Did anyone try to "shuffle" their music collection in the pre-iPod era?

[Meltdown]

I was in college about 20 years ago, and had a large CD collection and too much time on my hands. I'm not sure what the genesis of the idea was, but I got it into my head that it would be pretty cool to listen to songs from my collection at random, instead of picking specific ones. What the iPod shuffle feature lets you do today.

Back then I kept all my CDs in cases -- I had about 20 of them. Each case had three drawers, and each drawer held 14 CDs. I also had a calculator with a "random" function. If you hit it, it would give you a (probably pseduo) random number between 0 and 1, to 8 decimal places.

So the procedure was this:
1) Roundup (Random x 20) = the number of the CD case I went to
2) Roundup (Random x 3) = the drawer number of that CD case
3) Roundup (Random x 14) = the number of the CD in that drawer
4) Roundup (Random x number of songs on the CD) = the track I would play

Obviously, I'd have to grab the CD before executing Step 4.

And then I'd play that track. Regardless of what it was. No skipping -- the calculator had spoken.

I understood that it didn't provide the same probability for each song -- for example, some CDs could have only a couple of tracks, others could have over 20. But it was good enough for me.

I'd spend hours doing this, much to the chagrin of my roommates.

Anyone else do anything like that?

[phreesh]

I'm clearly not as smart or devoted as you, but I specifically bought carousel CD players (usually 5 disk) so I could shuffle through disks without having to constantly go back and forth to the player.

[multimediac17]

I didn't go as far as that but when I was around 8-12 years old I would treat my CD playing as if I were a radio station, switching CDs after every song and playing a new one. It wasn't shuffled though because of course I chose the songs before I played them... meaning this is potentially just an off-topic post.

[Meltdown]

Originally Posted by phreesh

I'm clearly not as smart or devoted as you,

"Obsessive-compulsive" is the term you're looking for.

but I specifically bought carousel CD players (usually 5 disk) so I could shuffle through disks without having to constantly go back and forth to the player.

Now that you mention it, that might have been the genesis of the idea. I didn't have a CD player with a disc changer, but several of my friends did. Perhaps I was trying to recreate and expand that experience.

I was also drinking a lot in those days.

[Peremensoe]

Um... not like that, no.

[tdn]

No. Never. I've never understood the appeal.

Albums were meant to be played purposely, with songs in the order that the artist intended. That's the law.

Of course, me growing up in the age of concept albums may have something to do with that.

[Wakinyan]

My brother had a similar system in the eighties; he had six cases with LPs and I don't know, a hundred records in each? So he threw a six sided dice to decide wich case, and two ten sided dice to determine wich album. And then, threw a twenty sided dice to determine which song to listen to on that album. -- Yes, he did play role-playing games and the cases were full of heavy metal. Great system.

[Meltdown]

Originally Posted by tdn

Albums were meant to be played purposely, with songs in the order that the artist intended. That's the law.

I respect that position. And there are clearly albums whose songs need to be heard together.

But I've found that the problem with that -- at least for me -- is that, when my collection got to be over a certain size, sometimes I won't have the inclination to listen to one all the through. It will sit there, unlistened, and eventually I'll kind of forget why I bought it in the first place.

One of the things I love about shuffling is when a fantastic song comes by that I haven't heard in ages -- maybe since I first bought it -- it will be like a revelation -- "I forgot all about that band/album -- I forgot how good it was." And then I'll pick out the whole album and relisten to it.

That doesn't happen every day, of course, but it happens enough.

[Troy McClure SF]

Plenty of later-model CD players had some sort of shuffle functions, whether it was for a single CD, a bunch of CDs (shuffling between tracks on multiple discs) and later the ability to shuffle tracks on an MP# CD, which could hold a whole road trip's worth of music.

[tdn]

Originally Posted by Meltdown

One of the things I love about shuffling is when a fantastic song comes by that I haven't heard in ages -- maybe since I first bought it -- it will be like a revelation -- "I forgot all about that band/album -- I forgot how good it was." And then I'll pick out the whole album and relisten to it.

I can see that. I have tons of music that I haven't listened to in decades, and maybe 4 CDs in my regular rotation.

The new technology is giving me headaches, though. I'm currently working on a musical project that's about 30 minutes of music in 15 short songs, and they are definitely written to be played in order. When it gets to market, you damn kids today are just going to shuffle it anyway.

[Skald the Rhymer]

I used to own a 100-disc Sony CD player. I left the CDs in there all the time and generally had it on random, unless I was listening to a musical cast album. Admittedly, me being me, that meant it usually WASN'T on shuffle.

[Dahnlor]

I had a 6-disc CD changer with a "Shuffle" button. I once made a "mix" tape out of a couple of 2-Pac albums shuffled together.

[Sage Rat]

Meet the MiniDisc. Developed in 1992, you could copy a whole CD onto them (or several tracks from many CDs), the disks couldn't be scratched, the device fit in your pocket, you could split, join, and re-order tracks, as well as play in shuffle mode. Unfortunately, Japanese companies didn't really try to sell them outside of Japan until MP3 players started to sell in the US.

This is why Isolationism is bad.

[cochrane]

I had a 60-disc CD changer in the 90's. I could program it to randomly shuffle just a few CD's in specific groups, or shuffle among all 60 CD's in no particular order.

[Moonlitherial]

I bought a massive 200 disk cd changer and it had the worst randomizing algorithm in existence. Worst technology purchase...wait nm, I've made worse buys.

[pohjonen]

My Sansa has a shuffle mode, but it doesn't really work. It plays some of the same songs in the same order and never plays others. People say that isn't the case with IPODS but I've heard the same complaint before.

[BigT]

Everyone around here is very late to adopt technology. I'm pretty sure my first CD player had a random function, but I never used it. I'd be much more likely to use the program feature, and thus skip songs I didn't like.

[digs]

Sometimes, when I'm singing to myself, I sing an album all the way through (mandatory for Abbey Road or Thick As A Brick).

But usually, like most people, I shuffle all the songs I know.

Or, sometimes, I just shuffle a category like "Uplifting Broadway Finales", or "Folkies of the 70s With Sticks Up Their Butts", or "Titles That Use Apostrophes" -- with a few exceptions: I don't want to accidentally segue from "Truckin'" to "Havin' My Baby"...

Hey, it keeps the mind alive while vacuuming or biking to the next town for coffee...

[gallows fodder]

Does making mix tapes count? If so, yes.

[Freudian Slit]

My multiple CD player never really worked well on shuffle. But I'd always listen to individual CDs on shuffle. Too boring otherwise.

[jackdavinci]

Not to the same extent as you but... I had a five-CD capacity boombox (until sadly I accidently melted it ) which had a song-shuffle function, that I took advantage of. The only disadvantages being the 5-CD limit and the very loud shuffling of CDs between tracks...

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

When 'shuffle' came out, I thought it was the coolest thing on earth (still do). I had been doing my own version of it for years, dating back to albums, even.

I had, I dunno, 500 or so albums on shelves. Once in a while I would get in a shuffle mood. I'd close my eyes, grab a record, and place it on the turntable. Then I would open my eyes and place the needle on a random track, all the while being careful to cover the label with my hand so as not to reveal the album or artist. I'd do this for several songs in a row (different album each time). Sometimes I'd accidentally catch a glimpse of the label and get pissed off.

Yeah, I'm not weird.


mmm

[jasonh300]

Originally Posted by tdn

Albums were meant to be played purposely, with songs in the order that the artist intended. That's the law.

You must listen to a lot of Yes, or maybe Pink Floyd

[Peremensoe]

I have two players now with a combined 500 discs, that can both shuffle and trade off tracks between them. Crossfaded, even. Individual tracks can be dropped out of the rotation. Pretty good setup if I don't feel like choosing something.

[Thudlow Boink]

When I got my first CD player (in 1991—it was a 6-CD changer), I thought the "random mode" was a very cool feature, and that it would bring new freshness to old familiar albums, if I could hear the same songs in a new and unexpected order. It did that some, but I didn't (and still don't) end up using it anywhere near as often as just playing CDs straight through in the intended order, because usually, that intended order is what flows best.

[JKellyMap]

Originally Posted by gallows fodder

Does making mix tapes count? If so, yes.

I'd say "yes" if you deliberately made them (as I did) so they had unexpected combinations of music styles -- Bach rubbing shoulders with Hendrix, etc.

[markdash]

This is cheating, but MP3s were widely popular before the debut of the iPod in 2001. I attended college from 1996-2000 and during this time I had quite a bit of music on my computer. Shuffling through these was quite easy.

[dhkendall]

Originally Posted by phreesh

I'm clearly not as smart or devoted as you, but I specifically bought carousel CD players (usually 5 disk) so I could shuffle through disks without having to constantly go back and forth to the player.

My first CD player was specifically a 5-discer for that purpose. I had a CD set of national anthems of the world, I didn't want to listen to them in (alphabetical / track) order, as I'd know which one was next (yeah, I know, same thing for my non-anthems CDs, but bear with me), I liked the idea of playing "Test the Uber-Nerd", if I had my anthems CDs on random shuffle, I could see how long it takes for me to guess which anthem it is (instead of knowing because if, say, I'd just played Nepal, I know that this must be Netherlands). I usually average getting it within the first bar or so now (many the first note or two). Unfortunately, my CD set was a 6 CD set, but, I was happy.

Extreme geekery? Where??

Originally Posted by tdn

Albums were meant to be played purposely, with songs in the order that the artist intended. That's the law.

Originally Posted by JKellyMap

I'd say "yes" if you deliberately made them (as I did) so they had unexpected combinations of music styles -- Bach rubbing shoulders with Hendrix, etc.

With the rest of my music, combination of the above disparate statements. I'd make mix tapes all the time (translated now to Mix CDs (is that the term? I still call them "mix tapes" even if they're on a CD) but put a hell of a lot of thought into the order of them - I'd assemble my mix tapes like how most people assemble jigsaw puzzles - I'd start with the obvious songs (in a jigsaw, it's the corners and edges) to lead and end with. For instance, "Assorted Songs 1" starts with Platinum Blonde's "It Doesn't Really Matter" (and has since high school), the woman saying "Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin." in a calm manner at the start of the song is a *natural* way to start the collection! Similar way of choosing the end song, there are a few songs that make great ending songs of a CD. I'd then pick what songs go best after the first one/before the last one, and build the collection that way. It has the disadvantage that slow songs tend to get lumped together (but I may luck out that there's a song that starts slow and ends fast, or vice-versa, to get me out of the jams)

[postcards]

Originally Posted by BigT

Everyone around here is very late to adopt technology. I'm pretty sure my first CD player had a random function, but I never used it. I'd be much more likely to use the program feature, and thus skip songs I didn't like.

Amen. Being able to program the playback on CDs made Double Fantasy a much more enjoyable listen, as I was able to eliminate all the Yoko songs.

[california jobcase]

The kid and her husband bought me a new CD copy of Abbey Road for Christmas. Son-in-law put it in the player and hit shuffle. Weirdness ensued.

[NoiseBomb]

I had a 6-disc changer in the early 90s. The options were to randomly play songs from one CD or all 6 CDs, or to program in a list of songs and play them in the order that you programmed them in. Long before there were MP3s or iPods, I had thought the BEST. FEATURE. EVER. would have been to give it a list of songs that was a subset of everything on those 6 discs, and play those in a random order.

Yeah, playlists. A lot of us thought that up years before it existed.

[Ignatz]

I have a couple of 400-disk carousel players and before I moved to my present abode, I had them full and would often play them randomly. They had an interconnect which allowed both players to shift between them. Since I got my 42-inch flatscreen tv an DirecTv I haven't unpacked the cds. Anybody wanna buy the carousels? Just kidding, onthe sale offer.

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by Sage Rat

Meet the MiniDisc. Developed in 1992, you could copy a whole CD onto them (or several tracks from many CDs), the disks couldn't be scratched, the device fit in your pocket, you could split, join, and re-order tracks, as well as play in shuffle mode. Unfortunately, Japanese companies didn't really try to sell them outside of Japan until MP3 players started to sell in the US.

This is why Isolationism is bad.

I have a first generation MD player/recorder, the one that had a metal case instead of the plastic case, and it also recorded ... bought it at a Navy Exchange. Beautiful little toy. I was so sad when the format did not take off in the US =(