MusicMaster Blog

By Dave Tyler

As a radio programmer for more than 30 years, I have cultivated my own programming philosophy about what works and what doesn’t. I bet you have too. While we all continue to learn, grow and change, sometimes what we need or want to get that sound in our head onto the airwaves changes as well. One of the many beautiful things about MusicMaster is its ability to change and conform and be customized to do and be what you want. In this article I want to show you how you may already have what you need at your fingertips by re-purposing fields that you don’t currently use.

I would like a field called “Mood” that I can apply rules to so I don’t have blocks of songs that are too heavy and depressing or for that matter too “Poppy” and Happy! Unfortunately I do not have a Mood field. I can look at all of my available fields and see if there is one I am not using that I can re-purpose. I can do this by going to Dataset/Library/Fields

When you do this, you will see a list of your fields. I know I want to use an “Attribute Overall” field because then I can assign the attributes I want and have a one character “Code” for each. Since I know what type of field I am looking for, I click the header for “Type” so MusicMaster will arrange them this way.

I only have two Attribute Overall fields.  I already have a Tempo field and to me Energy and Tempo are essentially the same (Again my philosophy. You may totally disagree and I am cool with that!).  I want to re-purpose this field and it is as easy as clicking on the field and entering its new name “Mood”. My Mood field will represent the feel of a song. You will note to the right of the name you can enter the abbreviation for that field as well. That is used in the event that in your layout you reduce the size of the field so the full name cannot be seen.

Now that I have my field I need to set the attributes I want for it. I do this by going to Dataset/Library/Attributes.

The Attribute Code Editor box will pop up and here is where you can add as many codes as you want. In my simple example, I have added Happy, Fun, Angry and Sad. Again you can add as many as you would like.

Once you have entered all of the codes you want, then it is time to code your songs.  Then you can add rules to keep these different codes in check.

If for any reason you need a field but you are currently using all the available fields in your database, you can always call your MusicMaster Music Scheduling Consultant any time and we will be happy to get the field(s) added to your database for you.  MusicMaster Pro 7.0 will give you the ability to add any type of field you want yourself.  Keep in touch and we’ll let you know when that version is released.

This is just one more way MusicMaster makes it easier for you to work your magic at your stations!