artist/song payloads and iTunes Genius

[ltjdangle911]

I've been testing this software lately and I'm very impressed!  Probably going to buy in a couple of days regardless of the answer to this question, but I want to ask anyway.

1.  Is there a program that allows you to tag all of your mp3s (I have 11,000) in a way that the title includes the artist name?

I say this because I have a really large library, so there are lots of situations where there are multiple versions of a song, and I'd like to get more specific (and I want to be able to do this in the car without looking at the screen, so being able to say "Option 1" might not help me out).

I retagged a few files to try it out and it handled this well--just need to figure out how to do it in batches.


2.  Is it possible to have a voice command to create a Genius playlist in iTunes on the fly?  For example, I want to create a playlist with songs similar to Brown Eyed Girl, so I say "Genius, Brown Eyed Girl" ... or something to that effect.

Any help would be great!  Looking forward to learning this awesome program!

[jitterjames]

I do enjoy a challenge so I'll look into both of these.

Unfortunately, the geniuses that created genius didn't think to add any methods to interact with genius in their api.  They don't even seem to have any keyboard shortcuts to start genius!  Wacky.  Anyway if you always run iTunes maximized it is probably possible to start a song playing first, and then ask to create a genius mix for the current song.  VC would then send a mouse click to the genius button.  This appears to always be in the same place regardless of what windows are open etc. so as long as you always run in full screen the button should always be in the same spot.  It is possible that future versions of the api will include genius functions, but I wouldn't hold your breath on that one.

The other one is probably more doable.  What would be the ideal phrasing for that do you think?

Play song "songname" by "artistname" ?  I wouldn't go re-tagging all your music incorrectly.  Hopefully we can do something that makes more sense.

[Kalle]

I've been testing this software lately and I'm very impressed!  Probably going to buy in a couple of days regardless of the answer to this question, but I want to ask anyway.

1.  Is there a program that allows you to tag all of your mp3s (I have 11,000) in a way that the title includes the artist name?

I say this because I have a really large library, so there are lots of situations where there are multiple versions of a song, and I'd like to get more specific (and I want to be able to do this in the car without looking at the screen, so being able to say "Option 1" might not help me out).

I retagged a few files to try it out and it handled this well--just need to figure out how to do it in batches.


2.  Is it possible to have a voice command to create a Genius playlist in iTunes on the fly?  For example, I want to create a playlist with songs similar to Brown Eyed Girl, so I say "Genius, Brown Eyed Girl" ... or something to that effect.

Any help would be great!  Looking forward to learning this awesome program!

I think the shareware program "Total Commander" (http://www.ghisler.com) is a good start to rename your music files.

Kalle

[ltjdangle911]

Thanks for the responses guys.  I'm going to put the library-retagging on hold for now and see if I really need to do that.

As far as the genius functionality goes, I can leave iTunes maximized at all times so that a mouse coordinate for the button would be consistent. 

Could you point me in the right direction as to how to set this up?

Awesome!

[jitterjames]

I'm working on both, I'll get back to you within the next 24-48 hours.

- Are you using the latest version available on the forum? (0.884)

- What resolution is the monitor that you are running itunes on? ( i.e. 1920x1080, 1280,720, 1024x768 etc.)

[ltjdangle911]

I'm working on both, I'll get back to you within the next 24-48 hours.

- Are you using the latest version available on the forum? (0.884)

- What resolution is the monitor that you are running itunes on? ( i.e. 1920x1080, 1280,720, 1024x768 etc.)

You da man!

Yes, I am using the latest version--so far so good!

I am using a netbook, so my resolution is 1024x600--hope that still works!

Thanks dude.

[ltjdangle911]

I may be asking a question that's already been posted here....but since I have your attention 

is there a way I can make it go into standby immediately following any command? (other than "listen")

I thought the little checkbox next to the green button would take care of this, but it seems to only work once.

[jitterjames]

you may just want to use prefix mode, where you always leave it in standby and it will only execute the command if you say the prefix first.  You'll find settings for that on the general options page.

But you can also set it to "timeout" and go into standby after x seconds.  This is also on the main options page, under "other options" change "idle timeout" to a value other than 0 (seconds).

The resolution on your netbook is not an issue, but it will determine where the mouse click must be placed in order to start Genius.  In fact, if you want you can send me a screen capture of your netbook running iTunes.

[ltjdangle911]

Oh duhh...good ole prefix mode. Thanks.

Screenshot attached.

[jitterjames]

download the attached xml file.  Open your command tree editor and drag the file on to the tree on the left to import it.

click "save all and close" and then restart VoxCommando.

The phrase used to trigger the command is "Create genius playlist" but you can change it to whatever you want.

Let me know if it works.

[ltjdangle911]

download the attached xml file.  Open your command tree editor and drag the file on to the tree on the left to import it.

click "save all and close" and then restart VoxCommando.

The phrase used to trigger the command is "Create genius playlist" but you can change it to whatever you want.

Let me know if it works.

thank you very much for doing this.  your xml functions as it should, although the genius button in the lower right that it wants to click is greyed out unless you highlight the song you want to use first.  but the little genius symbol in the "now playing" area near the top works just fine. 

so i just changed your coordinates and it works like a champ.  thanks man.

[jitterjames]

cool, I didn't know about that one.

[ltjdangle911]

download the attached xml file.  Open your command tree editor and drag the file on to the tree on the left to import it.

click "save all and close" and then restart VoxCommando.

The phrase used to trigger the command is "Create genius playlist" but you can change it to whatever you want.

Let me know if it works.

James,

Could you teach me how to make the "create genius playlist" function automatically trigger following a "play song _______" command?

I know Genius isn't the most accurate thing in the world, but I'm lazy kinda like picking a random song and then letting Genius have a go at it

[ltjdangle911]

1.  Is there a program that allows you to tag all of your mp3s (I have 11,000) in a way that the title includes the artist name?

I say this because I have a really large library, so there are lots of situations where there are multiple versions of a song, and I'd like to get more specific (and I want to be able to do this in the car without looking at the screen, so being able to say "Option 1" might not help me out).

I retagged a few files to try it out and it handled this well--just need to figure out how to do it in batches.

James,

Have you been able to think of a way to avoid having to do this? 

Here's an example I ran into the other day (it happens pretty frequently in a large library though):

I asked it to 'play song Billie Jean' and it brought back 2 songs:  Seals and Crofts - Ruby Jean and Billie Lee and Michael Jackson - Billie Jean.

Another example would be if I wanted to listen to Ants Marching by DMB -- well, I have about 18 versions of the song because there are so many live albums.  So in a perfect world, I'd want to be able to command it to play Ants Marching Live at Luther College.

The answer may just be that I need to retag those mp3s that will cause those bumps in the road...

Thoughts?

[Kalle]

James,

Have you been able to think of a way to avoid having to do this? 

Here's an example I ran into the other day (it happens pretty frequently in a large library though):

I asked it to 'play song Billie Jean' and it brought back 2 songs:  Seals and Crofts - Ruby Jean and Billie Lee and Michael Jackson - Billie Jean.

Another example would be if I wanted to listen to Ants Marching by DMB -- well, I have about 18 versions of the song because there are so many live albums.  So in a perfect world, I'd want to be able to command it to play Ants Marching Live at Luther College.

The answer may just be that I need to retag those mp3s that will cause those bumps in the road...

Thoughts?

Hi ltjdangle911,

I'm not James, but will try to help you. With MediaMonkey would be less of a problem, but I have no experience with genius. If you rename mp3 and most several at once, use as Total Commander, see Fig. There is also a plugin for this program to edit ID3 tags.

Kalle

[jitterjames]

the latest version on the forum supports this but it still requires a bit of set up and that requires documentation.  You are welcome to try to figure it out for yourself, otherwise it will have to wait until after my next release which is coming soon.  It is a bit of a complicated subject unfortunately.  If you have a large library you have new issues that can crop up.

I will try to inform you better when I have a chance, but I'm doing family stuff this weekend for Easter so I don't have much free time at the moment.

[jitterjames]

first you need to update to version 0.885 or later. (I'll release 0.887 soon I hope)

run genXML for iTunes and then import this command (attached).

you then have to say  "play song ...A... by ...B..."

you can't just say "play song A" or it won't work.  You could keep the command "play song A" as well, but then you are talking about loading 11,000 songs twice.  Also this command takes even more resources because it is a more complex command.  We basically have to store in advance all the things you might say for each song.  So a long song name, followed by a long artist name could result in about 100 or more different sentences that you could say just to ask for that one song.

[jitterjames]

hmmmm, if the song or the artist contains the word "by" we are going to run into trouble...  

I am going to need to change the way this works in the next version to account for this possibility.

[ltjdangle911]

No worries man thanks for the efforts thus far--get back to your Easter stuff!

[jitterjames]

everything you need now should be working in 0.887

http://voxcommando.com/forum/index.php?topic=474

view the 3rd post for more info specific to "play song by artist" in iTunes.