I've encountered a similar problem with the shuffle method in Clementine (I love this music player) where it repeats a song not too long after having played it. In the case of Clementine there is no "random playlist" generated, the next song is randomly chosen, despite it having been played 3 songs ago, or even 2 songs ago. So I've noticed shuffling on several software is quite a pain. Interesting read, I wouldn't mind as much the issues in this article since most of my playlists are of the same genre, although I do get the issue of upbeat / lowbeat songs.
That sounds like a pretty basic bug not to catch in a shuffling function. Sounds like it shuffles for ever and never reaches the end then? I haven't heard of clementine before. What does it provide you that other music apps don't?
> I haven't heard of clementine before.
> What does it provide you that other music apps don't?
Love. All that sweet Amarok 1.4 UX, untainted by the 2.0 branch shark jumping.
The playlist management just feels right, but the killer feature for me is the indexed library that provides instant searches - perfect for enthusiastically digging into a large collection.
Although it is an entirely different concept, Amarok and later Clementine are what convinced me to jump ship from the file explorer + Winamp-like combo that used to be my sweet spot.
I mostly liked it because it was multiplatform, and the ability to control it from a mobile app on my phone via same Wi-Fi local network.
Edit:
I believe it's discontinued now, or something. But also another plus was that it was quite fast at starting up. I got it due to my frustration with how slow iTunes had become. It's hard to find anything close to 'iTunes' as well.
I like to use the 'dynamic random playlist' mode in Clementine. It maintains a playlist with the previous 5 or so songs and a queue of 20 or so songs which are coming up, which is added to randomly from another playlist (exluding songs which are already in the list). Also (and this is the thing which I rarely find in other players), I can re-arrange this working playlist if I want to follow a theme, add or remove songs coming up, and it will just transition back into a random mode when the added/rearranged songs have played.
Clementine is great. If you look in the library on the left you can right click "Smart playlists" and select "New smart playlist...". Then you can create a playlist of all your music (or with additional filters) that is either randomized every time you open it or built dynamically as you listen.
