It would be nice to change the scope of a search to the current playlist rather than the entire Empeg. This would allow for advanced searches in-car. I would like, for example, to listen to songs from a particular year from among a large playlist (e.g. all rock and pop songs), without bringing in other songs of that year that are not in the playlist (e.g., do not include classicals or latin from that year). Please let me know If this can already be achieved, I have not been able to figure it out or to find information on how to. Thanks!

You can already do this. Please click here.

The information posted in the faq for tweak order is what I use now, but not exactly what I mean. We currently need to 1) be currently listening to a tune that matches the year, artist, genre, etc that we want to focus on, and 2) tweak the next song to be played by pressing a key in the remote. 3) If you want all the remaining, then press the key many times until no more matches are found. Alternatively, if you are not listening to a tune that matches your criteria you need to 1) keep the remote key pressed to elimate this and all further songs you don't want. 2) continue doing so until you get to a song that does match your criteria and proceed as in the first case.

Using the current approach I cannot, for example, listen to all my rock songs from 1971. If a feature to filter the current list existed it would be very simple. 1) Select a playlist containing all your rock tunes (e.g., 1700 tunes). 2) Search for year=1971 in the current playlist (197 tunes), eliminating all non 1971 rock tunes.

Currently, I need to a) reach a 1971 song and then press the year key in the remote 196 times. or b) press and hold the year key in the remote, repeatedly, until I finally get to a 1971 song.

Note that I can't simply search for year=1971 from the entire shuffled player, because I would end up with many 1971 songs that are not rock (e.g., some 400 songs including latin, classical, and other genres I'm not in the mood for).

The ability to search within the current playlist rather than the entire player would allow tremendous power by going through a sequential filtering process.

This could be implemented in a manner similar to the search results mode, with a search scope mode which could be set to either entire database or current playlist.

And how often do you really need to select Rock from 1971 only?

If it were my player, a simple "1971" in the first Year screen would do, since the only tunes from that year on my player are in the Rock genre. In fact, narrowing the genre to "Rock" would actually omit a few tunes I'd prefer to have play in that case. Such as tunes with bad genre tags, or ones that are tagged as a variant of "Rock" such as "Progressive Rock" or "Instrumental Rock".

Keep in mind that complicated cross-section criteria ("All songs from 1982-1986 by bands from Canada with redhead female singers with tattos") is best done by creating custom playlists ahead of time. That's the sort of complex selection criteria best left to a keyboard and mouse, not fumbling with a low-rez interface while you're driving.

The whole poing of heirarchical playlists is so that you can do this sort of thing without complicating the run-time user interface.

Need? never. Wish? often.

So, I have a top level playlist called 'rock', which actually contains a whole bunch of stuff with related genres that don't exactly match (including stuff like Reggae), or even with bad genre tags or 'other' as genre. Wouldn't it be nice if I could select my 'rock' playlist, set the search scope to 'current playlist' rather than 'entire database' by pressing one key in the remote, and then searching for year=1971?

I currently cannot do that because I have other top level playlists such as 'salsa' and 'merengue' (with possibly bad genre tags), with many songs from the same time periods. So for me, its either rock, merenque or salsa all years included. Or a specific year with the three different types of music mixed up (which I never want to do).

I think this is different than a complex thing such as redhead canadian female singers between 82 and 86. I also think that the user interface can remain exactly as simple as it is now by just adding a "search scope" key that toggles between "entire database" and "current playlist" modes. I would use the features when I get in my car before starting to drive or at a particularly long red light. My son would do that kind of stuff from the rear seat with the remote when we are on a long weekend drive.

The ability to create complex playlists dynamically would be obtained for free for those who are inclinded to do so, although my use would be as indicated above. No change in complexity.

Yeah, I think it's a sound idea. Whether it ever gets implemented is another question entirely.

Please!!!!!

Would it be too tough to do this?

I don't think so, but we're very busy right now on other projects, so it'll have to wait. And it'd definitely have to wait until 2.0-final, anyway.

Thanks! Hope it makes it. That would be a great enhancement to the player software.

There is another way to achieve this with the filters.

Flag all your 1971 songs with a flag called 1971 (nearly one mouse click)
Create a filter 1971 showing flag 1971 as "Prefered". (very easy)
When you are in your Rock playlist, just activate the 1971 filter (still easy).

This is also a way to have multi-genres for a song. Create Flags for each genre. Assigne the different flags to songs and you're done.

DDA

Thank you for the suggestion, DDA.

I see how that can facilitate things. I would prefer the second method where I would create a flag called "rock" that includes all of the things I consider rock, which is pretty weird cause even Reggae makes it (but of course never disco nor rap!). Then I would use the search for year 1971, and subsequently apply a filter that requires the "rock" flag to be set.

I had tried this, but still ran into difficulties in setting the flags efficiently. (Please see the following post: http://empeg.comms.net/php/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=empeg_general&Number=93821&Search=true&Forum=All_Forums&Words=jules&Match=Username&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=93821)

I have, at the root of my playlists what are my genres. This is a limited number: Rock, Classical, Merengue, Salsa, Other Latin, Other English. Then I have artists, then albums, then tunes. I could just find a way to set the "rock" flag to all the tunes under my "rock" top hierarchy it would be great! but I have not been able to figure out how to do this. I can only set a flag for a group of tunes that I can actually have listed, either because they are *directly* contained in a playlist or because they the result of a search (or advanced search). But how do I have a list of tunes that directly and indirectly contained in a playlist? (e.g., all the tunes under my top level "rock" hierarchy?). Or how can set an advanced search to test for "would be included in the "rock" playlist?).