1y ago

A simpler time

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14571229

A simpler time

8 comments

Winamp, from a time when random meant random.
I've been on a road trip for the last week, and have well over 3000 songs on my "library" in Spotify. I was hearing repeats of songs within 3 hours (before my first fuel stop). When I hit random I expect each song in my Playlist to be put in a random order then navigated through. Spotify however creates a Playlist of a a subset of songs (this size has changed, at one point in time it was 20 tracks, but IIRC it's up to 50 now). As each plays, the last track in the Playlist is "randomly" chosen for that last spot with no context of recent listening history. And I seriously wouldn't doubt that there's a weighting due to popularity, your listening frequency, and several other factors due to some bean counters.
I miss using Winamp.
- Spotify however creates a Playlist of a a subset of songs (this size has changed, at one point in time it was 20 tracks, but IIRC it's up to 50 now). As each plays, the last track in the Playlist is "randomly" chosen for that last spot with no context of recent listening history.
  This assertion doesn't really pass the smell test - what do you base it on?
  For reference, here's a classic article on how Spotify used to tackle the problem of randomness in their shuffle: https://engineering.atspotify.com/2014/02/how-to-shuffle-songs/
  That was 2014 though, so who knows. Still, your assertion seems highly questionable.
  
  You can watch it happen in real time.
  Select your library and click the play random then go to your now playing Playlist and it has a list of upcoming tracks. Each time a song ends the last song is updated.
  The current Playlist block may have context, but anything outside the currently playing seems to just randomly select songs from your overall library.
  And I've read this article about a dozen times over the years. I honestly don't think Spotify knows what people want in random which is why you can see people complain about their randomness from their inception til today.
  IIRC this video goes over the chunking at some point https://youtu.be/OdLyKETk5o0
I'm still using Winamp on my new gaming pc, but mainly for demos / unreleased tracks of friends' bands or my old bands.
Does anyone remember the Winamp visualizer?
- Did you ever use the plugins Giess or Milkdrop? There is a linux app called ProjectM that uses a ton of the algorithms from the visualizer.
  
  I think it was called AVS. It was awesome. It was customizable.
Oh, so you have HEARD of Winamp! But did you know, "It really whips the llamas ass!"

8 comments