Advance Filters: No "Track Collections"?

[Kilgry]

Movie Collections, TV Show Collections, Artist Collections, Album Collection and even Track Collections are all possible to create in Plex.

You can also use Advance Filters to filter by all those collections types EXCEPT Track Collections. Why not?

I’ve created Top Music Track Collections for each year from 1970-1999. I was hoping to combine those collection into a Smart Collection for each decade by filtering on those yearly top track collections. (i.e.: " '70s Top Tracks" - includes 1970, 71, 72, 73,…)

I’m honestly surprised that this isn’t possible currently, since I would normally assume that creating such track collections would be of great interest to music buffs. It would be great to recreate those decade collections to relive the music that was popular on the radio at the time.

[OttoKerner]

Plexamp already has a “Decade Radio”.

[Kilgry]

I’m assuming the decade radio works off the year tag for an album (yep, confirmed). This means it plays all tracks, whether they were popular or not, for albums published in that decade (so remasters, “Best of” all have the wrong year for the proper decade). It also does mix symphonies with rock, and all other genres, which is a MESS.

My collections are based on the Billboard Hot 100 (weekly release) and the Top 100 (yearly) songs based on those Billboard rankings for each year.

So, I have already created the “Top 100 Tracks” by year, and, a “Billboard Hot 100” by year, which is about 600-900 possible tracks a year. This was done using Kometa and converting Billboard data to yaml scripts.

Next, those collection groups would be combined, using Advanced Filters to create Smart Collections for each decade.

This will be more targeted to what actually was popular at the time and superior for creating an actual decade radio feel.

As I add tracks to Plex, these related tracks will automatically be added to their appropriate collections.

But, Plex doesn’t allow Advanced Filtering on track Collections for some reason.

[Kilgry]

Here is what I’m envisioning for collections.

Sort Titles

100 - 1940s Top Billboard Hits
100 - 1950s Top Billboard Hits
100 - 1960s Top Billboard Hits
100 - 1970s Top Billboard Hits
100 - 1980s Top Billboard Hits
100 - 1990s Top Billboard Hits
100 - 2000s Top Billboard Hits
100 - 2010s Top Billboard Hits
100 - 2020s Top Billboard Hits

(these next ones should be Smart Collections that pull from the track collections further below)
150 - 1940s Billboard Hot 100
150 - 1950s Billboard Hot 100
150 - 1960s Billboard Hot 100
150 - 1970s Billboard Hot 100
150 - 1980s Billboard Hot 100
150 - 1990s Billboard Hot 100
150 - 2000s Billboard Hot 100
150 - 2010s Billboard Hot 100
150 - 2020s Billboard Hot 100

(these collections are create in Kometa and might be labeled - “Hidden/Excluded” to reduce clutter)
800 - 1940 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1941 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1942 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1943 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1944 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1945 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1946 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1947 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1948 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1949 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1950 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1951 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1952 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1953 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1954 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1955 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1956 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1957 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1958 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1959 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1960 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1961 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1962 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1963 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1964 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1965 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1966 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1967 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1968 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1969 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1970 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1971 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1972 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1973 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1974 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1975 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1976 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1977 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1978 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1979 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1980 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1981 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1982 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1983 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1984 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1985 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1986 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1987 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1988 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1989 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1990 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1991 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1992 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1993 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1994 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1995 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1996 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1997 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1998 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 1999 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2000 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2001 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2002 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2003 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2004 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2005 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2006 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2007 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2008 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2009 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2010 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2011 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2012 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2013 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2014 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2015 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2016 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2017 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2018 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2019 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2020 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2021 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2022 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2023 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2024 Billboard Hot 100
800 - 2025 Billboard Hot 100

[Kilgry]

Using Smart Collections, I can also filter by Pop versus Dance or Rock or whatever against these collections. Or moods too.

[jimbob100101]

Plexamp allows filtering by “track collection”, but before you get too excited, unfortunately you cannot currently save to a “smart collection” in plexamp. I have asked them to add this functionality

[Kilgry]

Oh so close! You can save to a Smart Playlist.

It shouldn’t be too difficult to add code for a Smart Collection then.

Dang, it’s almost right there.

Thanks for showing me this functionality. It’s still a bit exciting. Though not optimal (not sure I want to do so), I could create these Smart Playlists and use Kometa to copy them to other users. However, that is really what Collections are for in my opinion.

I know @elan has been focusing on Music a lot with Plexamp, but it feels like music hasn’t quite gotten the same love, as movies and TV shows, on the Admin side of things yet.

It concerns me, especially as Plex moves forward to separate clients. Plexamp is still catching up to Plex web in most Admin functionality it feels like (except perhaps this functionality you just showed me).

[jimbob100101]

Yeah sorry, I have basically just told you there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

I wouldn’t be too concerned, just enjoy listening to the music

[Kilgry]

Heh, that’s what I’m trying to do.

But, thanks for showing me another option. It goes into this coder’s head and might come in handy later.

I also see the need for a proper tmdb but for music. Musicbrainz just feels like a mess. All the big companies have developed it but aren’t sharing.

[elan]

You should be able to save to the collection in the web app and then use it in Plexamp.

[Kilgry]

Hi Elan,

I’m in the web app but can’t find an option to Advance Filter based on Track Collections. I do see options for Album and Artist collections, but no Track Collection.

[elan]

I’m sorry, slightly confused. You’re trying to make a smart collection based on another smart track collection?

[Kilgry]

No. Let me see if I can clarify:

First, I’m creating several Standard Track Collections with Kometa. Next, I want to create a Smart Track Collection that includes several of the previous Standard Track Collections:

Standard Track Collections:

1980 Billboard Hot 100 - (Standard Track Collection with the top tracks for this year)
1981 Billboard Hot 100
1982 Billboard Hot 100
…
1989 Billboard Hot 100

These then would be collected into (using Advance Filters):

Smart Track Collection

“1980s Top Billoard Hit Tracks”

If your next question is, “Why not have Kometa make the decade collection?” My answer is that I want the flexibility to change the years collected and to perhaps filter based on other tags (genre, artist, etc.). That is what Smart Collection are great for doing: filtering on one or more standard collections:

Smart Track Collection (example 2)

“1980s and 1990s Michael Jackson Billboard Hits”
or
“1960s Rock Billboard Hits”

[elan]

Gotcha, we’ll add support for making smart collections in Plexamp in the future!

[Kilgry]

Awesome! (If you can allow those Smart Track Collections to sort Randomly, that would be helpful too, in that it will be “fresher” when displayed on the home screen.)

So, does this also mean that Plexamp is becoming the admin UI for Plex Music Libraries (i.e.: editing metadata and posters/backgrounds)?

[jimbob100101]

Actually, there is an outstanding server bug affecting adding tracks to collections that might need fixing before you add this functionality to plexamp…

Bug: Adding to a Track Collection removes disc number metadata from track

Server Version#: 1.41.3.9314 Player Version#: Plex Web 4.142.2 & Plexamp 4.11.4 Adding a music track to a Track Collection removes that tracks disc number from Plex metadata Refreshing metadata restores the missing disc number, but adding another track to the collection removes it again I have been able to reproduce this behaviour in Plex Web 4.142.2 & in Plexamp 4.11.4

Track Collections Messing with Library

Hello, I am having an issue where whenever I add a song to a track collection that song will then be reordered in the album that it comes from. This means that any track that is in a track collection will be listed first in the album then the remaining tracks will be listed afterwards. Usually when I refresh all metadata this will mostly go back to normal however anytime I add another track to a collection all tracks in that collection will become disorganized again. Track collections have bee…

EDIT: found another bug report for this issue..

Plex Music: Adding songs to collections will erase the metadata for the CD number and mess up song lists for albums

Server Version#: 1.25.3.5409 Player Version#: 4.73.3 (Web) I’ve started to add music to my Plex server recently and started to manage different collections like “Favorites” and “Music for kids” to have access to them across all accounts. I use music bought on Amazon or my self ripped CDs which I have accumulated over the years. Before I add them to my library, I always modify these files to add or adjust ID3 tags including covers. I never just add them “as they are”. Scanning my server for th…

[Kilgry]

Oh, that is what is happening. I was seeing the tracks re-ordering but didn’t know why.

I believe this only happens when you add the tracks manually to a collection through the Plex UI. However, I will confirm.

[Kilgry]

jimbob,

Did you ever send your logs to Otto?

[Kilgry]

I determined that the disc number is removed when you manual add a track or if Kometa adds it to a track collection.

It isn’t just Smart Collections.

[jimbob100101]

Yes via DM but never heard anything and forgot all about it!!