Proposal: Trivial Automated Playlist Generation, Not autoplaylists ;) Options

[odyssey]

I've had this one in my mind for a long time: Generating playlists by evaluating each item with rules that could apply to previous chosen track.

Example:

Take a seed track (it could be random, or selected from an existing playlist),
Add another random track from the library and validate it to these rules:
(%bpm% BETWEEN $prev_track(%bpm%-2) AND $prev_track(%bpm%+2)) AND
(%key% BETWEEN $prev_track(%key%-1) AND $prev_track(%key%+1))
If a track does not comply with the rules it should be thrown back in the pool of tracks to choose from.

Let's say you've got all your tracks tagged with %key% and %bpm% (that can already be done with Mixed In Key or Rapid Evolution and maybe soon natively with foobar2000!), you could create a harmonic playlist with minimal changes in tempo with just the click of a mouse! Best of all is that this playlist would be completely random everytime!

The %key% part of the syntax needs some work, as this tag usually (if using the camelot system) are formatted like 5B, 9B, 3A etc.

Maybe such thing like this could even be expanded by creating an API to allow components to compare tracks by more advanced algorithms. That could be something similar to MusicIP Mixer that compares music by its acoustic properties or maybe a genre/style map similar to that of Ishkur's guide to EDM that only allows each track to travel one step out of the current style.

It doesn't even have to be limited to the previous track - Maybe you want to specify something special to be played every 10th track - In my case I have plenty of small jokes in my library which are fun to hear once in a while. Maybe such joke is a series of 5, and it could maybe even be made possible with some logic or use of variables to play each part in correct order separated by one piece of music.

This is just a few things I had in mind that would make foobar2000 absolutely suprerior to anything else.

Some of this may already be possible with foo_playlist_tree_mod, but I had a look at it once and couldn't get a hang of it at all. I see this as a possebility of a better and more powerful interface and a userfriendly playlist generator in addition to autoplaylists. Please post suggestions, ideas and other useful stuff - Would you fancy such possebility at all, or is it just of no use?

This post has been edited by odyssey: Mar 18 2009, 11:23

[2E7AH]

ok, it sounds reasonable to me, asking for access info about previous track to be available in autoplaylist/search library scripts (missed that option too many times in titleformatting scripts)
but, not sure if foobar search engine works that way
then does anyone on this forum has a decent knowledge of SCHEME, except original playlist_tree author? that could solve many request also.
away from your idea, i'd also like the info to be available for any track in playlist based on %list_index%