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Playlist Creator?

Jorj

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If you're anything like me, you probably listen to entire albums end-to-end for the most part. I do, on occasion, toss together a playlist, even if it's just my current list of reference tracks for listening tests. My problem is that I use Foobar2000 on Windows, PowerAmp Beta on my Note 8, and the Hiby software on the Cayin N3. All of them can use M3U, but all run into path issues when the M3U was created on another system. I've pounded my head on the relative path problem for hours with no success.

My music and playlists are all stored in a folder on my NAS that is synced to all offline devices. I'd love to be able to create a single playlist in Windows and have it function with all my devices, but again, the path thing.

Has anyone got a system that they really like for creating\managing playlists that work across multiple offline devices? Prefer freeware, but not against buying if it's the right solution, and please, no iTunes or Apple ecosystem suggestions. That ain't happening.
 

hvbias

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MP3Tag will create M3U playlists

Here is one I just generated for an album (opened and copy and pasted below from Notepad), it doesn't look like it stores the local path:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:351,Muza Rubackyte - Chapelle de Guillaume Tell
01 - Mûza Rubackyté, piano - Chapelle de Guillaume Tell.wv
#EXTINF:181,Muza Rubackyte - Au lac de Wallenstadt
02 - Mûza Rubackyté, piano - Au lac de Wallenstadt.wv
#EXTINF:112,Muza Rubackyte - Pastorale
03 - Mûza Rubackyté, piano - Pastorale.wv
#EXTINF:230,Muza Rubackyte - Au bord d'une source
04 - Mûza Rubackyté, piano - Au bord d'une source.wv
#EXTINF:280,Muza Rubackyte - Orage
05 - Mûza Rubackyté, piano - Orage.wv
#EXTINF:852,Muza Rubackyte - Vallee d'Obermann
06 - Mûza Rubackyté, piano - Vallée d'Obermann.wv
#EXTINF:220,Muza Rubackyte - Eglogue
07 - Mûza Rubackyté, piano - Eglogue.wv
#EXTINF:401,Muza Rubackyte - Le mal du pays
08 - Mûza Rubackyté, piano - Le mal du pays.wv
#EXTINF:352,Muza Rubackyte - Les cloches de Geneve
09 - Mûza Rubackyté, piano - Les cloches de Genève.wv
 

Soniclife

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If you create a simple test playlist in each app how do the look different in a text editor? Unless someone suggests a ready made solution my guess is a text replacement script might be the simplest solution.
 
OP
Jorj

Jorj

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MP3Tag will create M3U playlists

Oh, I have LOTS of ways to create M3U files, I was wondering which ones have a good user interface and create a file that has good compatibility with other players.

PowerAmp Pro Beta is about my favorite interface, but it uses some wonky internal format for playlists and if you export the M3U, it is unable to edit it.
 

hvbias

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Oh, I have LOTS of ways to create M3U files, I was wondering which ones have a good user interface and create a file that has good compatibility with other players.

PowerAmp Pro Beta is about my favorite interface, but it uses some wonky internal format for playlists and if you export the M3U, it is unable to edit it.

I understood your question, that's why I showed you what the playlist looks like when view in Notepad, ie it doesn't point to any local paths so theoretically it shouldn't have any conflicts with your devices. Whether it will or not is another issue :)

For instance this is a playlist I created with Foobar2000 and you can see that it is pointing to a specific folder so I can see why it would cause issues on other devices:

C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\01 - Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Major-I.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\02 - Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Major-II.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\03 - Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Major-III.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\04 - Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major-I Vivace.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\05 - Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major-II Largo.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\06 - Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major-III Allegro.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\07 - Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major-IV.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\08 - Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major-V.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\09 - Concerto No. 3 in G Major-I Largo-Allegro.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\10 - Concerto No. 3 in G Major-II Adagio.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\11 - Concerto No. 3 in G Major-III Allegro.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\12 - Concerto No. 4 in F Major-I.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\13 - Concerto No. 4 in F Major-II Andante.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\14 - Concerto No. 4 in F Major-III Allegro.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\15 - Concerto No. 4 in F Major-IV Allegro.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\16 - Concerto No. 5 in D minor-I.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\17 - Concerto No. 5 in D minor-II Fuga- Allegro.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\18 - Concerto No. 5 in D minor-III Adagio.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\19 - Concerto No. 5 in D minor-IV Allegro ma non troppo.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\20 - Concerto No. 5 in D minor-V Allegro.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\21 - Concerto No. 6 in D Major-I.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\22 - Concerto No. 6 in D Major-Improvisation.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\23 - Concerto No. 6 in D Major-II Allegro.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\24 - Sonata a 5-I Andante.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\25 - Sonata a 5-II Adagio.flac
C:\Users\redwn\Music\Handel - Conceri Grossi Op 3 (2007) [FLAC] {Harmonia Mundi HMU 907415}\Disc 1 of 1\26 - Sonata a 5-III Allegro.flac

Ignore the spelling mistake with Concerti :)
 
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L5730

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Yeah, I see what @hvbias is saying here.

Say you have 3 PCs and one NAS. For example, say that on PC1 the NAS is mapped as X:, on PC2 it's mapped as Y: and on PC3 it's mapped as Z:.
If a playlist contains full paths to files, then exporting a playlist from a program on any of those 3 PCs will not work on any other, because they aren't looking to the correct drive. I had this exact problem with running Foobar2000 under Wine and under a Windows 10 second dual-boot partition. I had to jiggle Wine around to make the Music folder (for the library) appear as the same mapped drive letter for both. This way I could copy the fb2k playlists between the two fb2k installs without issue.

It would seem there is some support for .cue sheets with PowerAmp and of course Foobar2000.
I have created cue sheets which point directly at different files, and even offset index points within them.

If you can somehow upload copies of some basic and simple playlists to somewhere, same files in each and make it clear what the playlists came from, I can have a go at writing up a simple Windows batch or Powershell script to handle conversion for you. It shouldn't take much effort.
 
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