Assign mp3s to multiple playlists (quickly!) with hotkeys utility
Any ideas?
I’m looking for a program/utility that will start playing an mp3 and allow me to assign it quickly to multiple playlists depending on which hotkey / keyboard shortcut I use (F1 = Deep House, F2 = Prog House, F3 = Electro House, F4 = Tech House, etc)
Why? Because dragging and dropping a tune into playlists in iTunes / Traktor is a serious pain… I want something that is completely controlled by qwerty keyboard and allows me to assign one mp3 to several playlists quickly (a lot of my music doesn’t fit into just one subgenre).
Would anyone else find such a utility useful? Am I going to have to get this written myself again?
edit: nevermind, I wrote the tool myself in the end… see a few posts down!
I think it could probably be written in a macro scripting language like AHK… I just need to find a suitable media player… will have a look at Winamp tonight.
okay, I’ve knocked a little tool that does exactly what I need in iTunes. Basic functionality is as follows:
Assigns hotkeys that go to the ‘next track’, skip 30 seconds into the tune and start playing. (Reason for skipping 30 seconds into track is so that you bypass the intro and get a better idea of what genre/style the tune is)
Assigns the numpad hotkeys 1-9 so that they add the currently selected/playing mp3 to one or more of the first 9 playlists you have in iTunes.
This means you can very quickly browse through your entire iTunes library, assigning each mp3 to as many as 9 playlists (or just one) simply by using your qwerty keyboard. I’ve managed to get pretty quick at it - I can assign one tune to 3 or 4 playlists in a matter of seconds… it’s SO much quicker than dragging and dropping (especially when you memorise which hotkey is which particular subgenre/style/playlist).
Anyway, before I stick it up here for everyone to play with, is there anything anyone can think of that would make a useful addition?
iPlaylistKey requires “SkipForward.vbs” to function properly - please ensure this file is in the same folder as iPlaylistKey.exe when you run this tool.
Preperation:
Run iPlaylistKey.exe (to quit program, right click on tray icon and exit)
Ensure iTunes is running (tested on version 9.0.3 but should work on earlier versions).
Create up to 9 playlists within iTunes if you haven’t done so already.
Use:
It’s important to note the order you create the playlists in. iPlaylistKey will assign mp3s to up to 9 playlists based on the order the playlists are vertically listed. The upper-most playlist will be playlist 1, the 2nd one down will be 2, etc.
iPlaylistKey uses the following keyboard hotkeys:
1-9 on the numpad = assigns currently selected/playing mp3 to playlists 1-9
0 on the numpad = skip 30 seconds into currently playing song
Enter on the numpad = Select next song and begin playing it
. on the numpad = go back to previous song and begin playing it[/quote]
Enjoy
edit: having played with this for a few hours now I’ve begun to think about allowing the tool to be used whilst iTunes isn’t in focus. This means you could be playing tunes in iTunes whilst browsing the web or whatever. Then, when you hear a tune that you need to assign to a particular playlist, you simply press a hotkey and iTunes will assign it for you. It would make playlist creation less of a chore and more something you can do whilst doing other things… thoughts?
oh, and for anyone who’s wondering why this might be useful, or how they can use it…
I chose iTunes simply because Traktor has a wonderful feature that lets you easily import iTunes playlists. So the trick is to load your new/existing tunes into iTunes, get all the tags sorted, etc and then use this tool to assign each mp3 to one or more playlist. The playlists can be anything you want… genres, subgenres, styles, energy, gig date, etc.
It’s basically a shit load quicker than dragging and dropping 1000’s of tunes into playlists by hand manually.
Thank you for that. I just start using it, and work pretty good so far. The only thing I figured out is I can’t assign a track to my very first playlist, instead the 1 to 9 on the numpad assign the selected track to my 2nd to 10th playlist.
Regarding the idea to use it whilst iTunes isn’t in focus, I would suggest the hotkey to be something like Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, etc… That way, we avoid add a mp3 to a playlist accidently when doing something else.
yeah that was intended - it’s because I have a default playlist in Traktor that I’m unable to delete (“DJ playlist” or something). I guess it must be removable somehow so I’ll have a look at that tonight.
re the hotkeys for out of focus use - good idea… i’ll probably make it so that you can use both sets of hotkeys, but the numpad hotkeys will only work whilst itunes is in focus (i like using the numpad hotkeys… nice and easy to trigger).
I might not have read all the posts properly but I’ll tell you what I am after and if what you are doing will do what I want; I would like to be able to arrange my playlists in Traktor but have them change accordingly in itunes. I don’t know if this is something that happens anyway as standard with Traktor, but I have never got into the whole Traktor - itunes working together thing. I instantly assumed that if I have a playlist called “locked tracks” and one called “new unlocked tracks” within itunes, then if I lock (beat grid) a track in the “new unlocked tracks” list then drop it into the “locked tracks” within Traktor the playlists will then be different in itunes. I am wrong in thinking that? Do itunes playlists change if you change them in Traktor? If they do then that would be awesome. I just instinctively assumed this wouldn’t be the case. I just drag everything from itunes into Traktor then work that way. Is there a more efficient way of working or does your utility address this?
