MusicMaster Blog

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.

By Jesus Rodriguez

In this blog we will touch upon one of my favorite new things about version 6.0 of MusicMaster. If this is the first time you have heard of MusicMaster 6.0 then we need to get you up to speed pronto! You can find out about all of the new enhancements we have made to the MusicMaster you know and love on our website.

One of these enhancements may seem like a small detail but boy it is one of my favorites. This new feature is already making my life easier as a support representative so I am sure that it will make your life easier as well. I am speaking about our new enhanced search engine. In the past you could only assign two items to search by accessing Library, Fields and selecting one as a Primary and another as a Secondary field that would be used in the search. (You can access your search bar using the View from your menu and selecting Search Bar.) The majority of users would use this for searching Artist and Title quickly.

Well get ready because MusicMaster 6.0 has made just about anything in your data searchable in a couple easy steps. First, using your menu bar go to Dataset, Library, and then select Fields. This will open your Database Field Editor similar to the one shown below.

In a couple steps as shown above you can select the field on the name column. To add it to your search bar simply select “Yes” in the Searching section in the right panel. This will put a check mark in the search column letting you know it is now active.

Personally this now saves me a tremendous amount of time when assisting clients that are looking for certain things like duplicate cart numbers, all the songs from an album, or just about anything they want to see right away rather than creating a query each time.

I hope this enhanced search bar has wowed you as much as it did me as we now live in a world of instant gratification. If you are not able to upgrade to MusicMaster 6.0 please contact your assigned representative so they can get you set up with that upgrade!

By Marianne Burkett

Many radio stations around the country celebrate the weekends by spicing up the music starting Friday afternoon. Whether it’s an A-to-Z weekend, a countdown show or maybe just a focus on some “type” of music. There are different ways to program those specials in MusicMaster.   Today I’m going to focus on programming a specific “type” or “style” of music using Session Filters. For example: How to schedule a #1 hit weekend. Once in place in the clocks, Session Filters are like a secret weapon for one click specialty programming. Here’s how:

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By Drew Bennett

MusicMaster PRO v6.0 includes a good list of user requested features. One of them is our new History Snapshot feature inside the Schedule Editor. It’s highlighted in the screenshot below.

A History Snapshot can be taken any time in a log’s history. For instance, you can take a snapshot after you schedule a log and again after it’s been edited. You can compare these snapshots to the current state of the log.

This is useful for several reasons! First, you can keep track of how things changed and moved since the log was auto-scheduled. That might be a great tool for Program Directors and managers who need to keep track of edits done to the day. Another great reason to take snapshots is so you can compare an edited log to what happened on the air. If you integrate with your automation system through our Nexus Server application, History Snapshot can show changes made by your automation system during reconcile.

To compare logs, open the History Snapshot screen and highlight the log to compare. Choose the Compare button to see how the current log compares to your History Snapshot.

The dropdown menu in the upper left corner of the History Snapshot Viewer allows you to compare all elements together, or you can choose to view unchanged elements or changed elements only.

You can automate the snapshot process, too! Visit Dataset, Schedule, Automatic Scheduler and choose the Options tab. Here, you can tell MusicMaster to automatically save a History Snapshot after scheduling.

The History Snapshot features makes it easy to keep track of edits made in a music log. It’s a great new feature in MusicMaster PRO v6.0 and the idea came straight to us from a user like you! Do you have a great idea to recommend to our team of software developers? Let us know! Call or e-mail your assigned Music Scheduling Consultant and happy scheduling!

By Dave Tyler

What is the first thing you do when you move into a new (to you) house or apartment? You start making it your own by taking down that ugly wallpaper and putting on a nice coat of fresh paint. Maybe you replace the appliances to your liking. Your home has to be a place you are comfortable in. The same is true of your MusicMaster database!

If you have been a PD or MD for any length of time then chances are you have inherited a former PD/MD’s database or perhaps you had a consultant that did your music but no longer utilize them. That means that you adopted their philosophy and rules too. If everything is running fine and you don’t want to mess with it, well I get that. But if you look at your Rule Tree and it looks like this and you don’t know why, a fresh start may be just what you need.

Since you’ve taken over this database what has changed? Do you use “Research Scores”? Did the old MD have a rule that didn’t allow female artists to play back to back but you are okay with that? Did they not allow an 80s tune to play into a Current but you think that sounds great? Sometimes it can be both refreshing and liberating to just start over! With that said I always recommend that you make a backup of your data before making ANY major changes. I like to know that if I accidentally blow things up that I can at least get back to where I was.

Getting back to the basics with simple rules like Artist Keyword Separation, Minimum Rest, Hour Rotation and Dayparting gets you back in control of your rotations. When you create your rules you will understand what is happening to your categories and that ideal “sound” you have in your head can become a reality on the air. Of course the needs of different formats vary greatly and while a classical station can get away with a 30 day Minimum Rest a Flame Throwing CHR couldn’t fathom that. You know your format and what stripping things down means within the confines of your genre.

(A little easier on the eyes isn’t it?)

I know a lot of programmers that get a bunch of “Unscheduled” positions and then manually place songs in the schedule. Those songs getting placed in the log broke rules but they are overriding that result and putting a tune in any way. If you have a rule on a category that consistently is broken and is a headache, maybe it is time to reevaluate that settings of that rule. If you are programming a Hot AC, Hot Country or Top 40 station then you know how difficult it would be to get a two hour Artist Separation. If that 120 minute rule is an absolute to your philosophy then what song are you manually scheduling in when that position is left unscheduled? If it is almost always a song from that same category then relaxing that rule just a bit might relieve some stress, get you a lot less unscheduled positions while also getting the sound you want.

I look at Rules the same way I look at salt when cooking: I can always add more to get the flavor just right. Start with a light hand, using the most important rules and see how things schedule and sound. This way makes it easy to not only get that sound but if you hear or see something you don’t like it is an easier fix too.

Sometimes starting fresh is just what you need to get reenergized for another year in this great business! If you are not clear on why you have certain rules or what they do then by all means call me or one of the other support folks and we’ll explain in as much detail as you need.

By Jerry Butler

In previous versions of MusicMaster, if you scheduled your logs out over a few days and then made category changes, you might have wondered why when you looked at the previously scheduled logs it appeared that your categories scheduled didn’t match the order in your clocks. What you were actually seeing was the category that the song is in now, versus the category it was in when it was scheduled.

In version 6.0, you can now see what the category the song is in currently as well as the category the song was in when it scheduled for that date. You can access this field by opening up your schedule editor and clicking on your modify editor layout button.

Scroll down towards the bottom of the list under Schedule Data, select Schedule: Category and bring it over to the selected fields and click OK.

This will allow the Schedule: Category to show up in your editor. Placed side-by-side, you can now see which category a song was in when scheduling as well as what category the song is in now.

Contact your Music Scheduling Consultant with questions about this or any feature in the program.

By Paul Ziino

We all know that rules are set up in the MusicMaster Rule Tree. But did you know that you can set a unique separation value for specific keywords? This applies to any tested keyword field—Artist Keywords, Title Keywords, Composer Keywords, Album Keywords, and so on.

First, go into the Rule Tree and activate your Keyword Time Separation rule for the appropriate keyword field.

The setting established here is your default or Auto setting. All keywords with their separation values set to Auto will abide by this setting.

Now go to Dataset/Library/Keywords. In the screen that comes up, use the dropdown to select which keyword field you wish to edit. Have that one artist that you need to slow down when compared to all the others in the database? Find that keyword in the list, uncheck the Auto setting and set it for something higher. Have an artist you wish to allow more frequently than the others? Find that keyword, uncheck Auto and set it for something lower.

A lot of stations will use the Auto setting in the rule tree as the general rule, but core artists or current artists will get lower unique values in the Keyword Maintenance editor. Others will use higher unique values to prevent the one-hit wonders from playing more often than desired. And the smart programmer will use a combination of both.

Happy Scheduling!

Ask any casual broadcast observer and they’ll tell you that Donna Halper is the lady with the hats, the music director who gave RUSH a start in America, the speaker featured so often at conventions. Ask a real radio fan, and you’ll meet a true female radio pioneer. Recently, we caught up with this rare broadcasting treasure to ask a few questions.

Name a person and share a story about someone who would be surprised to learn they made an impact on your career.

“Since my late parents always taught me to say, “Thank you,” I’ve tried throughout my life to thank the people who helped or encouraged me during my career. I’ve even thanked some of the people who tried to stop me or expressed negative attitudes about women in broadcasting, because they motivated me to try even harder to succeed.  But there is one person I never got a chance to thank. I know you asked about my career, but this person changed my entire life.  

He was the Cardinal in Boston when I was growing up in the 1950s– Richard Cushing was his name, and it is thanks to Cardinal Cushing that my childhood improved dramatically.  I was a Jewish kid, growing up in a majority-Catholic city in an era when, sad to say, anti-Semitism was still part of the culture.  Cardinal Cushing was years ahead of his time in taking on the anti-Jewish attitudes that were common in the Catholic Church back then, and actively speaking out against them. He even went to Rome to advocate for ecumenism, and he worked with Pope John XXIII during the 2nd Vatican Council to make interfaith cooperation a reality. 

As someone who was bullied by Catholic kids at school, I remain deeply grateful that thanks to Cardinal Cushing and others like him, the Catholic Church became a proponent of religious tolerance, making it possible for me to have many Catholic friends from then on.”

What’s the best advice you share with managers on the move?

Plan your work and work your plan. Yes, that sounds like an old and tired cliché, but there’s a lot of truth to it. In movies, promotions magically fall from the sky, but in real life, getting promoted takes planning and preparation. So, I generally advise that managers envision the position they’d like to ultimately achieve, and then make a plan for how to achieve it. If you are hoping to be promoted within your company, in what areas does that company have some weaknesses and how could your skill-set contribute to making them stronger?  If you have a record of achievement, are you letting the right people know?  

It’s not arrogant to keep your superiors informed when you accomplish something that benefits the company; in fact, it can be useful in making your case that you are ready to move up.  Offer to take on greater responsibility, and show your superiors that you are someone who is capable.  But also be prepared to assess the situation objectively– if after you’ve done all the right things, your company still does not seem eager to promote you, or if there are no openings even after you’ve demonstrated your skills, it may be time to explore your options and look elsewhere.

Tell us about a listener who changed your life.

How about listeners (plural)?  It’s well-known that I’m credited with discovering the rock group Rush (they dedicated two albums to me and I’m in a 2010 documentary about them, plus we’ve been friends for more than 40 years).  But when I received their record (at that time, a homegrown Canadian import on their own label) back in mid-1974, I was just a music director in Cleveland, trying to find good songs for the disc jockeys to play.  I had no idea at the time that Rush would go on to become famous, and when I dropped the needle (remember vinyl albums?) on “Working Man,” I believed the song would resonate with the audience, but I had no way of knowing– we’ve all had the experience of loving a song that went absolutely nowhere on the charts, or hating a song that went to number one. So, when I brought the Rush album down to the DJ on the air and told him to play, “Working Man,” I was hoping the audience would like it.  The phones lit up almost immediately.

Those first listeners who got behind this new and unknown Canadian band helped to start something– they proved that I wasn’t wrong about Rush, and their demand for more Rush music led to the guys coming to Cleveland to perform, getting a U. S. recording contract, and ultimately ending up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  But I owe a lot of it to the listeners who called the station that first night to let us know they loved “Working Man” and thought Rush had potential.

As a female radio pioneer, what advice would you share with male managers looking to assist female employees achieve their professional goals?

I’m in the second wave of female pioneers, but long before me, there was my own cultural hero, Eunice Randall, the first woman announcer in Massachusetts, as well as an engineer and a news reporter, way back in the early 1920s.  In Eunice’s writings, her view seemed to be that if she had the skills needed for the job, she should be given the chance to do it.  She didn’t want special treatment: she just wanted a fair chance to compete, a fair chance to be hired.  

Decades later, I still find that to be sane advice. Don’t treat your female staff differently. They are not fragile flowers; they are broadcasters seeking to improve their skills. So treat them like skilled professionals.  Give them the same encouragement and mentoring you would give anyone who shows potential. Give them the same respect you would want to be given.  

But on the other hand, understand that some of them have received very conflicting and contradictory messages from the culture. Even in 2015, men who know how to express what they want and not back down are praised for being assertive and decisive; but women who manifest the same traits are often criticized for being abrasive or stubborn.  And while being ambitious is praised in men, it is still criticized in women. Be aware that for some women, navigating these cultural expectations is still difficult.  While today there are more women managers to serve as role models, many young women are still unsure about how to develop their own style.  So, help them to develop that style, whether on air, in sales, in management, even in engineering. There are many ways for a woman to be true to herself and still be effective in business. 

And by the way, I hope you are the kind of manager who does not think less of a woman who wants to spend some time with her kids– in fact, I hope you don’t think less of your male staff if they too want to be with the kids sometimes. Too often, I’ve seen male managers who expect everything to be subordinate to work and who are especially contemptuous of women if they need to be at some special event that matters to their child.  Now, I love work as much as anyone, but I think there needs to be a balance.  Expecting everyone to have no life other than your radio station isn’t healthy.  So, let your female employees know you have a family-friendly workplace and you will be doing them a kindness. (But as I said, let your male employees know that too!)

Share something you learned from your parents that has served you well professionally.

As I said earlier, one great lesson my parents taught me was about the importance of saying thank you and expressing appreciation.  I cannot overstate that. We live in a world where too often, the only time we hear from someone, especially a boss, is when something is wrong.  I understand that managers (and consultants!) get frustrated and angry when employees mess up, especially if they mess up repeatedly.  But what about the employees who constantly go above and beyond, and who often aren’t making the big bucks?  

I hope you are the kind of manager who doesn’t just focus on your staff’s mistakes.  I hope you also notice when they do something well, and make the time to praise them for it. And I hope you are the kind of manager who understands that a word of praise at the right time can go a long way.  (And by the way, back to those cultural expectations I spoke of earlier– while there’s a myth that only women need praise, that is utterly untrue.  Trust me–in my nearly 30 years of consulting, the most common complaint I heard from the guys was, “My boss never seems happy with anything I do; no matter how hard I work or how much I accomplish, I never get a kind word.”  So, don’t just assume that because you are paying them, that is thanks enough.  It’s not.  Everyone, both male and female, likes to receive some appreciation.

Give us a tip that will create stronger relationships between sales and programming immediately upon implementation.

I recommend going out for an ice cream. Or cookies.  Or coffee and doughnuts.  In other words, get out of the office at least once a week and grab a bite to eat together.  Far too often, sales folks hang out only with other sales folks, and programming folks only hang out with others in programming. Far too often, the only time the two sides see each other is in staff meetings, where sometimes each side seems to want entirely different things.  In order to learn each other’s language (and yes, there are very real differences in how sales and programming communicate) and understand each other’s perspectives, it can really help to spend some time with each other…even for a few minutes.  

Yes we are all pressed for time, but even if it’s a quick run for coffee & muffins, knowing each other as people is always useful.  And while you’re at it, invite your chief engineer–he (or she) may be busy, but it’s still nice to be invited.  I have found that radio stations where each department actually talks to each other as human beings are far more likely to create collaborative plans, rather than adversarial plans.

Name a song you were surprised wasn’t a big hit.

One of the things I miss about live and local radio is that sometimes a song became really popular in one city but did nothing much nationally.  “I Can’t Find the Time” by Orpheus was huge in Boston, back in 1969, and I was quite surprised to find it only reached #80 nationally.

By Marianne Burkett

MusicMaster has always been innovative in customizable database design. With Version 6, we go a step further allowing the user to designate various keystrokes to call up their most used features. It’s called “KeyMapping” and is very simple to set up. Key Mapping is available in Library Maintenance and in the Schedule editor. You can have up to 10 different mapping options in each section.

Let’s say you’re in either Library Maintenance or in the Schedule Editor and want to call up a Query (search). You can certainly call up a Query using the traditional methods or you can set up Key Mapping for the feature and just use the assigned keystrokes to call up a Query box.

With Musicmaster opened, follow along to set up your first Keymapping option.

While in Library maintenance, go to Library/Key Mapping. There you’ll see the set up box.

Go to the first command “ALT-1” and then click on Select. You’ll see a list of all the features you can key map! Scroll down to Library Query. Click OK. Then click Okay again in the Key Mapping box.

Now try it out! Alt-1 will bring up your Query Box.

In the Schedule editor, the only difference in setting up the Key Mapping is how you access Schedule Key Mapping. When you’re in the editor, go to Schedule/Key Mapping. Set up your options just like you did in Library maintenance!

There are different options in Library and Schedule, so be sure to check out both to take advantage of this new way to customize your data.

Happy mapping ya’ll!

If you have any questions about the software, reach out to your Music Scheduling Consultant!

By Jesus Rodriguez

I bet that at least once you have tuned in to your station and realized you missed an unscheduled position. For example you hear a sweeper into a sweeper or a song segue into a song where there should have been a sweeper.

There’s a way you can check you log to prevent that from happening. This past month I have been amazed at how many “wow” responses I have gotten when I pull up the feature that I am going to introduce to you today.

Typically when I get a call from a client asking about any unscheduled positions that concern them, they always begin to scroll down their log searching for an example. I always ask if I can take control of their machine and I go straight to the Schedule Quick View to see at one glance where the unscheduled positions occurred. This is where the “wow” factor kicks in when I click on the Schedule QuickView tab if they are already in the Schedule Editor.

Another way to access the Schedule QuickView is by going to Dataset, Schedule, and select QuickView. Once you have opened the QuickView you will get the Schedule QuickView box.

In the Schedule QuickView box above you will see the hours of the day on the top row and the calendar days on the left column. The fun stuff is in the actual grid. The squares on the grid represent the specific day on the left and hour on top. The colors represent the following:

White = Unscheduled Hour
Yellow = Includes a number for the amount of Unscheduled Elements for that hour.
Green = Fully scheduled with no unscheduled elements.

Just when I thought I wowed the user they get even more impressed with the fact that you can simply double click on any square in the grid to go to that specific hour of that day. Even if you were in a different log when you first started using this feature, clicking on the day will take you to that hour. This is great for a quick glance of unscheduled positions and going straight to them to schedule a song. I think the users that enjoy this feature the most are those that schedule days, weeks, and months at a time. Rather than scrolling through logs looking for unscheduled positions day by day, QuickView gives them that information far more efficiently. It’s just another time-saver from your friends at MusicMaster. What you do with all that saved time is up to you!