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Hello. My name is Ben Smith and I head up Product Management for Experience, Software, and Developer Programs at Sonos.



I wanted to get more feedback from you all on your expectations for Shuffling tracks in your queue. I have reviewed the feedback on ask.sonos.com and received e-mails from a few of you (via our CEO John MacFarlane), but I wanted to get a better sense from those of you who use Shuffle, how your really want it to work.



When you select shuffle what do you want to happen? What don't you want to happen?



Thanks!



Ben
I don't use the queue that often, so I'd like to be able to shuffle a playlist from my Music library (independent of the queue) or from a service like Spotify where I've curated playlists and want to hear them in a random order.
I can only echo above really. I should be able to add tracks to the queue and then hit shuffle for 'tracks to be shuffled like a pack of cards'. I should then be able to reshuffle if I chose. If on another day I add the same tracks to the queue, the shuffle order should be completely different. I should not hear the same track more than once until the queue has completed.
Great to see that feedback is being taken on this topic and hope action isn't far behind.

This morning I loaded up a bunch of albums I wanted to listen to, selected the first track, only to find that the next track was from the same album and then the next track was from the same album. So, I went and selected a track from a different album and then the next track after was also from the same album.

I've now listened to five songs and not once has the shuffle feature selected a track from a different album. I hardly call that random.
I just want to join the crowd in requesting this shuffle/random feature to be made available to one's entire library, or within an artist or playlist.
Most "random" algorithms are terrible and ultimately lead after short time to a similar experience within a set playlist. Please try something more sophisticated like multiplying a random number with date and time to prevent this.



Thanks for checking with the community.  
Can I add my voice to the call for album shuffling! Get on it! 🙂
If nothing else, if I hit shuffle, please do not start shuffle with the currently selected track (at least not every time), at the minute, if I queue an artists songs, then hit shuffle, it will always play the first item in the queue and then continue with a random track, either allow shuffle & queue, or have the shuffle button start with a random track not the currently selected one.
I think we can assume that we are being ignored. It's like the flurry of activity a year and a half or so ago. Nothing happened and everything went quiet again. There's no sign of any dialogue here.
Yeah but this time they started the dialogue
Not being ignored. Listening.
My apologies, Ben. Thank you. I look forward to being able to use the very feature that prompted me to spend a lot of money on the system several years ago 🙂
Not being ignored. Listening.





Great to hear Ben, but it would be even greater if we could get some initial feedback from you on what the next actions are here?  For example,   when are you planning to draw a line under this feedback and start scoping the work? 



The cynic in me is slightly concerned that this request for feedback just gets left open for too long considering some of us have been waiting 2 years for this!!



Thanks



Stuart
Not being ignored. Listening.





Hi Ben. I second Stuart's request for an initial response. It would be comforting to hear some progress is being made on this long overdue project.

I'm sure that whatever is done it won't please everyone but does it have to be sorted out in one hit? Surely this feature could evolve from a basic as happens with most software functions?



Regards,

Paul
Its so frustrating I'm sick of hearing the same songs in the same order over and over again. Give us a truly random playlist that shuffles the song differently each time you play the list and eliminates each song until the list is complete.
Is there a way to have the songs fade away or an option to enable this like a cross fade when we manually change songs in the middle of a song? Kind of like a dj. So that there is no abrupt stop when we decide to change songs and there is a gradual transition. With such a large library of songs some people can be picky with their songs and there would be so many sudden abrupt stops in the music which just really isn't smooth and deserves a nice crossfire transition away
Is there a way to have the songs fade away or an option to enable this like a cross fade when we manually change songs in the middle of a song? Kind of like a dj. So that there is no abrupt stop when we decide to change songs and there is a gradual transition. With such a large library of songs some people can be picky with their songs and there would be so many sudden abrupt stops in the music which just really isn't smooth and deserves a nice crossfire transition away

Two asks:

1) make it pseudo random so where you have a number of songs within a queue from the same artist it doesn't sequence them all in a row

2) second (or third?) the request that the queue is re-ordered to show how it has been shuffled, and enables you to then edit the shuffle order, skip tracks, etc.



Thanks.
STEP 1. Open iTunes. /  STEP 2. View "shuffle" behavior. /  STEP 3. Do that. Problem solved. 
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Random /Shuffle. Hi Ben, reading all the comments here I think it looks quite clear that it would be very appreciatet If you could give some advice when you think it could be improved the experiece with the Random funcionality.Today when you create a Sonos playlist and you want to use the shuffle mode it works mostly with the same Random ( example: 1-5-7-...) I would expect that using Random it would not always be the same sequence (e.g. 2/7/1 next time 8/1/3) It looks for me may you have to improve the Formula.
Hi, Would be nice when the shuffle mode could be saved to a playlist. Some Playlists I always want to suffle, some never. And I can´t find a way to save this setting to a playlist. 

And I don´t want to start the shuffle play with the first track of the list
It seems to me we are all talking about two separate functions.



1. Shuffle which is available in Sonos software, but its functionality is weak to say the least. For example, I have a playlist with over 2 thousand songs, but only about 200 of them ever play in the shuffle mode. So obviously this needs all kinds of improvements as suggested by others.



2. Randomize. This doesn't exist in Sonos, but would be a great additional function. When the user clicks on "randomize" the entire playlist is jumbled up in a totally haphazard fashion. It is then played sequentially which guarantees that no song will be played more than once until the end of the playlist is reached. This feature has always been available in Winamp and some other players, and in a number of ways I prefer that over any "shuffle algorithm", especially that you can also double or triple randomize to really have a new "deck of cards" whenever you wish.



All the other improvements suggested here are great, but I would first vote for the added "randomize" functionality.
I always tend to listen to my music collection on shuffle, whether it be a playlist or the whole library. What I am really missing is a Play Next feature. For instance, I am looking through my queue on the android app and I see a song I want to listen to. I don't want to stop listening to the tune I am currently enjoying, and I don't want to wait around for three minutes until it is finished to manually select the new song to play. Play Next would tell my system to play that track next in the shuffle order once the current track had finished and go back to a random shuffle after (unless I selected another track in this way). Google Play has this feature, even a few obscure music players have it. Is it possible future functionality?
Hi Ben,



the way i have set up my playlists in iTunes is i use ratings to create a top playlist by genre and Sonos is pointed at my iTunes XML library.



i use Sonos by loading a playlist of a particular genre into the queue and hitting shuffle. My playlists are huge (5000+ tracks), so i am in the habit of leaving the same queue in place for weeks at a time. the issue with this is after each listening session, the next time i hit play, the queue replays the same tracks in the same order, which is annoying. i have to remember to scroll down the queue to a track i have not heard in a while and start playing from there. that gives the illusion of ongoing random play each session.



I would like for the number seed to to re-randomise each time play is pressed after stop or pause so the track order is changed due to the seed changing (or to have this option in settings to allow me to choose this.). Alternatively and/or additionally, put a randomize button at the top of the queue list, I have some coding skills in various languages, so think this solution should be trivial for your guys to implement.



Best,



James
Hi Ben,



the way i have set up my playlists in iTunes is i use ratings to create a top playlist by genre and Sonos is pointed at my iTunes XML library.



i use Sonos by loading a playlist of a particular genre into the queue and hitting shuffle. My playlists are huge (5000+ tracks), so i am in the habit of leaving the same queue in place for weeks at a time. the issue with this is after each listening session, the next time i hit play, the queue replays the same tracks in the same order, which is annoying. i have to remember to scroll down the queue to a track i have not heard in a while and start playing from there. that gives the illusion of ongoing random play each session.



I would like for the number seed to to re-randomise each time play is pressed after stop or pause so the track order is changed due to the seed changing (or to have this option in settings to allow me to choose this.). Alternatively and/or additionally, put a randomize button at the top of the queue list, I have some coding skills in various languages, so think this solution should be trivial for your guys to implement.



Best,



James





Well said James , Ben can we have an update from sonos please?
I totally agree with you! Couldn't have said it in a better way. Thanks!
Ben,



It is over 2 months now since your initial request for feedback.  It would be great to hear what the next steps from Sonos are?



Stuart
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