Home → Suggestions →

Ultimate Matchlist settings

• Edit

decommere.alexander

16 Jan, 2022 09:05 PM

Hello

Just a question for the beaTunes users here:
What for you are the best Matchlist settings?

I love discovering songs in my music library through a Matchlist based on a single seed song. I usually limit the list with some extra filters, like "Genre = X" or "Year = in the range ...". For quite some time now, I've been experimenting with different Matchlist settings in hopes to find a combination of rules and their strengths that will always give me a satisfying Matchlist, regardless of whether I'm limiting to a certain genre or to a single artist. Very important for me is that the resulting songs match keys, colors AND come from different albums (so the Matchlist is not dominated by songs from the same album as the seed song).

At this point, the Matchlist settings attached here are what works for me best.

I'm curious to reading your feedback. Please share your own experiences with your Matchlist settings, filters and strengths. Let's hear it!

Cheers
Alexander
Belgium

• beaTunes_Magic.jpg 79.2 KB

1. 1 Posted by daz on 19 Jan, 2022 04:57 PM

   

   Curious. You use Popularity and Rating.
   Is this information you have added yourself or is this information BT has added to your files when it scanned them, so they are Popular and Rated by others not yourself?
   And how useful do you find that? I rate songs personally for example and how much use is Popularity, i have never selected this when i have scanned my Library, always figured it would somehow rate Pop as Popular, i don't really like Pop Music so for me its not Popular ect LOL.

   Anyway. Only bought this recently but been having fun using these Matchlist settings, mostly with 1,2 or 3 songs as a Seed :)

   • Edit

2. 2 Posted by daz on 19 Jan, 2022 05:01 PM

   

   Strangely my screenshots of Matchlists didn't post.
   Will try again below.

   • Vibe.jpg 82.3 KB
   • Mood.jpg 72.1 KB
   • Similar_Artist.jpg 71.1 KB
   • Edit

3. Support Staff 3 Posted by hendrik on 20 Jan, 2022 12:00 PM

   

   Curious. You use Popularity and Rating. Is this information you have added yourself or is this information BT has added to your files when it scanned them, so they are Popular and Rated by others not yourself?

   To chime in: Popularity always comes from the central beaTunes database. It reflects how many other beaTunes users have a particular song in their library. It says nothing about quality (that is what rating is for). If you just go by popularity you will end up with tracks that many other people own. If you use it as a secondary rule, i.e. with a lower weight, beaTunes will first pick songs based on your higher weighted rules and then, so to say as an afterthought, also try to use popular tracks.

   • Edit

4. 4 Posted by decommere.alexa... on 21 Jan, 2022 05:22 AM

   

   Thanks Hendrik for chiming in. Very useful, as always.

   Daz, to elaborate on your feedback:

   For me it's important that a Matchlist contains songs that sound good together (similar key and color), but also that consecutive songs are from alternating albums. Since I mostly listen to heavy metal, my test seed song was Metallica's "Master of Puppets". To end up with a one hour playlist of Metallica songs based on "Master of Puppets" according to my Matchlist preferences, I found that adding Popularity and Rating to the Rules (with individual strengths as seen in my initial screenshot) gives me the desired playlist (in all other Rule combinations I tried, the playlist ends with a block of 3 to 5 songs from ...And Justice for All). These Matchlist Settings also works extremely well for any other type of Matchlist featuring same or mixed artists within same or mixed genres.

   I understand now that Popularity is based on how many beaTunes users own songs that are also featured in your own library. That's cool - I mainly use this Rule as a catalyst for alternated album results in a Matchlist. It seems to do the trick.

   I most definitely also rate my songs, so that gives the desired results as well.

   I see you use Mood as a Rule in your Matchlists. Hendrik once explained to me that this Rule is based on tags used by LastFM and AcousticBrainz. In my experience, for less popular songs/artists, analyzing them for their Mood yields no results. So I don't use this Rule.

   Danceability - for me - yields questionable results. Often I feel a song has schwung but scores very low on Danceability - or vice versa. I don't use this Rule anymore. I believe the algorithm is not very reliable (yet). Same for BPM, it yields results that go all over the place. Not using the BPM rule results in more dynamic playlists in my experience.

   Hendrik, I have another question: the Different Album rule really delivers. However, the Different Artist rule doesn't always prove to be useful. Sometimes I have a Matchlist with half the songs by let's say Metallica and the other half of the songs by all different artists. I made a rule-set with Different Artist as its only Rule (strength = 1), and when I click Order Playlist by this rule-set, it fails to order the songs by alternating artists; it still ends the playlist with 3 or 4 consecutive Metallica songs. I would expect this Rule to just alternate the artists in any playlist (if possible), but it's not very powerful. Maybe I'm using it wrong? How does this rule work?

   Thanks for your valuable feedback!

   Cheers
   Alexander

   • Edit

5. 5 Posted by daz on 21 Jan, 2022 08:32 AM

   

   @Alexander
   My Vibe one(above) is the one i seem to use the most, select 2-3 tunes and have it spit out a list of 50 or so throws up a playlist you could 'mostly' create a pretty decent vibe to create a DJ set from for example where your BPM can vary a lot the playlist still fits together ect.

   I use Mixed In Key to add the Dancability Tags because frankly Beatunes is utterly totally and completely useless at this, sorry but its terrible and wouldn't use it to Tag with so thats done MIK and Beatunes then used that Data ect.
   Not trying to shill for another App but i hope Hendrick won't mind me saying i would highly highly recommend the Dancability tags from MIK because 90% of the time they feel about right.

   Mood yeah i hear you and thanks for the information about Mood.
   I have run my library of a little over 100K songs through Beatunes and 40% don't have an mood Data so probably not that good but it does throw up some interesting lists and Beatunes is pretty awesome a showing you your own Music again through different eyes which is pretty amazing to me :)

   I never actually added the 'popularity' data when i scanned in my library, i skipped the Lyrics, Language also figured i wouldn't use it and it would cut down the analysis time a bit. Might actually go back at some future date and add the Popularity as i see it may come in handy when i want to create a more mainstream playlist ect, oh well.

   I use the Different Artist with a match quality of 50/60 depending.
   Usually if i pick a song or Two as a Seed and set it at 50 MQ i may get about 50 back in the result that are usually pretty on point, if i set it to 60 MQ maybe 200 Hundred that are still a similar vibe to the seeds but spread through many genres ect.
   Kinda what i like cause it throws things at you you probably would never thought of playing together before which i love.

   Like i said above only had this a few weeks so am pretty noob on what works/doesn't but i will add your Matchlist settings to mine for sure.

   Any others you tend to use and want to share?

   • Edit

6. 6 Posted by decommere.alexa... on 22 Jan, 2022 11:33 PM

   

   @daz

   I usually add extra filters to my Matchlist, like a Year + Genre filter (if I just wanna hear rock from the 70s for example), or I add tags to a bunch of bands that feature the same guitar player or so.

   I just realized beaTunes also offers Danceability and BPM filters (as opposed to rules) where you can set a range (as with Year). This yields even better results using my "Magic" Matchlist setting. So I'm pretty excited about that, even though I don't use the Danceability or the BPM rules as part of the Matchlist settings, because those usually interfere with my Different Album rule :-)

   I added a screenshot of the settings I use for analysis of my library/new additions to iTunes. Popularity wasn't ticked ever, but I've now scanned my library using just that Popularity tool. It goes super fast. Curious for the results of that.

   @ Hendrik

   I noticed at the bottom of the Analyse Settings popup, there is indeed the Popularity option. What does that do? How should we use it?

   It states there that info about play count and ratings and such are combined to measure the popularity of songs in your library. This info is then sent to the beaTunes database. I can imagine that this is an analysis setting that doesn't operate on song level, but represents a snapshot in time of your entire music library, to measure which songs are more popular than others, based on your usage. If that is the case, then analyzing your entire music library every now and then using this Popularity option on would keep the info up to date, is that correct?

   Thanks for chiming in once again.

   Sincerely
   Alexander
   Belgium

   • beaTunes_Analyse_Settings.jpg 120 KB
   • Edit

7. Support Staff 7 Posted by hendrik on 15 Feb, 2022 09:19 AM

   

   Hey Alexander,

   I noticed at the bottom of the Analyse Settings popup, there is indeed the Popularity option. What does that do? How should we use it?

   When people analyze their libraries and request data from the central database, they send data about their libraries. This data gets saved in the central database (anonymized, we don't keep track of who owns what). This allows us to determine how popular a given song is, i.e. how many people own it relative to how many songs are out there. That's the popularity. You can choose to download the value in order to use it in your own matchlists or not. It is indeed a global popularity measure that is not even tied to time. I.e. this is not "recently popular", like charts, but "popular in general".

   People create playlists with different motivations:

   • some want to discover new music
   • some want to hear what they already know
   • some want a certain mixture of both
   • ...

   There are tons of different reasons, situations, occasions etc. And sometimes it can be useful to create a playlist with generally popular tracks. That's what that value is for. It has btw nothing to do with explicit star ratings.

   Note that when you use popularity in a rule, you could also weigh it negatively. I'm not sure that's really what you want, but it's a possibility.

   Sorry for the late reply,

   -hendrik

   • Edit

8. 8 Posted by decommere.alexa... on 13 Mar, 2022 10:19 PM

   

   Hi Hendrik

   How does the beaTunes Match filter "Similar Artist" work?
   Where does the data come from to match Artists?

   I find it works quite well, actually, so I was wondering where it gets its
   data from.

   Thanks
   Alexander

   • Edit

9. Support Staff 9 Posted by hendrik on 14 Mar, 2022 02:06 PM

   

   In beaTunes 5, the filter is supported by data from Last.FM and WikiData.

   • Edit

10. 10 Posted by decommere.alexa... on 15 Mar, 2022 05:57 PM

    

    Hi Hendrik

    Can this specific filter ("Similar Artist") also be used negatively, so
    the Matchlist avoids using songs by similar artists?

    • Edit

11. Support Staff 11 Posted by hendrik on 15 Mar, 2022 08:40 PM

    

    Can this specific filter ("Similar Artist") also be used negatively, so the Matchlist avoids using songs by similar artists?

    Yes, just set the weight to a negative value and similar artists will be ranked lower.

    • Edit

12. 12 Posted by decommere.alexa... on 15 Mar, 2022 09:31 PM

    

    Thanks.

    Is this filter designed to not select songs from the seed song's artist?
    I mean, does "Similar Artist" exclude the seed artist?

    • Edit

13. Support Staff 13 Posted by hendrik on 21 Mar, 2022 01:38 PM

    

    Is this filter designed to not select songs from the seed song's artist? I mean, does "Similar Artist" exclude the seed artist?

    Yes. "Similar Artist" should match only similar, but not identical artists.

    • Edit

14. 14 Posted by decommere.alexa... on 01 Apr, 2022 08:01 PM

    

    Hi Hendrik

    I was wondering about something. To reorder a playlist, you basically have two options: use a (custom) Song Matching ruleset, or use Property settings.

    The Property setting allows you to apply Periods to the reordering of a playlist (for example, have a clockwise color match repeat twice or more over the course of the total playlist), which often results in dynamic reordering, but it works for only a single property at the time (for example, Color). The use of an existing ruleset to reorder a playlist allows you to use different properties at the same time (with different weights), but these cannot be repeated over the course of one playlist. I sometimes find that a playlist would greatly benefit from having a custom ruleset applied to it PERIODICALLY.

    Do you think this option (Periods for Song Matching rulesets) could be implemented in the software any time soon?

    Thanks
    Alexander

    • Screenshot_2022-04-01_at_21.59.44.jpg 29.3 KB
    • Edit

15. Support Staff 15 Posted by hendrik on 04 Apr, 2022 10:07 AM

    

    Hi Alexander,

    using just one property allows a sense of direction, which can be used for periods. matching rulesets lack this clear-cut direction, so periods are not clearly defined.

    Do you think this option (Periods for Song Matching rulesets) could be implemented in the software any time soon?

    So in short the answer is no, I'm afraid.

    -hendrik

    • Edit

16. 16 Posted by decommere.alexa... on 07 Apr, 2022 09:09 AM

    

    Hi Hendrik

    Thanks for getting back to me.

    So, earlier you mentioned that both the "Similar Artist" and the "Popularity" filters also work with a negative value.

    Just so I understand correctly: does choosing value 0 for these filters yield the same results as simply not including them in the Matchlist ruleset?

    Thanks
    Alexander

    • Edit

17. Support Staff 17 Posted by hendrik on 14 Apr, 2022 02:10 PM

    

    Hey Alexander,

    Just so I understand correctly: does choosing value 0 for these filters yield the same results as simply not including them in the Matchlist ruleset?

    Pretty much, as their weight would be zero.

    To rank, beaTunes computes a weighted sum for all tracks and rules and divides it by the total possible positive score.

    For each rule, the possible positive score is either 0 (for negative weights) or the weight itself, e.g. 2.3.

    Simply add up all the possible positive scores and you have the total possible (positive) score.

    Now compute the score for a specific song. First determine a match quality with a value between 0 and 1. Then multiply by the weight. If the song score is 0.5 and the weight for that rule is 2.3, you end up with a score of 1.15 for this particular rule. If the weight is -1, you get -0.5.

    Finally, add up all the scores for all rules for a song and you get the total score, which you then divide by the possible score. This is now (by definition) a value of 1 or less.

    beaTunes computes this score for all tracks and then ranks them according to the score. Songs with a very low score, e.g. a negative one or just 0.1 can be filtered out using the match quality threshold.

    Hope this explanation helps.

    -hendrik

    • Edit

18. 18 Posted by decommere.alexa... on 28 Apr, 2022 11:27 AM

    

    This comment was split into a new discussion: Multi item boxes / sync

    Hi Hendrik

    I must admit, this is beyond my general understanding :-D (not so good at maths)
    My takeaway is that value "0" for certain filters like Popularity and Similar Artist yields the same results as simply not including them in a Matchlist ruleset.

    I have two more questions:

    1. I just bought a new MacBook Pro and I migrated my old MBP to the new one. I'm happy to see beaTunes running a lot smoother than before, although syncing with my music library still takes an awful lot of time (probably because my music files are on an external hard drive). I'm running beaTunes version 5.2.26 on macOs Monterey 12.3.1. Is there anything I should know or do or download or update, so that beaTunes works even better/smoother?

    2. When selecting multiple songs and going to the info section, there's a tickable box on either side of the star rating. What do these boxes do?

    Please, see attached screenshots.

    Thanks
    Alexander

    • Screenshot_2022-04-28_at_12.55.09.jpg 221 KB
    • Screenshot_2022-04-28_at_13.20.20.jpg 58.7 KB
    • Screenshot_2022-04-28_at_13.20.06.jpg 46.5 KB
    • Screenshot_2022-04-28_at_13.20.30.jpg 84 KB
    • Edit