MusicMaster Blog

By Marianne Burkett

Whether it’s an artist introducing a new song or the station voice introducing an artist, I frequently get calls from clients who’d like to attach song tags to some or all songs or just add tags to songs in specific categories at certain times in their databases.  This can be done in a variety of ways in MusicMaster.  Which way you will approach this will depend on your individual goals.

1. If you ALWAYS want the tag every time a title plays.  Utilize “Virtual Shows”
2. If you want tags at specific times, ie: Overnights.   Use Special Sets.

Part One

If you always want the tag to play in front or behind the song, you will want to utilize the Virtual Show feature in MusicMaster.  It’s not difficult.

Song Tags using the Virtual Show field:

The first thing you’ll need to do is find an available Keyword Multiple field in your Field Map. Go to Dataset/Library/Fields and scroll down and see if there’s an extra Keyword Multiple field and rename it.  In the sample below, I’ve named the field Virtual Show.

If there is not an extra Title Keyword field in your database, contact your Music Scheduling Consultant and they can add the field for you. 

Step 2:  Open the category that you’ll be song tagging.  Use your show hide fields icon to pull the MusicMaster “Song ID” field AND  your new “Virtual Show” field into your view. Save the view.

You may also want to create a Category group including the Tags category and the Category with the songs to be tagged so both categories appear on the screen.  This makes life a bit easier!

Double click on the Virtual Show field ONLY on the Music song card, if you want the tag to play first, enter the Song ID number as the first keyword and the Song ID number of the actual title 2^nd like this:

Repeat that on any song you’d like to tag.

You’re almost done!

Make note of the number assigned to your new Virtual Show field in the field map.  Notice in the first screen capture,  my Virtual Show field is Field ID 138.

Now, go to Tools/Options/Additional  Properties:  Scroll to the bottom and enter the field number of your Virtual Show field in the highlighted box illustrated below.

You are done.  If you tag the songs  without a lot of production value, you could actually go from Jingle or Imaging, into tag, into song, so you wouldn’t even need to change the clocks.  The tag does NOT show up in the scheduler.  It only shows up in your exported log.  That my friends, is the beauty of the Virtual Show.  To make the Tag stop playing, just clear the numbers from the Virtual show field on each song card and you’re done.  To make the Tag begin again, re-populate the Virtual Show field with the appropriate Song ID’s in the order you’d like them to play.

Part Two:

Tagging via the Special Set: 

So you’re jockless in the overnight shift and need some song identification.  This is a perfect place to utilize the Special Set element in your overnight clock(s) for song tags.  It’s basically just like scheduling an overnight positioner before a category, but you can match fields like Artist to Artist or Title to Title.  Insert the Special Set element in your clock where you’d like it to play:  In this case, I want it to FRONT sell the Current:

This means  it’s looking at the Artist that scheduled, than matching the Artist Name in the Music song card to the Artist name in the Tag category song card.

In a nutshell – the Special Set Tag is fixed in place in the clock, while the Virtual Show Tag invisibly floats with a song no matter what category it plays in, until you (A) clear the Virtual Show field in you song card, (B) physically delete the tag or (C) disable the Virtual show in Tools/Options/Additional properties.

Further information can be found via the User Guide, located by clicking Help in the software.

As always, if you have any questions or need assistance please contact your Music Scheduling Consultant!