MusicMaster Blog

By Marianne Burkett

While there are some who love editing logs for hours on end, most of my clients don’t have the time to check every history or segue for each song in a given day.   Here are a few things to help you shave some time off of editing the logs without sacrificing your personal editing style!

1. When you’re in the schedule editor working on logs, there are a few things you might do to speed up your keystrokes.  Rather than double clicking or using F9 to replace a song or unscheduled position, try “SHIFT-F9”.  Try it now! If there is ANY song in the category that will pass all rules, SHIFT-F9 will decide for you… and schedule the most rested song that passes your rules, regardless of your search depth, even if it is set to 1.
2. Go to Tools/Options/Schedule Editor Options.

Have you seen this area of Options?  It’s full of useful conveniences!  These are the default settings:

Let’s look at the first section:  Rule Failure Search Options

There are some Flag icons you can utilize in your Schedule Editor to “jump” to failures and unscheduled positions or conflicts.  Explore your options here.

If you trust your rules, select “Bypass all scheduled songs” and just jump to the Unscheduled positions.

The next section determines what can happen by using “Shift/Insert” keys together in the editor:

Below the Shift-Insert Function box options, are some Additional options that allow you to see and test Optimum Goal Rule failures in the editor, as well as changing the display for non-music songs and Song Lists.

1. Next up in Tools/Options is “Replacement Song Options”.

By Default, when you use F9 or double-click on a category the editor will display the category starting with the most rested song in that category.  However, if you’d like to see perhaps the most rested song in Specific categories, you can set it to that as well!

This would bring up the most rested songs in ALL of the categories you select.

My recommendation is to think about the way you like to edit,  whether it be direct entry, per  category or category groups and explore your options.  Search mode gives you many ways to replace songs, so try out  some of the options! You can always change it back.

1. Set up a built-in editor Query.

Have you set up and saved a Query in Music Master yet?  It’s very simple to Create, Save and Load Queries.   Anywhere you see our “binocular” icon – is your access to Queries.  Let’s say you have  a problem with too many sad songs scheduling,  and you’re always searching for something a little more happy while you’re editing.  Go to your Queries tab on the InfoBar or get into a song replacement window in the editor.  Pick Mood in the Filter and add your happier moods to the search, match at least one as seen in the example below:

Then “Save As” whatever you want to call it.  Now, look to the binoculars with a heart on it in your song replacement window.  You’ll see your saved query or queries depending on how many you created.  Click on that query and in the case of the Mood query I created, I’ll get my 3s, 4s and 5s in most rested order from all of those categories selected.  The query you created will also be available in your Query tab on the Info Bar for future reference.

1. Last but certainly not least, is my favorite…the “Rule Tree Shakedown”.   When you are spending a lot of time correcting what the Automatic Scheduler has created, there is likely a problem with your rules.  They are either too strict or too relaxed… or they don’t make sense for your library as it exists today.  Changes in Category size, Artist breakdown, Clocks and multiple Unscheduled positions on a daily basis are the big “tells” as to whether you need to review your Rule Tree.  If you’d like help in determining what Rules fit your library, schedule a Rule Tree session with your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant – we are always here to help you!