FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

[Tom Swaman]

Happy Holidays Spoon,

Perhaps this is not the correct place to post this request. I desire to make a series of Folders containing 20 to 100 FLAC album folders, each containing the individual FLAC track files. Then I wish to randomize or mix the individual FLAC track files for playback. I ose Asset as my renderer.

What is the easiest and best way to randomize the FLAC files without losing anything?

Thank you for your assistance.

Best regards,

Tom

[Spoon]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Not sure how you can easily do this, given that there are other folders also in the collection?

Each file in these folders would need a unique genre for the files to be selected using dynamic browsing.

[mville]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Can't you create a playlist with all the required flacs, add the playlist in Asset and playback in random/shuffle mode?

[Tom Swaman]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Thank you both. Yes, Mville, I can and I now do what you suggest. However, I cannot download the mixed flies into a randomized folder and save this on a hard drive or flash drive. For examble, I have a folder containing 21 album folders condidting of 382 FLAC files. I want to put this information into a single folder containing the 382 FLAC files w/o the cover art, etc. This is easy. The problem is that I desire to randomize/shuffle the order of the files in the folder and download the mixed folder onto a flash drive for playing in a car, etc.

I assume some way I need to be able to assign the FLAC files a random number and then order the numbered files, download and play. I have been looking for software or a procedure to do this without success. Frankly, I should think that several folks might benefit from being able to do this.

Happy New Year and thank you again.
Tom

[mville]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

If the car audio player does not support shuffle/random playback, I guess you could try searching the web for filename randomizing software/utilities.

[Tom Swaman]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Mville,

I have been doing what you suggest and I have not been able to convince myself that what little exists out there for Windows is quality software. I am totally open to suggestions/instructions.

Thank you again.
Tom

[mville]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

I have been doing what you suggest and I have not been able to convince myself that what little exists out there for Windows is quality software. I am totally open to suggestions/instructions.

Sorry, I have no experience or requirement for randomizing filenames. All media players I have ever used allow shuffle/random playback.

[Tom Swaman]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Mville,
You and I have the same experience to date. The problem lies in that one cannot download the played files after these are played in the randomized mode. I will figure this out soon, I hope.

Happy New Year,
Tom

[mville]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

The problem lies in that one cannot download the played files after these are played in the randomized mode.

I don't understand what you mean here, care to elaborate?

[Redd]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Tom-
It sounds like the same highly talented sixth grader wrote the software for your car stereo a did mine.
If the car stereo can accept a playlist which include a "random order" command, and you can figure out the correct command and syntax (there are different standards, apparently) then you can just download the files, and the playlist, including the "random order" command in the playlist, and the car stereo will do what you want.

But IF the car stereo is incapable of doing this, there's no way you are going to make it happen, unless the car stereo can play "random sequence" on the whole USB stick. While some can play random sequence on folders or subfolders, others can only play random tracks from the ENTIRE MEDIA, i.e. the whole stick regardless of file structure.

I thought I'd finally conquered the mental midget in my dashboard, only to confirm it will only play in alphabetical order--not track sequence--so my choices are either to rename the whole damned library, one at a time, or....to just say the hell with it, I'll use PowerAmp (an outstanding Android music player) and play them all from my cell phone, over a BT or cable interface. It may not be FLAC quality, but with background road noise and my ears, that won't matter much.

Sometimes, the only fix is to replace the brain-damaged equipment if you can't bypass it.

[Tom Swaman]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Mville,

What I was trying to state was that if I played a randomized playlist on another audio system, I could not download and save the randomized playlist in the randomized order.

A very Happy New Year to youand to yours,
Tom

[Tom Swaman]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Redd,

What you wrote is exactly what I have found to date. It is essentially impossible to fool a foolish stereo system with good quality music files.

Have a superb 2016,
Tom

[mville]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Mville,

What I was trying to state was that if I played a randomized playlist on another audio system, I could not download and save the randomized playlist in the randomized order.

A very Happy New Year to youand to yours,
Tom

Ok, thanks for the clarification and a Happy New Year to you too.

[schmidj]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Here's a thought. I don't know if you can put all the pieces in place and I have no time to experiment: Create a new tag, call it whatever you want. Populate it with the time of day, to the millisecond, or a free running timer, to the millisecond. Trim off the significant digits, leaving just the milliseconds in the tag. Now essentially a random number from 0 to 999. Now using the filename from tags feature of either dBpoweramp or mp3tag, prepend the new random number tag to the music filename. Of course the random playing is the same random sequence each time until you do it again, hopefully your dumb playback device will let you start in the middle, otherwise it is super dumb...

I personally have much of my music as m4a files on a 128 gig micro SD card in my smartphone, play it with the Android app Poweramp (someone here already suggested this) via Bluetooth to my car radio, together with the WAZE navigation app.

When traveling and renting a car with no Bluetooth, I've used a cable from the headphone output of the smartphone to the aux input of the radio.

Unfortunately the people designing many car radios, as well as many Internet connected TV's, DVD players, receivers never gave much thought to the user interface for playing music. The apps on portable devices and some of the computer players are much better thought out.

[Redd]

Re: FLAC Files Mixer/Randomizer

Tom-
"I could not download and save the randomized playlist in the randomized order."
If I understand playlists correctly, that is absolutely correct and it is the way they will always work, on any device. The playlist has a fixed sequence (order) and that's unchanged. It also has command parameters in it, and one of the parameters is "Play these in random order". So if the device reading and playing the list has the ability to randomize, they can be randomized. If the device does not--they never will be. It is like asking my dog to change a light bulb, he's got no concept of light bulbs, where to find more of them, or how to get up into the fixture, so even though he's willing....well, he probably still would need thumbs.(G)

The music system in my car is also brain-dead. It can randomize the tracks in ONE FOLDER, or it can randomly play tracks from all across ONE MEDIA (disc, stick, etc.) but if I have a USB stick with 4 main folders, each with a different genre, and a hundred albums under each? Nope, sorry, there's no way to say "random play only from this one group, from the folders under this genre". Oh, and it plays a playlist in the sequence that's given, with no concept of what "random" might mean.

Unfortunately the only way to fix that is to use my cell phone as the music source (and brains). Or, to buy another car. It was much simpler when the auto industry was, briefly, under legal order to use "standard" car stereos that could easily be updated and replaced.