MusicMaster Blog

By Laurie Knapp

I enjoy looking for amateur vocal talent on YouTube, but I must say that among all of the cover songs I find, my favorite are the “split personality acapellas.” Acapella arrangements of popular songs, often performed by college singers, feature vocal parts for all lyrics and instrumentation. Many singers on YouTube have taken it a step further. Not having the luxury of a group of talented peers, they perform all the vocal parts themselves. Usually the accompanying video is pulled off quite nicely by six or seven identical heads in split screen. But arranger and producer Kurt Hugo Schneider has found a way to make it a bit more interesting. I don’t want to spoil it by explaining it. You just have to see for yourself!

“Michael Jackson Medley” sung by Sam Tsui

“Taylor Swift Medley” sung by Tiffany Alvord

If you are the kind of person that likes to dig into all the options and preference windows in the software you work with, then you may have already poked around a bit in the TOOLS-OPTIONS section of MusicMaster. If not, I want to encourage you to do so when you have a few minutes! (más…)

By Paul Ziino

Need to do a top 20 list? Here’s a quick way to do so. Go to Dataset/Analysis/History Browser. Set the dates and times on the Time Period tab Check only the categories you wish to include in the report on the Categories tab. No Filters needed. Set the Display Mode on the Display tab for "Individual Songs" Under Display Options you’ll want to change Show Rank to "Yes" and set the Maximum Rank to "20". You can adjust Show Song ID, Category, RunTime, Turnovers, and Total Time to meet your needs. Make sure Spins Mode is set to "Total Spins". Click OK. And now you have your top 20 songs for the time period selected. You can Print or Copy that report using the icons at the top of the History Browser report.

By Aaron Taylor

Here’s a cool way to “globally” review where a particular rule is in place in your Rule Tree. On the right hand side of the Rule Tree list (the “Available Rule Types” side), open a folder for a rule type Right mouse click to “FILTER RULE TREE”. This will show you on the left hand side of the screen (the “MusicMaster Rule Tree” side), a “filtered view”… if/where that rule is applied across the board in the database. To remove the Filter and return to the complete Rule Tree, click on the Rule Tree icon (at the top) on the tool bar.

By Marianne Burkett

MusicMaster has a fantastic feature called Automatic Reconciliation. Once we set it up for you – it will look at your Automation System logs and reconcile that information back into your MusicMaster logs. This is an especially helpful feature if your announcers have the freedom to drop, juggle or change out the songs they play – or if you over schedule your hours in MusicMaster. Occasionally, I’ll get a call from a client who says – “We don’t play this song anymore, but after we run reconciliation – it adds it to the log”. (más…)

By Paul Ziino

When you are in the Schedule Editor, you can tell MusicMaster exactly what song you want to plot in any given position (más…)

Looking for a fast way to identify which rules (and in what order) are being tested on an individual category? VIEW CATEGORY RULE LIST is the answer!

In the Rule Tree, right click over a category folder. On the context list tha pops up, select the choice for view category rule list. When opened, it will show you all of the rules, combining any All Categories rules with the rules applicable to the category. If you are using any Optimum Goal Scheduling, those rules will be listed at the bottom of the list. Should you wish to view the rules on a particular day and time, simply change that in the box and select “GO” to see the updated rule list. You also have the option of toggling to amother category rule view after you’ve selected this for a previous category view.

I think this is a great way to “double check” your Rule Tree set up work, and/or often very quickly identify if a particular rule is being applied (or perhaps if it isn’t and should be)…As always, if you have any questions about what you are seeing in the Rule Tree, get in touch and we’ll be glad to look things over with you!

by Drew Bennett

In the bottom right hand corner of the software, you can see the name of your database displayed. If you double click here, MusicMaster shows the About screen where you can find your MusicMaster software version number and service release. You can also find links to your System Information, Release Notes and your License information here. This information can be handy when you are speaking with your Music Scheduling Consultant. You can also reach this screen by choose ‘Help,’ and then, ‘About MusicMaster,’ from the main menu.

By Marianne Burkett

You’re just a click or two away from finding out the facts about your Music Library! Right click on any field…like Artist Keyword and go to Library Analysis. Look at the results and find out instantly how many titles from each artist you have, who your core artists are, and if there are any duplicates because of a misspelled keyword. Go to any other field like Tempo or Mood and get instant feed back. Is your library primarily slow, medium or up-tempo or do you have too much of one thing and not enough of the other? Use Library Analysis as a great foundation for building rules that fit your library. As your library shrinks and grows, your Analysis will change – so from time to time it may be necessary to change your rules!

By Drew Bennett

When you abandon old clocks for new ones, a lot of times the old clocks get left in the database and never used again. (más…)