Do the Empeg (mk1 or mk2) support dynamic playlists? What I mean by this is, can I make up a playlist on the fly rather then only being able to pick ones that I have previously made up? At the time I make up the playlist, I might not realize that at some point I will want to listen to all the Slow Trance songs made by Sash, or all of Jimi Hendrix's mellow blues, or all upbeat rock, or all the fast songs by The Tragically Hip?

On a similer note, does it support ID3v2 tags? If not, what tags does the Emplode software support?

Do the Empeg (mk1 or mk2) support dynamic playlists?

Yes, the player has an elegant interface which allows you to construct dynamic playlists. You can add individual tracks one at a time, or you can throw in all the tracks for a given artist, genre, year, or album.

On a similar note, does it support ID3v2 tags?

The next major release of the software will support ID3v2 tags.

Corby
SN#320, 6-Gig Blue

.. and currently it supports ID3v1 tags. (Title, Artist, Genre, Year, Album)

TeeMcBee

To add a track, either be it all the songs by one artist, all the songs of one name, all the songs from one year, all the songs from the gerne or all the songs from the same album, press the 'Direct OK' button till it brings up the list you require to select the song from, once you have found the iteam you want to add, press the 'CD-MD-CH' to go into apend mode, the empeg will tell you this in the top left corner, by either saying search or appened, now you can press the 'DNPP' button to add your selection to the current playlist.

Watch out though, you may find the thre EMPEG doesn't like the end of the playlist and restarts the player, that what I found.

(Oh yer, that a point, any 1 looking at my other post in the bugs section http://empeg.comms.net/cgi-bin/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=bigs&Number=7957&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5 here, I made a mistake, it didn't reboot, the player software reloaded, or should say restarted.)

Proud owner of #161

OK, I can pick all songs from a certain artist, or all songs from a certain genre, or all the songs from a certain year. But what if I want all the rock songs from 1993. Can it do that?

OK, I can pick all songs from a certain artist, or all songs from a certain genre, or all the songs from a certain year. But what if I want all the rock songs from 1993. Can it do that?

You can't search on two different fields dynamically. You could only search on 1993 or rock, but not both. But if you chose to create a playlist ahead of time, made up of songs which fit that criteria, then it would be just a few clicks to select that playlist.

It sounds like you need a clearer picture of how the playlists work to understand it. Here is a link to a description I gave to some other people who were asking similar questions. It's not as arcane as you might think. It's really easy to find the music you want on the empeg, using a combination of searching and playlists. Considering the number of songs you can store on an Empeg, and considering the relatively limited user interface (small screen and just a few buttons on a remote), you'd be surprised how easy it is to get to the stuff you like. What makes it so easy is the fact that the playlists are freeform and arbitrary, and you can build/name them however you like in Emplode.

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Tony Fabris

Ok, I guess when the ID3v2 tag support gets put in, it should be able to build playlists by whatever criteria you want. My previous example was not too good. How about if I want to play fast rock, or fast techno, or slow country (ya, right), but whatever, or maybe fast rock by The Tragically Hip, or slow rock song by females. This is what I am getting at. I hope that in the future this will be built in, as it seems like a pretty simple way to do things. This way, as long as all your tags are filled out, you might not need any pre-made playlists at all.
You just select New Play list, pick your first criteria, be it genre, tempo, year, artist, album, whatever, then you pick the 2nd criteria.
This may sound a little confusing, but if you see it in actions (like in Music Match Jukebox) it is really easy, simple, fast, and extrememly useful.

Ok, I guess when the ID3v2 tag support gets put in, it should be able to build playlists by whatever criteria you want. My previous example was not too good. How about if I want to play fast rock, or fast techno, or slow country (ya, right), but whatever, or maybe fast rock by The Tragically Hip, or slow rock song by females.

All those things you described can be done right now, and it doesn't depend upon V2 tags. You can build playlists however you want, with any songs in them you want, arranged any way you want. The only thing is that you can't do it while you're driving the car. And you wouldn't want to anyway, because it would involve staring at the screen and punching too many buttons on the remote.

I understand that MMJB allows you to do that sort of thing, but remember that it's got the benefit of a full GUI, a keyboard, a mouse, a high-rez screen, and no fear of crashing. (Well, okay, a different kind of crashing.)

Until you've actually used Emplode and the Empeg, you won't realize just how easy it is to set it up to your tastes. And you'd be surprised how rarely you actually want to create an ad-hoc complex-criteria playlist. More often, you're just shuffle-playing a larger playlist based on your mood, and enjoying the spontaneity of not knowing what's coming up next.

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Tony Fabris

> But what if I want all the rock songs from 1993. Can it do that?

That's a Wendy filter. Although it was one of the first things we thought of, it hasn't been implemented yet. It's on the list for a not-too-distant-future release though.

Rob

The only thing is that you can't do it while you're driving the car.

Actually, one of the things I'm hoping to do with my EMPEG (once it arrives, hopefully before the end of the summer) is to use it as a simple DJ machine. Ideally, I would be able to dynamically add songs to the current playlist or edit the list as people make requests, all without generating any audible noises or pauses to disturb the dancers.

Note: I'm talking here about much more traditional DJing, where you just play songs. I'm not talking about the more modern mixing, beat-matching kinds of tasks that you'd never expect to be possible with a tiny screen and remote control...

Dan

Yes you can add to the play list in this way, but, only to the end, you can't insert into the middle of the list and you can't delete the track once listed, also there are no pauses, gaps or jumping sound, or at least I have had non what so ever so far, and I use this feature a lot.

Proud owner of #161

Actually, one of the things I'm hoping to do with my EMPEG (once it arrives, hopefully before the end of the summer) is to use it as a simple DJ machine. Ideally, I would be able to dynamically add songs to the current playlist or edit the list as people make requests, all without generating any audible noises or pauses to disturb the dancers.

Ah! I see.

Yes, you can dynamically add songs to the end of the current playlist. You can't search on multiple subcategories at the same time, but you can easily choose any song from the entire unit by searching on its title or one category, and then add the selected song to your current playlist.

However, there's no function for deleting or re-ordering songs in the playlist, so all you could do is build a bigger and bigger playlist. With the latest revision of the software, you can also reshuffle the next few songs in the playlist while looking at the "Now and Next" screen, although I don't know if this induces a pause.

Come to think of it, though, I recall that appending a song to the current playlist induced a pause for some users. This might make it useless as a DJ machine.

But I have to say, the concept of Empeg-as-a-DJ-machine is an interesting one. It's not the unit's original intended purpose, but it seems to me that it could function as one with only a few software and UI tweaks. Perhaps someone will write a piece of alternate player software that'll do this properly...

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Tony Fabris

Come to think of it, though, I recall that appending a song to the current playlist induced a pause for some users. This might make it useless as a DJ machine.

This only happens if you are running the visuals.

Corby
SN#320, 6-Gig Blue

The momentary pause when appending a song to the end of a playlist happens for me when I append a song to the end of a very long playlist. Playlists with fewer than 20 songs don't make a pause when appending to them..

Tom

Reg_2845 Serial #00173