I have been googling and testing various things, and I am just unsure of what the random modes mean.

So the three modes are obviously: Off, Tracks, Album.

Now Off is pretty simple. With Tracks does that mean random tracks within that playlist or random tracks within the album? With Album being random tracks within the album or random albums in the playlist, or plays a whole album and then randomly picks a new album?

It just seems whenever I select either of these, it seems to stay with the same artist a lot. I have a collection of over 250GB and it seems I have enough for it to be completely random without repeating songs from the same artist.

I do realize there are the various playlists and I use them frequently, but I also have certain static playlists that I have made myself, and I like having those truly random without resorting to the shuffle option (I like to see everything in groups).

Any clear up with this would be greatly appreciated. And I want to thank everyone who takes their time to help out on this project, whether it is developing it, bug testing, or even just forum members who are able to help out thick-skulled people like me. I think this is an incredibly diverse program, and I enjoy using it.

bassmadrigal wrote:I have been googling and testing various things, and I am just unsure of what the random modes mean.

So the three modes are obviously: Off, Tracks, Album.

Now Off is pretty simple. With Tracks does that mean random tracks within that playlist or random tracks within the album? With Album being random tracks within the album or random albums in the playlist, or plays a whole album and then randomly picks a new album?
...

First off, I'm fairly convinced it's technically shuffle rather than random (true randomness could conceivably play the same track over and over again).

But to answer your question: Tracks should be a normal, everyday shuffled playlist. Album should play an entire album in order, then skip to a new (random) album and play that in order, and so on.

I can't recall offhand if there's any default weighting applied to the shuffle feature? That would explain why you seem to be getting the same artist quite a bit, if it is set to shuffle within say 30 tracks of current position.

If I want a properly random play order of my playlist, I tend to shuffle the playlist and then play in 'Off' mode, as then I can easily tell what's coming up, or tweak sections ahead of time.

Yeah... I knew it was a shuffle rather than random, I just labeled it that way because that is the way Amarok did it. Also shuffle in Amarok is a different option and I didn't want to confuse anyone.

But thank you so much for your explanation. I am glad to finally have some clarification on this.