Implement an actual shuffle function

[RoninTheOrigina]

Yes, you read that right.  The "shuffle" function in Spotify is nothing more than a randomizer.  There's a difference?  YES.

RANDOM - Play one song.  The next song can be ANY song in your playlist.  Including the one you just listened to.  Though I've never had this specifically happen, I literally just heard the same song that I heard 2 songs ago.  This is how Spotify's "shuffle" currently functions.

SHUFFLE - Take your entire list, shuffle them (like cards), and play the first song in the shuffle.  Once finished, move that song off the pile.  Once the pile is depleted, shuffle the deck again and start over (maybe pop a message up).

I know enough about programming (not much) to know that shuffling is probably a bit harder than random, but come on.  I may be in the minority, but I don't have a lot of little playlists.  I have one list with nearly a thousand songs in it, because I like all the music, and am rarely not in the mood for one of those songs.  But what I can't stand is hearing the same song over and over again.  I think there may even be songs in my list I haven't heard yet, while I've heard others 4-5 times.

I know it may not matter much, but I would probably lay down the money for at least a year subscription if this feature was implemented.

EDIT: Another user pointed out that I can see what all is queued up in my shuffle by clicking the Play Queue link, and that Spotify supposedly sets up a rolling shuffle of 50 songs.  It would be nice if this range could be expanded to say 50-100% of your playlist.

EDIT 4/6/12: I just dealt with the same song 16 tracks later.  The song played the first time yesterday afternoon.  I went home, listened for a bit on my home PC (just a few songs), then started listening again this morning.  If the list recycles itself after a day, or if you log in from another computer, I see that as an area for improvement.

[Tobraham]

@ARCINTHE757Actually my iPod sucked at this too.

Spotify is still the best music app out there. Pandora is neat with their song DNA technology, but they *REALLY* play the same stuff over and over and you can't curate your own music - you will always listen to what THEY (and the record labels) want you to hear. If you create a station based on a song, you'll get many repeats. It's just like listening to terrestrial radio stations. 

Only Spotify lets you curate your own playlists. I'll be honest, just from watching my own application attempt to use a weighted scoring mechanism, it's very heavy on the server database. To build a 100-hour playlist using a weighted scoring system takes about 10-20 minutes and that's just ONE user. Imagine millions of users. Now granted that's creating that list all at once so it's a heavier load than if Spotify were to just do the calculations one at a time (choose a song, let it play and do the math about 30 seconds before the end of the song). 

And I've said it here before, computers suck at shuffle. There's no such thing as truly random on a computer because a computer has to be programmed to tell it what 'random' is in the first place. As soon as you program it, it's a hard coded algorithm, and therefore is no longer really random. So don't blame Spotify for shuffle being horrible. 

[rednblu]

Great comments, @Tobraham!  Thanks.

In my opinion, this "shuffling" function should be done on the "workstation"-- not on the "server".  Of course, for your "development" effort to show Spotify what architecture is sensible here, you should do what you are doing on your "server" for all of us.  And thank you!

Your latest >> Shuffler <<  works perfectly for me.  I can even see using your shuffler and staying with Spotify even if Spotify somehow tears up what I have built on my computers >> where I never get an unwanted repeat. Never Never. <<  Incidentally, I use your Shuffler under my "free" account so that I can test with the "toy fake" 1.0.xxx Spotify players without disrupting my huge queues of randomized 15,000 tracks on my computers from which I actually "play music".

Your Shuffler does the right thing!

Spotify just needs to implement your Shuffler completely in the Browser-- If I Google  [randomize list]  I get a screenful of Randomizers that run just fine in a browser-- without slowing up my Spotify player one bit-- I use those Randomizers in a browser all the time for my own shuffling of up to 100,000 tracks-- no problem of anything too slow at all-- I just set my timer.

I understand, @Tobraham, you are also making sure that your Shuffler avoids giving us the same artist back to back-- So you are giving us MuchAddedValue!  Go!  Go!  Go!

[Tobraham]

@rednblu

All good comments. If I get this working the way I imagine it, I could
replace the Spotify web player entirely and do my own queue control (but
that's down the road).

My new master radio playlist is working phenomenally and once I can make
it look good on screen, I'll roll that out as well.

[Tobraham]

OK, gang. ShuffleFly 1.2 is live.

I've added a "radio" option that scans your entire Spotify library to my database and will create a new playlist for you of roughly 150 songs. The scores of the database are persistent, meaning I keep your songs stored with their last scores, so if you come back in a week and build a new radio playlist, you won't get the same material from the last one. If you don't touch the database by rescanning your Spotify library, the scores will never get reset, so if you've got 50,000 songs and you build a new playlist every day, you won't get a repeat until all 50,000 songs have been played.

The reason I say it builds a playlist of roughly 150 songs is because I've come across songs that are in library that perhaps aren't o Spotify any more for some reason and Spotify allows me to add it to a playlist even though it doesn't exist any more, which is screwing up my song count. So I've made the program select 160 songs assuming a few may be bad. I'd rather have you get a few extra songs on your list than not reach a full 150 songs.

I chose 150 songs because that gives you about 12 hours of music and is a decent compromise on the speed of building the playlist. It just takes so long to build a massive playlist and if your browser decides it's tired of waiting everything stops. 

I've been testing all morning and it seems to be functioning, so please put it to work and see if you can break it.

Thanks!

~ Tobraham

@rednblu
@dexteritee
@agl89xs20
@freakymrq

[rednblu]

Perfect, @Tobraham!

I wrote a description of how it workd for me >> at this link. <<

[zaeel]

Don't know why but this "new" shuffle function does not appear to be working on my Spotify (both desktop and mobile). Shuffling a playlist makes it repeat a lot from a universe of ~300 songs.

[rednblu]

What "new shuffle function" means-- we all have to be very careful to read the intent--

I certainly sympathize with anyone who "gets too many" repeats--  You deserve better   . . . .  More later--  I am going for a long nice "walk in the woods" where the birds are . . . . .

[Marra85]

This new formula for shuffle does not seem to work. Or maybe it's that it breaks if you skip a song? Because I have a playlist with 500 song and can end up hearing the same song 2 times in an hour. And when I play a small playlist with 50 songs, it can go days without me hearing a few of the songs but hearing others many times.

[alecbushman]

My shuffle is probably about 10-12 songs. Can they just make the **bleep**ing thing random? AWFUL.

[liveforpixel]

Just chiming in so Spotify know it still is not working properly.

While I love the song, I have heard Sia's I'm In Here three times today alone on a 817 song playlist, and its very pro Sia for the rest of the songs.  This is on desktop.