This thread caught my attention because I just canceled my Rhapsody subscription yesterday. Luckily nothing I've read here makes me regret it and I'm continuing happily with Pandora and Slacker.
To address the original question, I used to be frustrated at how repetitive and narrow my Pandora stations were and I was able to fix them by deleting a lot of ratings so I'd suggest first taking a look at that. Adding a lot of thumbs up or thumbs down will tend to narrow the generated playlist. The general guidance is that you should only thumbs up a song if it something you really like that is outside the normal range of that station. Additionally, adding more seed artists can increase the variety. In the end I use them for different things. If I want to listen to 80's music, I use a Slacker station. If I want to an 80's "sound" then I'll use Pandora. If I had to keep just one it would be Slacker but since Pandora is only $3 a month I can't find a reason not to maintain it. >From the Pandora FAQ: > *Q: How can I increase variety on the playlist for my station?* > First, we recommend that you add a lot of music to your stations. In > order to increase variety of musical styles, we suggest adding several > artist names. Since the Music Genome will use an artist name to select > music from the artist's entire repertoire, this produces the broadest > possible playlist. Adding more artist names increases this effect. > > Next, be selective when giving a "Thumbs Up" to music that already > matches the station's defined starting points. Consider voting "Thumbs > Up" only when a new kind of music plays that you'd like to hear more > often on that station. > > Finally, instead of voting "Thumbs Down" on songs which play too > frequently (but are still appropriate for your station), try voting > "Zzz" (from the 'Guide Us' menu in the lower right) while the song is > playing, which will keep that song from playing on any of your stations > for thirty days, or simply skipping it, neither of which will restrict > the station's playlist in any other way. -- jsprag ------------------------------------------------------------------------ jsprag's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=14437 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=44652 _______________________________________________ squeezenetwork mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/squeezenetwork
