Another type of Foobar2000’s playlists are randomly generated autoplaylists where songs, or groups of songs, are selected randomly from a pool of the same. By predefining a subset of a media library, “pools” of refined selections can be created and then drawn from.

foo_random_pools is a foobar2000 component for creating random playlist entries selected and grouped by various pool definitions.

www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_random_pools

Let’s say you want a playlist of random blues albums from your library.

• First you’ll need to install the foo_random_pools component.
• After you’ve installed foo_random_pools, you’ll need to set up a pool in the File > Preferences > Tools > Random pools sub-menu.
• You’ll need to select the “Add …” button which brings up the Random pool criteria form.For example to make a pool of blues albums use the following criteria:
  Name: Album – All Blues
  Group: %album artist% – %date% – %album%
  Determine probability for picking groups …: Unchecked
  Number of groups to add: 1
  Filter: (NOT %album artist% IS “Various Artists”) AND (%genre% HAS Blues)
  Filter with the content of the target playlist: Unchecked
  Number of tracks to add: 0
  Number of minutes to add: 0
  Number of MBs to add: 0
  Limit after sorting: Unchecked
  Sort: %path%
  Sort / limit each group: Checked
  Priority: 10
• Now you have to link pools to a playlist by specifying a name in the Autoadd section’s Playlist patterns field of the Random pools preferences menu.
• Create a new playlist, File>New Playlist Ctrl+N, and name it “Random Blues Album” and then select and display it.
• To add a random blues album to the playlist, select File > Random pools > Album – All Blues. Each time it’s selected, another random blues album will be added to the playlist.