Shuffle play- how exactly does it work?

I'd like to know the process that the Empeg currently uses to implement shuffle play.

Does it:

a) Do it completely at random, possibly playing the same tune twice?
b) Shuffle the indices like a deck of cards, therefore never playing the same tune twice?


I can't tell which it's doing because I have some of the same songs in multiple playlists. Those songs tend to get repeated more often because they appear in the sampling more than once. (I believe Mike already acknowledged that it doesn't de-dupe the list before shuffling.)

It just seems to me that the unit isn't playing all my tunes when I shuffle my root-level playlist. I keep hearing certain songs repeated, but there are certain songs it's never played in the months I've owned it. I have been assuming this was due to the duplication issue, but I'm not sure. Can anyone clarify this?

Also, how does it deal with the heirarchy? Does it load the entire set of playlists and sub-playlists into memory and shuffle that, or does it do some kind of a multi-stage thing where it randomizes a sub-playlist then chooses a random tune from that?



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

It builds the list of tunes, then shuffles it, so it will only play a track twice if it's in the list twice.

Hugo

Thanks, Hugo. That's the best way to do it, of course.

Follow up question: How does it handle the heirarchy? Does it flatten the list first, then shuffle that?



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

If playlists are set to shuffle, these are shuffled as the tree is flattened - shuffle mode, however, shuffles the already-flattened playlist. The way the tree is flattened is one of the ways that we can give lots of different behaviours with basically the same data.

I personally think the shuffling isn't thorough enough, it's on the list to seed it better and shuffle it harder :)

Hugo

Cool. Thanks for the information, Hugo.

My personal opinion is that de-duping the flattened list would have a bigger impact than a harder shuffle. But that's only because of my particular playlist structure and how I use it.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.