Flow vs Shuffle my music

Hi ​@Keelsford !

Here is my point of view :

Flow play recommendations which are based on your musical taste .

Also you can improve your Flow is by adding more content to your Favorites and listening to music across the app.

Shuffle My Music play only music from your favourites ( tracks , playlists and albums ) .

If you have turned ON "Automated recommendations" in your Queue , after the last song has been played, recommendation of songs based on the songs that are currently in the Queue continue to be played.

Do you work for Deezer and this is fact? Or are you just describing your experience as a user?

Considering how active you are on the forum I’m going to assume the former and ask some follow up questions.

So I’m hearing Flow is more about discovering new music than playing favorites. You say it plays recommendations as if it’s only recommendations but it also plays favorite tracks and from my playlists. But I hear you saying that it’s more about discovering new music, EVEN IF I’ve toggled to “More favorites” on mobile. Is that correct?

SMM doesn’t have any music discovery (at least for the intial queue). Every track is either a favorited track, from a favorited album, or from one of my playlists. BUT, if I have “Automated recommendations” toggled on, then after that queue completes, it will switch to discovery mode and add songs NOT from any favorite track, album, or playlist. Is that correct?

You said that SMM is only music from tracks, albums, or playlists, but didn’t mention artists. That means a song from a favorite artist that is not a favorite album nor is a favorite track, will not come up in SMM. Is that correct?

There’s an album that I’ve favorited because I like the album, but there’s a song on the album that I don’t like so I’ve asked to exclude it. As far as I can tell, that song may still show up in SMM. Is that correct?

Thanks in advance. I’m just trying to make sense of the features to make it work for me.

Thank you ​@Leonídia.Deezer !

Thank you for being direct and specific answering my questions. This is very helpful for my understanding of how to get the most out of my Deezer experience.

• Re: Discovery vs Favorites
  • This makes sense.
  • Some feedback: In my experience, Flow still plays too much discovery music even when More Favorites is toggled on. 
• Re: Automated Recommendations
  • I already started a new thread under Ideas to have Automated Recommendations include discovery from the initial queue build rather than waiting for post-initial-queue. So all good here.
• Re: Including Favorite Artists
  • I already started a new thread under Ideas for this too. 
• Re: Exclusions
  • Glad to hear this is already on your radar to remedy!

Hello! Can you specify: where can i find that “Automated recommendations” feature for Shuffle My Music? Lately, every time I put all my songs on random, tracks from my playlists start playing mixed in with songs I didn't add anywhere. Thought that was a bug or something, Never heard of these automated recommendations for the shuffle feature. 

Hi ​@Dawg you can deactivate automated recommendations on the desktop app and web by clicking on the queue and then on the automatic recommendations slider:
 

Thanks

Hi ​@Dawg you can deactivate automated recommendations on the desktop app and web by clicking on the queue and then on the automatic recommendations slider:
 

Thanks

Hi! Thanks. 
But how do I deactivate them on the mobile app? I can't remember the app working like this previously.

Hi ​@Dawg! Thanks for reaching out.

The feature you're referring to is only available on the PC app.

Unfortunately, it’s not available on the mobile app right now.

Let me know if you need anything else!

Hi. Pardon, how can it be not available if i’m using it? What exactly is unavailable? You mean the ability to switch it off? Because right now, the “Shuffle my music” feature mixes my added tracks with random, not added songs. Does it work this way by default now? I cant remember it working this way previously. 

Hi ​@Dawg! Indeed, what I was referring to, was the feature to switch off automated recommendations on mobile devices.

Regarding the feature “Shuffle my Music”, it should give you a mix of all your favourite tracks, plus tracks from your favourite albums and playlists. That’s how the feature should work.

Hi ​@Leonídia.Deezer!

My own thoughts! But it currently works exactly as I describe. The feature in the mobile app provides me with a mix of favourite tracks, tracks from added playlists, and various tracks that I haven't added. So it functions like the Flow feature. And I can't find any way to turn it off. Checked multiple times.   

​@Dawg It definitely sounds like one of the issues other users also had, as you can read in the following topic:

I personally had a negative experience last year, from July to October, when they finally fixed it for me and for the other users who had reported it during that same period.
However, I have to say, I am noticing again a deterioration in terms of song repetitiveness using the "Shuffle my music" feature in recent weeks...

Hi, I know this is an old thread but I am curious after reading some of the comments stating their Flow plays music from their playlists and would like to check on this as it would be a huge change.

As far as I know and as I have experienced for the past years, Flow will play only my Liked Artists and Genres (and new suggestions) and always mainly well known songs by the artist, the most famous. Shuffle my Music is the opposite, plays everything inside Favourite albums and playlists.

So for instance when playing Shuffle my Music you will not listen to Queen if you liked the artist Queen but did not make a playlist with songs by Queen or liked the albums.

Similarly, when playing Flow you will not listen to Queen if you made a Queen playlist but forgot to like the artist Queen. 

Could someone please confirm this is still the case and has not changed during the past months??

I love Flow and getting recommendations every now and then. If Flow played from playlists that would be a huge change for Deezer users in general and also all my music added manually to MY MP3s playlist and other playlists could finally sound in Flow, which is not the case right now. I had to specifically play them if I want to listen to them. 

Also, I had to create a playlist will all albums for any artist I like in order to make sure I listen to all their discography in SMM and not only their best known songs in Flow. There is a limit of 4000 favourite albums so it is not as easy as just like all your albums when you have a huge library. If Flow really played from playlists then you could be sure that you may really listen to ALL your music plus recommendations plus your manual MP3s.

That would be the perfect app forever

Thanks everyone

This is based on my experience and what I’ve read on these forums...

Flow definitely plays music from your playlists. I’ve found that Flow is just a 50/50 mix of my playlists and discoveries, with very seldomly a favorite track thrown in, but mostly doesn’t consider favorite tracks, albums, or artists.

Shuffle My Music plays your favorite tracks, playlists, and albums. It does not take into consideration your favorite artists, i.e. it will not play a track from a favorite artist that is not one of your favorite tracks, not in one of your playlists, nor on one of your favorite albums.

**Upon initiating Shuffle My Music, a 50-song queue will start playing. If you have “Automated Recommendations” toggled ON, it will include some discoveries after the initial 50 songs have played.

So my understanding is that neither Flow or SMM considers favorite artists. So I’m confused what even is the point of favoriting artists if it’s not used anywhere.

Hi, thanks for your reply. 

Just today I got songs in my Flow by artists I have in my favourites bu are not in none of my playlists so I can definitely guarantee you that Artists come up in Flow or my experience is different for some reason. 

I will check again from now since you confirm playlists also get in the mix. That would be great

What definitely never comes up is my MP3s. Deezer says they are also taken into the mix but I have played Flow for ages and never heard one of them. 

You can add uploaded MP3 songs to your own playlists which may also contain tracks from Deezer’s catalogue, e.g. if Deezer does not have a particular album from one of your favorite artists, but you have it as MP3 files. Creating a playlist with all albums from your favorite artist including the ones you have uploaded to your account should also come up in Shuffle my music then. But I haven’t tested this myself, as my past uploads from years ago are all available on Deezer now. Also I don’t know if Flow would play them then.

Hi, theory says "shuffle" plays your MP3 when included in some playlist but in many years I never got a song uploaded by me in the shuffle play. Still I can listen to them manually in android or website which is better than any other platform