but it's extra steps and sometimes I forget and chaos ensues! 

I would like to just select the playlist and hit the shuffle icon. As it is now, I select the playlist, hit the shuffle icon, go into the category and cycle through/hold down and select the shuffle songs option. 

 

Ideally I wish Shuffle Songs and Shuffle Off were my only options as I never, ever shuffle categories.

It would be nice to be able to choose what options we want included on the Shuffle and Repeat menus. 

It's not a setting that needs changing every time, though? It's not an extra step if avoiding it causes you to require other steps and chaos.

 

If you want the header button to shuffle songs, that's what it will do. Select the playlist. Press the shuffle button in the header. Boom, done.

[AVCPL]

It does shuffle the songs, but also shuffles the categories. The extra steps are needed to get it to only shuffle songs after pressing the shuffle button in the header...

[MotleyG]

29 minutes ago, AVCPL said:

It does shuffle the songs, but also shuffles the categories. The extra steps are needed to get it to only shuffle songs after pressing the shuffle button in the header...

Nope. The header shuffle function in any category shuffles the tracks within that category only if you have this option enabled.

Settings=>Library=>Shuffle=>Category Items Shuffle = Shuffle Songs.

[AVCPL]

 

 

damn, I got excited that maybe I missed something, but I just checked my settings and that is what I have (Settings=>Library=>Shuffle=>Category Items Shuffle = Shuffle Songs). 

I just opened a new playlist and hit the shuffle icon and sure enough it plays and the pop up says: "Shuffle Songs and Categories" 

which is really confusing because it seems like this is the exact option I have been asking for, but it's just not working...

Edited May 18 by AVCPL

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, AVCPL said:

It does shuffle the songs, but also shuffles the categories. 

The 'Category Items Shuffle' setting only comes into use when you are shuffling at a level which has sub-layers . A single Playlist does not have any further layers, it's just one flat list.

So for example, if you use the Shuffle icon within the header of the overall 'Playlists' category - i.e. the level where you can see the titles of all of the playlists in your library:

• Shuffle Songs: Picks each new song completely at random from any of your available playlists - a fully random selection of any contained song - until every eventually song in every playlist has been played.
• Shuffle Categories: Picks one playlist at random and plays its songs in the original listed order, then picks another random playlist and plays its song in regular order, etc.
• Shuffle Songs/Categories: Picks one playlist at random and plays all of its contents in shuffled order. Then picks another random playlist and plays all of its songs shuffled too, etc.

It works the same way in other categories with further nested layers too - Genres, Artists, etc.

If you are playing a single playlist, the 'Categories' part of 'Shuffle Songs/Categories' is irrelevant until the whole of that playlist has been played in shuffled order. If you make sure Repeat mode is not set to 'Advance Category', playback won't then move on to a new playlist, which I think is what you are asking for? You can set Repeat to 'Off' (which will just cause playback to stop completely at the end) or to 'Repeat Category' (which will keep re-shuffling the same playlist forever).

Andre

[AVCPL]

ok, that makes more sense.  thanks for the explanation.