MusicMaster Blog

By Paul Ziino

We’re going to go through two processes here.  The first step is creating a Saved Query in MusicMaster.  To do so, click on Dataset/Library/Query the Library/New Query.  This opens the Library Query box.

Here you can create queries for all sorts of things in your library.  For example: query for songs with high test scores, songs with low burn scores, songs within a certain genre or gender, specific categories, the sky is the limit!  Once you’ve built the query click the “Save As” icon then name the query.  Now that you’ve saved this query it will be available to you in Library Maintenance and in the Schedule Editor.

In the databases I schedule, I keep a pretty tight rotation.  So much so that sometimes I get unscheduled positions and there is just nothing available in that category that passes the rules.  So I’ve built a saved query that looks through all the songs in my five non-power categories.  I’ve labeled this saved query as “Replacement Search.”  Now when I’m editing a log, I keep the Info Bar open on the screen and switch it to the Queries display.  From here I am able to drag a saved query into a position in the Schedule Editor, and the replacement window automatically populates with all the songs from that saved query that can work in the desired position.  It saves me a bunch of steps as opposed to creating the query each time I wish to fill the unscheduled position.

You can also right-click the unscheduled position and select “Schedule Song/Search using a saved query,” then select the desired query.  Both methods will give you the same result, but I find the drag and drop method much quicker.

For tips like this and lots more, make sure to check out the Blog Archive or contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant!

By Drew Bennett

It’s a challenge to keep a radio station’s database in the best shape it should be. Day in and day out, you’re making changes, moving songs around, adjusting rules all to keep the station sounding the best it can. Maintaining a database can be a real challenge and perhaps it’s time to ask for more money. Your job is super important! When you open a database to take a look around, you’ll know with some certainty whether the database is being properly maintained or not. Today, you can compare your data to the seven signs of a dysfunctional database.

1. Incomplete Song Cards

This is one of the earliest signs that something is wrong in the data. You can also bet that there’s something wrong on the air, too. If your data is incomplete, it’s impossible for your rule tree to maximize your library and generate a good log. If Artist Keywords are missing from songs or if song cards contain incomplete attribute fields, the database is in trouble. Rules aren’t able to test and pass or fail all songs. The spirit and the sound of the station can’t be achieved without complete data so look here first when grading the dysfunction of your database.

2. Fuzzy Rules

A Rule Tree can be an antique store or it can be a tech store. Antique stores tend to be full of old junk. Some of it works and some of it doesn’t but it’s all old. A tech store is clean, up to date and with the latest and greatest to offer. How long has it been since you’ve checked out your Rule Tree? What do you sell over there, grandfather clocks or Apple watches? If you’ve scheduled the station with a rule tree that has been tinkered with and touched by former programmers who don’t work there anymore, you’re running an antique shop and it’s time to close down and re-open a Sharper Image. When it comes to Rules, it’s important to know exactly what you sell, what rules you have in place and how they work. Your rules help you create the sound of the station and the mix of music in the log. Knowing exactly how they work and exactly what you have in there is quite possibly the biggest point to take away from this list of seven signs.

3. Neglected Turnover

It’s a FACT: There’s not a rule in the world that will save you from terrible turnovers. If your Power Gold category plays every 12 hours and you’re frustrated that your Shift Rotation rule keeps failing, don’t blame the rule. Blame the turnover. Perfect logs start with perfect turnovers. If you add songs to a category or take a category away from a clock, you’re changing the turnover and it’s one of the most important things to consider when you schedule music. If turnover is bad, the whole database is bad.

4. Hidden Settings

Remember when we talked about former programmers in your Rule Tree? The same goes for hidden settings in the software. „I had no idea I was Gold Recycling the Recurrents!“ „You mean to tell me I’ve been Auto Platooning 50% of my Gold category every Sunday?“ Take a look around the software and make sure the right lights have been turned on and the right lights have been turned off. You never know when an AutoMove is causing your unforeseen heartache. Tools, Options, Additional Properties is another good place to look.  Hidden settings that other users have placed on the data can cause you to pull your hair out if you have no idea they’re being used. Speak to a Music Scheduling Consultant who can take you on a tour of the software to make sure it’s nice and tidy.

5. Multiple Copies of the Data

It’s great to keep copies of the data so you can test out new scheduling methods or check out a new feature. It can get dangerous when you become confused as to which database is the official data. Delete old data you don’t use and make it a policy never to have more than one other copy of the data that is being actively edited. This will save you from updating the wrong data or worse, deleting the wrong database.

6. No Reconciliation

Reconciliation is important when scheduling music for two main reasons: you must report to certain agencies and governing bodies with a list of what you played on the air and songs that did not play must get placed back in the stack so they can be played and exposed to your audience. If you don’t reconcile by hand or by automation, it will cause your reports to become inaccurate and songs won’t rotate as they should.

7. Dirty Clocks

Another big sign that you’ve got dysfunctional data are the clocks you have listed in format maintenance and how they look inside. Do you have two hundred clocks listed but you only ever use six? Do you have relic lognotes inside your clocks that reference automation systems you don’t even use anymore? Use the Select functionality in Clocks to select clocks you don’t use anymore and remove them. Hunt out old lognotes and references to old automation systems by using the Lognote, Purge feature. This will only remove those lognotes that are not in any clocks or logs.  It will keep your data cleaned up and ready for another change down the line!

Can you think of other signs that indicate a database needs some work? Pass it on to us! Do you need to speak to someone who can help you clean up your data and get it back in shape? Call your assigned Music Scheduling Consultant for more and happy scheduling!

By Dave Tyler

One of the reasons MusicMaster has become the music scheduling software of choice is because of your ability to customize what see and how you use MusicMaster. MusicMaster users from all over the world are excited about the many new features and tools within MusicMaster Pro 6.0 and one of those is Custom Hot-Keys or Key Mapping! Key Mapping allows you to create hot keys that you want and need in both Library Maintenance as well as the Schedule Editor. For our example we will work in Library Maintenance.

To get started open any category and then go to Library and Key mapping.

The next screen will give you 10 blank shortcuts (Hot-Keys). By double clicking on the empty box you can choose things that are important to you while in Library Maintenance. In my example I want to add a shortcut for the Keyword Editor so if I spot Keyword issues I can fix them on the fly. Simply select „Keyword Editor“ click OK and it is automatically assigned to the hot key „Alt-1“.

While I was working in Library Maintenance I noticed I had a Keyword issue with Jake Owen’s keyword entered incorrectly as Owens, Jake. Keeping that „s“ in there will mess up my Artist Separation and could cause Jake to play back with another one of his songs potentially.

I can use my new Hot Key by pressing Alt-1 and MusicMaster 6.0 will bring up the Keyword Maintenance window where I can see that I have two keywords for Jake Owen.  I can simply rename the incorrect one so it matches the correct one.  MusicMaster will combine the keywords. As I add more songs by Owen to my database AutoComplete will only show me one entry by Jake.

Now I can add the correct Keyword and my Artist Separation rule will work properly.

This is only one of 35 functions that I could use on my Hot Keys in Library Maintenance! If you like what you see in Library Maintenance then get ready because in your Schedule Editor there are 42 functions available to you. Let’s explore a couple of the actions that will make editing your logs a breeze as well! The set up is nearly identical for the Schedule Editor.  Simply open a day then click Schedule followed by Key Mapping and begin customizing your personal Hit Keys.

Now let’s check out the many helpful functions that you can map to make your editing life easier. One example would be the ability to have a shortcut to Export to Automation.

But it doesn’t stop there….remember you can create up to 10 of these custom hot keys. You might want to access some of the other amazing features available in 6.0 like History Snapshots or the ability to Load a Grid Layout. MusicMaster Pro 6.0 offers a variety of time and click saving options so you can navigate your workload quickly and can then focus on the things that matter like getting the sound you’re hearing in your head onto the air! Custom Hot Keys is one more time saving feature in MusicMaster Pro 6.0 that allows you to make your station sound better…faster!

By Jerry Butler

I get calls from time-to-time from programmers saying that their artist, title or composer separation isn’t working correctly.  Call numbers increase on this issue in the weeks leading up to Christmas with title separation.  Keep in mind separation rules look at your artist keywords, title keyword and composer keywords.  After analyzing the data, we often find that some of the entries are spelled just a bit different.  In order for the keyword separation to work correctly, all spellings in the specific  keyword have to be exactly the same.  How can you check this quickly?  Many programmers including myself would go through the library, sort and compare the artists or titles on each song card.

Here is an easier, faster, more thorough way to correct your keywords:  make those changes in your keyword maintenance window.

Click on Dataset, Library and Keywords.   Use the dropdown menu to select the keyword that you need to check.  For demonstration purposes, we will check the Title keyword.

I’ve highlighted entries for “O Holy Night” and “Oh Holy Night”.  In order for the title separation rules to work correctly, these need to be exactly the same.  Rather than changing every single song card, you can make the change for all songs right here.  I’m going to change “Oh Holy Night” to “O Holy Night”.  To do this, just click on the line and type the change. When I press [enter], I receive a prompt letting me know the keyword already exists and asking me if I would like to combine the two.  Click yes and any songs with ”Oh Holy Night” will be updated to “O Holy Night” and your rule will separate the titles correctly.

Check your keywords today and make sure your station’s artist, title and composer or any other keyword separation is running the way you want it to.

By Jesus Rodriguez

In this blog we will answer the mystery behind the Extra Flag in your Test Results Panel in MusicMaster 6.0! I guess it would only be appropriate for me to introduce you two. Mr. Extra Flag say hola to MusicMaster’s coolest User. Awesome User say hello to Mr. Extra Flag!

So now that we all know each other let me tell you a little bit about my friend Mr. Extra Flag. He only likes to come out and play when you have selected the triple flag icon on your test results panel. He is not too fond of partying alone because he only has two outfits a yellow flag and a red flag. Unless his triple flag buddies are selected he will just stay in hiding. When he does come out to play you can hover over Mr. Extra Flag and see what the violation is that his red or yellow flag outfit is representing. You can also click on Mr. Extra Flag and he will take you straight to the rule that has the violation like a VIP.

Some people like to still have the entire list of rules on their test results panel screen but the downside to that is that if you have a lot of rules you can’t see what the failure is at a glance. With the extra flag option you can now easily see and pinpoint what it is that failed. This is great if your rule tree is really extensive so you can quickly see what the issue was with your rule tree.

If you were a user that only needs to know what the rule failures are then the double flag feature that we have had for years would possibly be best for you. However, if you want to know where the rule failure occurs within the complete list of your rules then the triple flag setting with the option to use Mr. Extra Flag would be the best solution for you so you no longer have to scroll up and down looking for the rule that was broken.

By Marianne Burkett

I just experienced the pleasure of helping a client go through a process of format concept to completion. The new format sounds terrific and better than he expected. Good sounding radio doesn’t just happen. All the great music in the world played back to back won’t keep your audience locked in if it’s not scheduled correctly.

While discussing the importance of what I term as “Dynamic Flow”, I painted this picture for my client: ”You know how awesome and comfortable it is to sit at the seashore and listen to the ocean waves.” When you sit on the beach, the ebb and flow of the tide make it appealing to be still for long periods of time. You don’t really think about the sound, but you know you can sit there for a long time without being bored or stressed.

I want dynamic texture everywhere in my daily music logs. This is where the rubber meets the road for increasing TSL/Time Spent Listening. For instance, when a song writer composes a hit song, song dynamics is critical to that song’s success or failure. It’s a very rare instance that you’ll hear a song doesn’t have some kind of dynamics change somewhere in the middle of the track, at the bridge. If all songs were sonically the same tempo, energy and texture at the beginning, middle and the end, they’d be downright boring. It’s no different when you think in terms of a full quarter hour of time with what songs are playing on your station! Are they different texturally, in tempo and in style? If you’re listening to your station and it wears you out… you might have a dynamics issue. If you’re listening and you get bored, you might have a dynamics issue. When you mix it up, it becomes interesting to listen to. The station sounds focused and unique and your listeners stick around for longer periods of time.

So what can you do to ensure you’re not “fatiguing” the listener? Other than spending hours meticulously hand scheduling your music, you can accurately code your music for tempo, energy, mood, sound and gender. You can review your library analysis on each code to determine how many or how few your active music library contains and apply rules to “scatter” the codes through the quarter hour, half hour or full hour.

Put together strategically, your station has its own unique fingerprint of sound. Even if you are playing the same exact titles as your competition, your coding is subjective based on what YOU think it is, therefore your station can sound different and BETTER than the competition, depending on how you schedule the music.

If you’d like to know more about making your station stand out from the crowd, feel free to contact me directly or contact any of the Music Scheduling Consultants here at MusicMaster.

By Dave Tyler

We all work hard at getting our music to sound just right. You created your categories, plotted them in your grid and assigned the Rules to govern them. Although most of the time things are running great we all get unscheduled positions in our clocks. With the release of MusicMaster there is now a new feature you might just love to give you a better visual of what is happening at that position and in that hour.

This new tool works when you are in your Schedule Editor AND have the History Graph in your view and set to either “Daily” or “Weekly Spins”. See the example below for selecting the History Graph so you can see it.

In my example below you can see that I am editing the position where Don Williams is playing and everything is fine with that selection.

Now when I attempt to look in another category for a replacement song by using Direct Entry (also a new feature in 6.0) I choose my A category and the Brandy Clark song. This is obviously a poor choice being that the same song is scheduled just before this position; however look at all of the information available to you on this choice.

The Schedule Editor provides the red flags for Minimum Rest and Artist Keyword in my Results Bar on the bottom as well as my Test Results Toolbar on the right that displays a Gender issue as well. Look at the top in the History Graph. Now you can see that “Star” icon, which is the location of the proposed play plus there is a number (“2”) to show how many times this song is scheduled in this hour. Depending on your screen display, you now have several places where MusicMaster will alert you to the problem.

This is another way that MusicMaster gives you all of the tools you need to program and nurture the sound of your radio station(s)! As always if you ever have a question, do not hesitate to ask one of your Music Scheduling Consultants.

By Paul Ziino

Recently I wrote an article on how to set unique values for specific keywords. But did you know that MusicMaster can make those adjustments for you?

Go to Dataset/Library/Keywords. Then use the dropdown to select the desired keyword field. Within Keyword Maintenance click Tools and Separation Wizard.

Click Next and you’ll enter the Calculation Properties screen where you can adjust the properties used to calculate new separation and hour rotation values for your keywords.

When you run the separation wizard, MusicMaster goes through your active library and based on clock calls and the makeup of your library, determines the optimum turnover speed for each of your keywords. The first setting on the Calculation Properties screen asks what percent of that optimum number you want to use as your unique separation value for your keywords. Forty Percent is the default, and it’s a perfectly fine starting point. If MusicMaster determines 10 hours is the optimum, it will recommend a separation value of four hours.

The next setting is where you determine the threshold for just leaving the Auto setting from the Rule Tree. By default, that is 3:00, but you can set this to any number you want. Set it to 13:00, or 1d 17:00, or 18d 5:00, it’s your choice. The larger you set this, the more likely that each keyword will get a specific separation time.

Up next is how you want the separation times rounded. Default here is 5 minutes, but you can go to 10 or 1 or whatever you choose—most will leave this at 5. You can also check the box to “Avoid full-hour recommendations,” that way you don’t get artist separation values of 60 minutes or 120 minutes, etc.

“Don’t recommend values that are higher than the existing settings” basically says if we have a unique value in there and the wizard thinks it could be higher, ignore it. I generally leave this unchecked.

“Remove separation from keywords that do not require any” basically says if the artist is played so rarely or never that it requires no value to set it to 0:00. I leave this unchecked just in case I put that artist back in rotation that way it has some value assigned.

“Recommend basic Hour Rotation settings” asks MusicMaster to set Keyword Hour Rotations. If you’re not using that rule in the Rule Tree for this field, you can leave it unchecked.

So here’s how I have mine set up.

When you click “Next”, MusicMaster starts calculating and tells us how many keywords need adjustment.

There are a couple options here. I like to see all the recommended settings in separate columns, not just the recommended changes, so I select that first option. I also like to see what the Separation Wizard determined was the estimated or optimum turnover speed, so I leave that checked. Click Finish.

This is the list of all the keywords in the database. Those in blue show the recommended wizard settings. We can display only those with recommended adjustments by clicking the Filter icon. We can also sort this list by any column by clicking on the column header. I like to sort on the Recommend column.

So now at the top of the list we have the artist with the lowest recommended value and the bottom of the list shows the artist with the highest recommended value. If I want, I can accept all these recommendations and update the Separation value for all by clicking Change All. Or I can double-click any of those recommended values to change just that one artist.

Remember, these values only work if there’s an active Keyword Time Separation rule for this field in place in the Rule Tree that applies to the categories in question. That rule sets the Auto value. As I scroll through the list of recommended changes, it looks like I could use 5:20 as my Auto value and the majority of my artists would have no problem achieving that. Those with a recommended value less than 5:20 I can accept their unique recommendations.

A lot of programmers start with a low artist separation rule of maybe 1:10. With this exercise we can clearly see that only two artists in this data have a recommended value lower than that. But we can get so much more as a result of the Separation Wizard. So I say we go for it!

If you have questions about using the Keyword Separation Wizard or any other MusicMaster feature, make sure to reach out to your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant for help.

By Drew Bennett

As a programmer, you may take a look at MusicMaster every day, all day. At some point, you get into a groove of scheduling logs, editing hours of music and exporting to the automation system. Our blog series is designed with our users in mind because one of the great things about them is that we introduce you to cool tips you can use in your arsenal of MusicMaster tricks. It’s fun to learn new tips and today, we’re going to cover a search tip in 5.0 and 6.0 that will turn your queries into super-charged search machines!

First, let’s look at a feature in MusicMaster that’s been around for quite some time: The Prompted Query. A Prompted Query is a search that you create and it lets you define your search value later, when you run the prompted query, instead of when you set up the query itself. It might look like this when you run a prompted query:

This search allows me to tell MusicMaster that when I run this search, I’ll look for something in the Artist and/or Title field but I won’t define those values until I run the query at a later time. That’s a great way to search the database but how do you set it up?

Open the query box by choose the black binocular icon in Library Maintenance or anywhere you see in the software. When you choose a field to search through, you’re typing something special in the query setup screen to create a Prompted Query. In the third dropdown menu on the right side of the query , type @PROMPT(Name of Field) where “Name of Field” is the field name or label you want to give to that searched field in the query. Save that query when you are done and now you can access it through your favorite query icon or by loading it in a query box.

In MusicMaster PRO v5.0 and below, a prompted query creates a separate search box for each field you define in the query like this:

Notice that Artist, Title and Album have their own search boxes to use. In MusicMaster PRO v6.0 and above, it’s possible to consolidate these fields to one search field. The way to do that is to give each @PROMPT the same label regardless of what field is searched through.

Now when this query is saved and launched, there is only one field to search through.

You can build upon this prompted query method by adding more fields that share the same label and search through even more fields in a prompted query. The Library Query functionality is very powerful in MusicMaster. Prompted Queries make it even easier to find what you need, when you need it.

It’s great to learn new tips and tricks in MusicMaster and when you use the software as much as you do, time saving tips can be real life savers! If you have any questions about this or any MusicMaster blog entry or how-to, reach out to your assigned Music Scheduling Consultant and happy scheduling!

By W.I.Z.A.R.D

Like most software, you probably use the stuff you need. How often do you step outside your comfort zone? Have you really looked into other features MusicMaster offers to see if any of them might help you speed up your work or make your station sound better? That’s what we thought. It’s okay. We understand. That’s why we made this list. Here are 10 ideas to look into.

Autoplatoon – Move your music in and out. Check out these previous articles that discuss the benefits.

Keyword Separation Wizard – Get as much distance between your keywords possible with this feature. This is one of the places you can have a lot of fun in the software just trying separation times. Why not see if you can get 9 days, 7 hours, 35 minutes of separation? The worst thing that will happen is that every single keyword will get a specific separation time. Check out Library, Keywords, Tools, Separation Wizard and watch for an article on this topic in a few weeks.

Check the Log – Are you sure you haven’t created problems when you edited the log? Check the Log reviews the log for whatever rules are of most interest to you (some or all, your choice). It’s the best way to make sure there are no issues when you finish editing. Visit Schedule, Check the Log.

Manual Assist Scheduling – What is the benefit of filling the position at that specific moment in the log rather than after the fact? Easy. The benefit is that you will see immediately what is causing problems (so you may end up adjusting your rules), but just as important, you will have the best opportunity of finding something to put in the position with less conflicts. Try it out under Schedule, Automatic Scheduler, Options tab.

Schedule Properties Max Fails/Skips – What happens to songs that just keep failing the rules? The Schedule Properties options for Max Fails/Skips controls how those songs are handled so they don’t get “stuck” at the top of the Schedule Order. Visit Schedule, Scheduler Order.

Mark new songs and distribute them in the Category – When you add songs, mark them (make sure you don’t have any marked songs in your data already). Use the Schedule Order, Arrange option to distribute those marked songs. Now the music that is new to the category will be distributed throughout rather than all placed together. Remember to unmark songs when you are done.

AutoFill – Are you adding the same information over and over? For instance, do you add gender codes on each song? In the classical format, do you add the musical period or pronunciations information for each work? AutoFill can put this static information in for you with a couple of clicks. Review the icon in Library Maintenance.

AutoLink – If you use AutoComplete and have a large database, AutoLink can narrow down what AutoComplete finds. Go to Library, Fields to set this up this Property.

Special History Reports – Sure you probably come here to run an ASCAP/BMI or CRTC report. Have you ever looked at the top eight reports on the list? These are reports that we created at MusicMaster to help you dig down into your data. Reports here include analysis of Artist/Titles, Categories and Attributes among others. Check out Analysis, Special History Reports.

Tools, Options – Okay, we could have pulled 10 things from this area alone! Here are two that you should start with: Library Editor Options and Schedule Editor Options. You’ll find all sorts of ways to set up library defaults and searches. On the Schedule Editor option, determine how searches, inserts and direct data entry options are done as well as the ability to refine how replacement searches are done.

We realize there are lots of places to explore in MusicMaster. These are just a few of the ways MusicMaster can work harder for you. Your Music Scheduling Consultant can discuss any of these areas with you further or help you set them up. Let us know how we can help.