cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14571229
A simpler time
Oh, so you have HEARD of Winamp! But did you know, "It really whips the llamas ass!"
this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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Winamp, from a time when random meant random.
I've been on a road trip for the last week, and have well over 3000 songs on my "library" in Spotify. I was hearing repeats of songs within 3 hours (before my first fuel stop). When I hit random I expect each song in my Playlist to be put in a random order then navigated through. Spotify however creates a Playlist of a a subset of songs (this size has changed, at one point in time it was 20 tracks, but IIRC it's up to 50 now). As each plays, the last track in the Playlist is "randomly" chosen for that last spot with no context of recent listening history. And I seriously wouldn't doubt that there's a weighting due to popularity, your listening frequency, and several other factors due to some bean counters.
I miss using Winamp.
I miss using Winamp, but I don't miss the awful experience of acquiring music back then.
Being able to bring up one of any many tens of thousands of songs on a whim is an infinitely better experience than the absolute hellhole that was searching through Limewire/Kazaa etc etc. where, if you were lucky, you would find what you were looking for 50% of the time, and for it to be in good quality was even rarer. If you didn't get a radio rip, music video rip, or a recording that could only have come from grandma's hearing aid, you got Bill Clinton instead.
And if you wanted to go the legal route, you had to buy CDs that had maybe 1 or 2 songs on that you actually wanted.
Yeah, I'll take today's music streaming services over having to live through 2005 again.
I had been pirating MP3s since the 90s and was acquiring them from usenet & irc before Napster became a thing. Usenet & IRC never had a fake song in my experience. Napster/Kazaa/Etc were easier to use but had the mislabeled tracks all-over.
I haven't pirated music in years though, so I'm not sure what thearket is like these days.
Spotify however creates a Playlist of a a subset of songs (this size has changed, at one point in time it was 20 tracks, but IIRC it's up to 50 now). As each plays, the last track in the Playlist is "randomly" chosen for that last spot with no context of recent listening history.
This assertion doesn't really pass the smell test - what do you base it on?
For reference, here's a classic article on how Spotify used to tackle the problem of randomness in their shuffle: https://engineering.atspotify.com/2014/02/how-to-shuffle-songs/
That was 2014 though, so who knows. Still, your assertion seems highly questionable.
You can watch it happen in real time.
Select your library and click the play random then go to your now playing Playlist and it has a list of upcoming tracks. Each time a song ends the last song is updated.
The current Playlist block may have context, but anything outside the currently playing seems to just randomly select songs from your overall library.
And I've read this article about a dozen times over the years. I honestly don't think Spotify knows what people want in random which is why you can see people complain about their randomness from their inception til today.
IIRC this video goes over the chunking at some point https://youtu.be/OdLyKETk5o0
I'll vouch for this too. When I shuffle on Spotify, it will repeat itself guaranteed after a set of songs. Not just play one again by coincidence - repeat the entire list of songs I just heard in the same order.
Can confirm. My 2k playlist probably cycles 2x through the first 200-300 songs and it sprinkles some older songs inbetween.
Does anyone remember the Winamp visualizer?
Did you ever use the plugins Giess or Milkdrop? There is a linux app called ProjectM that uses a ton of the algorithms from the visualizer.
I loved The Rabbit Hole. And I still use it. It also runs on xmplay.
It looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl-pYp7LA5o But it works much better with a more distinct BPM, and looks amazing on tempo changes. Also youtube makes it look super dull removing most particles.
Here is an enhanced Sonique plugin that works with xmplay, sonique and VirtualDJ: https://support.xmplay.com/files_view.php?file_id=177
EDIT: found a better one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euo29LH0M_s but it's potato quality that someone filmed off their crt 13 years ago.
I think it was called AVS. It was awesome. It was customizable.
I'm still using Winamp on my new gaming pc, but mainly for demos / unreleased tracks of friends' bands or my old bands.