Why do I always feel like I hear the same songs on my iTunes when on shuffle?

Feel? Don’t you know? You might get an occasional repeat but it shouldn’t be always repetitive. Depending I suppose on the number of songs and your setting regarding ratings, genre etc.

Maybe you should start mixing up the genres and styles you are downloading.

Is there something I can change to make the songs more shuffled? I have a broad range of music and alot I think and I think it’s always playing the same songs haha

do you have the setting “Play higher rated songs more frequently” clicked on?

As I recall, there is an option to play the next song more similar to, or less similar to the previous one. I forget where that hides. My iPod is always on shuffle, but it’s 180Gb so I seldom hear the same thing twice.

Any chance that you are in the Genius Play list?

I have ~1700 songs that are extremely varied in genre and style and still feel that way. I think it’s just because we’re already familiar with the music we choose to hold on to.

I have over 3500 songs and I only feel that way if I restart the shuffle. Otherwise the iPod in my car is always on shuffle and I could go weeks without hearing the same song. I also was going to put instruction on how to set priority, but I can’t find it. Did apple change this? It’s the samething @pdworkin is talking about.

Although I have over 3500 songs I still feel I need much more music, but that’s just me.

That’s what I was thinking. I know I used to do that, but I no longer see how I did it. Maybe in iTunes? I really don’t know.

I have a Touch, but tend to use my old Classic 160GB more than anything else for “just music”. It has the option in the menu to play higher rated songs more often, but I can’t see that on the Touch. I use that option as I have around twenty-five thousand songs on mine and really only want those that I have rated to play. About three thousand four hundred are above rating one (I just had to check) and with that many I don’t see a pattern of repeats as that give nine days non-stop playing.

I have the same problem!!! I have 2700+ songs on my itunes and I feel like the same sets of songs play and when an occasional song I haven’t heard comes on it’s like the event of the day… I just got my first Ipod last xmas and still don’t know how all this works but I don’t think I have the option of ‘play this song less often’ or such.

I think you’re just crazy…

Lol, I’m searching iTunes frantically and I can’t seem to find that option anymore. I’m about to start searching apple’s site for the answer, lol.

I’m with @JONESGH. I think you’re crazy as well.

For the folks that are looking for priority, you can only set song shuffle priority in the Party Shuffle mode (I believe the mode since been renamed to iTunes DJ).

What you can do if you don’t want a certain song to play when you’re in shuffle mode, is right click on it and choose “Get Info”, then to the “Options” tab, and check the box that says “Skip when Shuffling”– then it will be excluded from the playlist when your iTunes randomly selects songs. More detailed explanation with pictures here.

@JONESGH @AstroChuck I thought so :/ and thank you everyone (:

@rabbitheart I still don’t see that option in “iTunes DJ.” I think they’ve done away with it for 9.

@Axemusica no, it’s in iTunes 9. i just saw it.

In your library, right click and song, and choose “Get Info”. In the box that opens for that song, click “Options” and under that (Below where you can pick song start and end times), you’ll see the option to “Skip When Shuffling”.

get more than ten songs!

@eponymoushipster that’s not what I’m talking about. Somewhere there was(?) an option that had a slider to more likely to less likely to be played by choosing artist, album and I think song. Has nothing to do with skipping.

@Axemusica Ah, my bad. i misunderstood. i don’t recall that feature in previous versions of itunes even.

@pdworkin Described exactly what I was talking about so I know I wasn’t hallucinating. I just don’t know where it went.

I think iTunes did away with the options to tweak shuffle. Maybe when it was bumped from 7 to 8.

@hiphiphopflipflapflop so you too remember this option?

@Axemusica Described exactly what I was talking about so I know I wasn’t hallucinating. I just don’t know where it went.

I just fired up a very old system using iTunes 4.7 – it has that option. My iPod Classic also has the option.

@Axemusica Yes. Steven Levy mentions this in his iPod book too.

The shuffle algorithm is supposedly decent pseudorandom. It’s our perception of randomness that is skewed, as was shown in the premiere episode of Num3rs.

@hiphiphopflipflapflop “our perceptions” with random might be the case, but still this option gave us a sense of certainty and I know before I collected as much music I have now I thought it helped.

@DarkScribe I don’t understand why they would do away with the feature. Maybe they just figured that everyone would have a giant selection of music by now, lol.

@Axemusica I don’t understand why they would do away with the feature.

A couple of weeks ago they did away with the response to “shrink screen/iconise”. A week later (after tens of thousands of complaints) they released an update to restore it.

@DarkScribe so it’ll be back? or people were complaining about it taking up space? I’m confused, lol. Or are you just speaking of the iPod classic?

@Axemusica DarkScribe so it’ll be back?

I doubt it – people need to complain immediately – this seems to have been gone for some time without much reaction. I am not sure about more modern iPods – I only have two – a three year old Classic and the Touch.

@Axemusica Don’t blame me. Figuring out why Apple does things like this to their software is like Cold War Kremlinology.

@hiphiphopflipflapflop haha.

@DarkScribe I have a first gen video 60gig. I should check to see if this option is on there, although, I think I have updated it within the last year, so it might not have it, but where would it be?

@Axemusica where would it be?

In mine it is just an option on the menu. It the same area as the Equaliser.

Cause you only have 1 or 3 songs .
How to get itunes to show up in WLM , i have the plugin nothing happens

@evelyns_pet_zebra and @sandystrachan “I’m always downloading music to avoid this problem”. Yes, OBVIOUSLY I have only less than 10 songs.