PlayDJ Blog

Have you ever considered RADIO as an occupation?   Check out this interesting article:  http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-get-a-job-at-a-radio-station on how to get into a station ASAP.

Let's face it:  you're hooked on music. 

1. You're reading this PlayDJ blog about creating better playlists. 

2. You've got hundreds or thousands of CDs and tracks on your iTunes and iPod

3. You play music wherever you go: in the car, at work, at home. 

4. Besides your iPod, you probably also listen to FM radio.  You may also have Sirius or XM Satellite radio, too, I bet.  If you don't, I get you'd like to have those, right? 

Hmmm...think about it.  maybe you're in the wrong line of work.  

A radio job probably beats whatever job you have right now.  Why not start working in radio...this week?  Check out this article http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-get-a-job-at-a-radio-station and you'll REALLY be surrounded by more music than ever, and what's wrong with that?

Tom Z 

Many people who have iPods never create playlists, they just load their songs, set it to shuffle and press play.  On first look this should work pretty well, after all if I don’t like the song I wouldn’t have bought it and put it on my iPod in the first place.

The problem is that while I may like a particular song, it may not fit my mood right now.  I may be unwinding on the ride home after a hectic day at work and a great rock song isn’t what I really want to hear, I would much rather hear something more relaxing.  Or maybe I’m getting ready to go for a run; smooth jazz isn’t going to fill the bill here either.  The best way to have songs that fit your mood or activity is to use playlists.

Creating playlists in iTunes can be a slow, time consuming task.  That’s why we created PlayDJ.  It takes much of the work and tedium out of creating playlists that fit your mood and activity like a glove.  You can quickly select a group of songs that fit a particular activity, like your daily run and create scheduled playlists from that pool.

Let’s say you have 1,000 songs in your iTunes library and about 200 of them are great for your daily run.  You simply create a raw playlist with those 200 songs and save it.  Then when you are ready to build a scheduled playlist for your run, you just tell PlayDJ how long you plan to be running, say an hour, and in the blink of an eye you have a scheduled playlist to sync with your iPod.  Using this 200 song raw playlist you can create a new scheduled playlist for each day’s run and not hear the same songs over and over.

That’s the real beauty of scheduled playlists; they spread the artists and songs automatically, so you will hear all of the 200 songs on your raw list, not just some of them.  Scheduled playlists also eliminate the clumping of artists that so often happens when you just use shuffle.  It’s not that your iPod likes Steely Dan more than you do, it’s just how random works.

Once you’ve used PlayDJ to build scheduled playlists that exactly match what you are doing while you listen to them, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without it.  I’ve got a long car trip this weekend, so I need to create a couple of scheduled playlists for my trip.

This video shows you step-by-step how to create a Scheduled Playlist using all of the songs in your iTunes library with PlayDJ.  It shows you how to select all of the songs in your iTunes library and then create Scheduled Playlists that are automatically stored in your iTunes and then save them directly to your iPod.  We have found that many iPod users just select random and play and live with the frustration of hearing clumps of music from the same artist, this is what we call the pain of ramdom.

It's not that your iPod likes some artists more than others, it's just how random works.  PlayDJ eliminates this pain by automatically spreading same artists, genres, tempos, and ratings and balancing them across a complete playlist.  Using PlayDJ you'll  hear songs you haven't heard in a long time and you won't wear out your skip button.

Give the method in this video a try and let us know what you think, we're always happy to hear from you about what you like and don't like about PlayDJ and any new features you think we should addd.  Just add a comment to this blog or call our comment line at (214) 615-6505 ext 4507 and leave a voice comment.

This short video demonstrates how easy it is to create a Scheduled Playlist from a list of selected artists in PlayDJ.  You can use this method to create Raw Playlists with other selected attributes like genre, tempo, rating, years, etc.  Once you have created your Scheduled Playlist it explains how to save it to iTunes and sync it with your iPod.

This is the first in a series of videos about PlayDJ and we'll be adding to the list frequently, so check back often

The Filter Builder inside PlayDJ takes the blank page in the center of your PlayDJ screen and easily fills it with the songs you want for your Raw Playlist. 

Remember, it’s the songs in your Raw Playlist from which you’ll create a balanced, Scheduled Playlist, the very heart of PlayDJ.

A blank page becomes a Raw Playlist

Here’s the quickest way to easily build a Raw Playlist:

Use the tabs in the Filter Builder to choose the artists, years, genres (or other attributes) you wish to include in your Raw Playlist.

1. Click the filter icon and see the songs you’ve selected appear in the center of the screen.  Notice the top of the PlayDJ screen shows the number of songs you’ve added so far. To add more songs to this list, repeat step 1 
2. When you’ve created a large Raw Playlist containing songs you want for a certain situation (for example, fast songs for the drive to work, your daily commute, or this Saturday’s party), you’ve arrived at the point where PlayDJ is ready to work its magic. 
3. Save this Raw Playlist into iTunes for later use then go ahead and create any number of balanced, Scheduled Playlists.  The songs in your Raw Playlist become a “pool” from which PlayDJ selects songs to go into your next Scheduled Playlist.

Then, you can call up your Raw Playlist instantly whenever you want to create more completely different, balanced, Scheduled Playlists whenever you need them.  And, of course, you can create as many Raw Playlists as you wish.  For example, you may have a Raw Playlist with a mix of rock and hip-hop songs, another one containing only songs before 1980, and another with soft, romantic music.  In each case you can use these Raw Playlists to create an unlimited number of Scheduled Playlists for either playing directly from PlayDJ, or for importing to your iPod for your Scheduled Playlists on the go.  

Hot tip:  avoid doing this in reverse.  Some PlayDJ users try to select all songs, then uncheck at few attributes and wonder why the list doesn’t change. 

Here’s why:  When you check all songs you naturally get all attributes of everything in your iTunes library. If you then uncheck a few artists, years or genres, most songs you want to remove from your Raw Playlist will not disappear because they will probably contain one or more other attributes keeping them visible (like one of your playlists, for example).  Although you can’t do this yet, this feature will be activated in a future version of PlayDJ.  Read on.   

Create new “workout playlists” every day, filled with your favorites

Let’s say you workout every morning for an hour.  Use the Filter Builder inside PlayDJ to quickly create an unscheduled, Raw Playlist of 250 songs you love to workout to, then save it to your iTunes. 

Then, whenever you’re ready, bring up only that saved Raw Playlist and create five, 1-hour Scheduled Playlists for each weekday next week.  Save each of those Scheduled Playlists to iTunes and sync with your iPod.  Then you can play one each morning, and each one will be completely different, but still filled only with your favorite songs. 

FUTURE FEATURE:  Instead of starting with a blank page and building the Raw Playlist, a large number of PlayDJ users have requested that we add the ability to do that in reverse:  to check any specific artist, genre or other attribute, then unselect those you want to remove from this list. 

Consider it done!  This cool feature will appear in the next version of PlayDJ. 

Thanks for your suggestions…keep’em coming.  Email any other ideas to Support@PlayDJ.com.

On the left side of the screen you will find the Playlist Designer, this is where you decide how you want to use the songs in the Raw Playlist section in your Scheduled Playlist.  There are three controls in this section:  Tempo, Artist Separation and Rating.  These three controls determin how the patented PlayDJ scheduler uses the music in your Raw Playlist.

One note here, if you haven't assigned stars (ratings) or BPM (tempo) to your songs, those controls will have no effect on your schedule.  Since all of your songs will have an Artist name assigned to them this control will have an effect on your Scheduled Playlist.  Artist Separation works like this.  When you move the slider to the minimum setting it will reduce the length of time between plays of the same artist, likewise when it is set to maximum it will increase the length of time between plays of the same artist.  If the slider remains in the middle the schedule will default to the natural amount of time between plays of the same artist.

Here's how that works.  Let's say that you have 1,000 songs on your iPod and that 100 of them are from The Beatles.  PlayDJ will basically play one Beatles song every 10 songs.  Moving the Artist Separation slider to the Max position will increase that to perhaps one of every 15 songs, moving it to the Min position will reduce it to perhaps one of every 5 songs.

Now all you have to do is create a Scheduled Playlist.  A really cool feature of this is that you can have a raw playlist with a thousand songs and you only want to create a one hour Scheduled Playlist for your workout today and another for tomorrow and so on.  PlayDJ remembers what songs it used on Monday so when you go back to that raw playlist to create a Scheduled Playlist for Tuesday you will get different songs, same thing for Wednesday, Thursday and so on.

There's a lot mor to talk about and we'll be posting more on a regular basis.

When I first heard about PlayDJ, I thought "Yes, that is exactly what my iPod player needs!"  I can't believe that I have lived this long without it!  Rock on, PlayDJ guys! 

Well here we go with the first post to our new blog.  If you have just purchased PlayDJ, thanks.  We've worked long and hard to provide you with a new way to enjoy the music on your iPod.  If you are like we are, you really love your iPod, and use it very often.  Maybe it's what get's you through your morning commute, or keeps you motivated during your daily workout, or maybe you just like having your music with you wherever you go. 

It doesn't matter why you love your iPod, we're here to help you get the most out of it.  If you've noticed that when you just press play and shuffle your songs you seem to hear the same songs over and over again and never hear some songs.  Or that you hear the same artists way too often and never hear others, PlayDJ is here to solve this problem.

PlayDJ has two main functions, first it allows you to build playlists quickly and easily from all of the songs you have in your iTunes library.  The easiest way to do this is by using the Filter Builder on the right side of the screen.  The Filter Builder allows you to select groups of songs, artists, or attributes and move them into the Raw Playlist section in the center of the screen.  You can then take this Raw Playlist and remove any songs that you don't want in the final playlist that you will put on your iPod.

Once you have narrowed you selections and have only the songs that you want to play selected you can schedule this list and create a PlayDJ Scheduled Playlist.  This is the list that you can send to your iPod.  The Scheduled Playlist is very different from shuffle or anything else you have ever used.

One of the really great things about PlayDJ is that even if you don't make any adjustment to any of the Playlist Designer tools, the system will do a much better job of spreading out the artists, tempo and ratings of your songs.

As you get more comfortable with PlayDJ you'll want to start experimenting with the Playlist Designer and you can do this and listen to what your going to get using the live player.  Changes you make while the live player is playing are instantly reflected in what you hear.

We'll talk more about that in future blogs as well as offer you many more tips on how to get the most from PlayDJ.  We'll also keep you informed about upcoming features and developments.

Thanks and welcome to the PlayDJ family.