looking for mp3 player with REAL random playback

[larciel]

Been using winamp since 98.. despite its 'random' playback function somewhat very limited.

Is there a desktop software that does shuffle playback like it's supposed to?

tia

 

[gorcorps]

foobar2000

 

[James Bond]

iTunes?

 

[xtknight]

Hm...how does Winamp's random work then?

 

[mundane]

Originally posted by: xtknight
Hm...how does Winamp's random work then?

AFAICT, there's a "Shuffle Morph Rate" control slider within Preferences->Playlist.

Shuffle morph rate controls how songs within playlists are selected during Shuffle playback. Slow shuffle morphing causes a slight variation of the playlist order, whereas fast shuffle morphing causes major variations of the playlist order

Maybe the OP has it set to "Slow".

 

[Ika]

Computers can't do random numbers, in fact. All they can do is mimic it.

 

[larciel]

Originally posted by: Aflac
Computers can't do random numbers, in fact. All they can do is mimic it.

that's true, but winamp's shuffle function has been known for its shallow generation pool of numbers, resulting in same set of songs repeating while other songs are not played.

and I think winamp's shuffle rate is set at fast by default.. and I haven't changed it. I wish there was 'turbo' setting

 

[VIAN]

My Ipod, pisses me off with it's non-randomness. And there is no way to change it.

Ex. A song by an artist comes on, but I don't feel like listening to that artist and press forward. The IPOD gives me another song from the same artist. This happens so many times, I feel like IPOD is trying to ****** with me. Sometimes, but rarely, three times in a row. Then again, if it's not in a row, it'll come back in about 3-6 songs later.

 

[abaez]

What? If you set the ipod to random and have it repeat songs (versus albums or artists), the ipod will generate a random list for you to push forward until you've gone through all the songs on it.

At least this is the way its done on my second gen.

 

[larciel]

Same thing happens to my mp3 player (samsung yepp) .. it's damm dreadful when working out and listening to same set of songs.

I'm going to try iRiver next.

as for foobar2k it improved so much. I didn't bother to try it because it was buggy last time, but this version is very nice with cool features and fast playlist recall

 

[potato28]

Originally posted by: larciel
Same thing happens to my mp3 player (samsung yepp) .. it's damm dreadful when working out and listening to same set of songs.

I'm going to try iRiver next.

as for foobar2k it improved so much. I didn't bother to try it because it was buggy last time, but this version is very nice with cool features and fast playlist recall

iRiver's random function works, like it's supposed to. FTW with foobar2k!

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: Aflac
Computers can't do random numbers, in fact. All they can do is mimic it.

Yea maybe after a solid 5 or so years of listening to tunes you will see a pattern.

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: Aflac
Computers can't do random numbers, in fact. All they can do is mimic it.

Actually, the PIII RDRAM i820 chipset included the first truely random number generator, but the chipset was so flawed that it was succeeded by the SDRAM i815 for PIIIs and i850 for RDRAM + P4. I believe it required and API that probably had abysmal adoption. I don't know if it is still in modern Intel chipset.