There may be a better way, but you could just make an opposite playlist, and that would be everything else.

That's the problem. How do you make an opposite playlist without going through everything to see if it is already in a playlist?

Cool, so it looks like my want for an artist catalog shuffle is possible! Thanks guys

One more thing that I should have asked right away. I have a ton of CDs and will put a good majority on the Ipod. Is it as easy as putting the CD in my computer and having the songs put straight into the Ipod? Also, I have alot of MP3s and CDRs of rare, OOP CDs that I will add, is that possible? I had heard Ipod requires you to only put Itune songs on there only. Ill be damned if Im rebuying songs and albums to put on there. I also put an MP3 player together for my grandma and it was a living hell converting songs and such, I DO NOT want to go through that again. That and the fear of having to purchase songs I want on the Ipod is what has kept me from getting one.

You do not have to spend a cent on the itunes music store in order to fill your ipod with music.
* Insert CDR with MP3s to computer.
* Open itunes
* Find "add to library" in the itunes menu and select the disk (you might want to copy the MP3s to the hard drive first, depending on the speed of your CDRom drive and PC).
* Let it import the tracks to the itunes library. I also let it manage the library on the HD, but that's a personal decision. If you do, and you copied the tracks to your HD, delete that source, because if itunes manages them, it will copy them into your My Documents folder.
* Plug in ipod and tell it what you want on it.

You can also rip music CDs via itunes to your hard drive, which can then be put on the ipod as well. You can probably rip directly to the ipod as well, but might require additional hardware or software.

This might work:

Create a folder in itunes.
Add all of your playlists into that folder.
Create a smart playlist that states "playlist is not (name of folder you created)".

Only told you that two weeks ago, but ye didna believe me then.

Yup, pop it in, hit the rip button in iTunes, and there you go. Although I don't use that (I prefer EAC with LAME compressor, but thats me).
Yes.
Absolutely false. Someone was bullshitting you.
You won't have to worry.

Ask around and come back to me in another 2 weeks.

Interesting idea! I'll mess around with it and see what it'll do.

Never meant as an insult man. Just being positive cause when it comes to electronics, cars, women (basically expensive shit) Im really picky.

The help is greatly appreciated

I was thinking if the criterion for the playlist are Genre is punk OR artist is beatles then you'd make a new one that was Genre is not punk and artist is not beatles (do the opposite for each criteria). Actually it's even easier, because there is an option so you can pick "playlist is not [whatever] list". I tested it and it gives me everything not on whatever playlist I chose.

If you want everything that's not in any playlist, then I guess you'd have to do an "and" for every playlist you have (playlist is not xxx AND playlist is not yyy etc).

Or maybe I'm just misunderstanding completely.

I don't have an ipod, but my solution to this on my zen vision m was to change the 'genre' tag on all my comedy to 'comedy' and all my music to 'music', then I could select genre first then look through by artist/album etc. or just play all.

This obviously is only a good solution if you never sort your music by genre (rock/blues/etc.), which I don't.

That's why I think it will work if he creates a playlist folder, and puts all of his playlists in that folder. He would only then have to create one more smart playlist, excluding everything in that folder.

Guess it paid off doing research and dragging my ass

I went to a family party on saturday and hung with my cousin who I havent really talked to in about a year (though we were VERY close before that) and I asked him if he had an Ipod with all the traveling he does. He told me abut his Iphone and some 31(?)GB Ipod than that he got a Nano for free for signing up for a conferance in Orlando. So he said hed give it to me. Its still sealed in the box as he hasnt even opened it. Fucking sweet!

Whereas when I visit my cousin, I make sure my iPod and anything else remotely of value remains with eyesight....

Yeah I was an album snob like you before and sure if I'm listening to the Wall or Tommy I want to hear it in order. But for a band like the Shins or REM it's really cool to take their albums and shuffle them up to give their music a new perspective.

Yeah, for specific 'concept albums' like the Wall or King Diamond's stuff, I usually listen to it in order.
But two of my most used playlists are
"Never Heard" - all of the songs that have a playcount of 0 since I got my ipod (still a couple hundred) and
Random - 350 songs chosen randomly that have not been played in the past 10 days.
Both of those are played Shuffle by Song.
I don't use the straight up Shuffle feature because I've heard that sucks battery life if you use it on a large library.

I remember 1991, when I got my first CD player, and I was first introduced to the shuffle feature. I fell in love with it, because I found new sequences reinvigorated some of my older albums. Obviously, there are some releases that work best in the presented sequence (live albums, concept albums, etc.), but by and large I find that the shuffle mode can help expose weaknesses in the actual songs--or lift one out of a lull in the original sequence and make it shine.

We used to say "Unleash the Beast known as Random". It was great on a 5 or 10 disk changer, but an MP3 player with potentially thousands of tracks? Excellent.
Nothing like seguing from GWAR to Johnny Cash to Lazytown to Dead Milkmen to Pet Clark. Although I did have to make a "KidSafe' playlist or at least be quick on the Next button in case folks like that first entry pop up when little ears are around.

I hear my music so damn much I need a random to give CDs a new feeling. Now I have NEVER weakened an album by doing this but I have discovered some hidden gems on CDs that just blow me away and I dont know how I missed them the first time.

Now I PRAY the shuffle on the Nano doesnt suck ass. My old stereo is a 3 disc changer and random will go between the 3 CDs (cant do a single CD). I listen for not even 30 mins and the fucking thing always hits the same song over and over. Its sickening

Random on iPods doesn't do that. It basically shuffles all the tracks and makes them into a playlist, so when I click artist->U2->All->shuffle songs it lists the first song I chose as 1/163 or whatever the total track count it. It will never repeat unless you play something else (even switching to a TV show or movie will reset your shuffle). It actually stops playing when you get to the last song, though I'm sure there's a way to repeat the playlist automatically. You can even track forward or back to hear a song you've already heard and it won't mess with the now determined order of the music.

Repeat "all"

I never used to use it, as I rarely ran through an entire playlist in one setting. However, my Alpine unit automatically engages the setting. I kind of like it now, as there have been times that I choose a single album or artist to listen to, and it starts over after the last song.

I'm not sure if, once it reaches the last song and starts over, it changes the shuffle order.

Interesting discussion about shuffle versus random. I always saw them as different approaches - shuffle is like arranging a card deck while random is like throwing dice. The correct implementation of shuffle is as the iPod uses it - it creates a playlist of n number of songs that remains in that particular order unless you re-shuffle. Random on the other hand (think Sony CD players) will grab a track with no memory of that track being played so it's reintroduced as a choice.

BTW, I have used shuffle more with larger playlists, but for the most part, when it comes to a playlist of multiple artists, I will just use alphabetical sorts on the track names.

I've got an enormous library and I've found it's hard to pick specific things I feel like listening too. Shuffling is great and this is one of the reasons. A lot of times a song you may have only heard once in passing suddenly comes on and you realize how good it is.

Also fun to build smart playlists and limit the selection to certain genres and artists.

Oh yea, even with a huge library it can be hard to decide but I actually HATE shuffling or randoming a bunch of artists. I do not like to hear a song from a CD that I really like, it just kills the whole CD for me. I want to hear the whole thing in its entirety; or at least, keep it within the same artist. Kinda like a huge greatest hits album, thats how I would treat the shuffle of an artists catalog

Im very interested in playing with the ipod when I get it this weekend and I wonder if the playlists going by genre and artist will be fun, or very cumbersome (to set up at least)

I'm getting ready to build some unplayed smart playlists so I can hear stuff that I haven't.

If you want to play only one artist, just hit Play when the artist name is selected, don't go into the subdirectories of Album and Track. That should work, I think. I'm not sure if that will work for genre, it might unless there's too many tracks.

OK, I said random earlier, but I definitely prefer shuffle-I never really thought about the difference. I don't like when the same track is played more than once in the same set when shuffling, which I guess random could cause.