MusicMaster Blog

By Dave Tyler

Every professional no matter their trade requires tools to get the job done. If you have ever bought a cheap screw driver you have quickly learned that a quality tool will get the job done better and last longer. MusicMaster is a tool. Actually it is more than that. It is a toolbox and even more than that it is one of those big red rolling toolboxes filled with other great tools. Today I want to tell you about just one of them that may be overlooked but is packed with powerful qualities to make your job easier and your station sound better!

If you have not already met, let me introduce you to the “Rule Wizard” and explain why it is so darn good. We all want our station to sound its best: to get the best rotations, avoid tempo train wrecks and artist conflicts etc. The Rule Wizard can cut to the chase for you. It is easy to access this power. Simply go to the Rule Tree and click on the Rule Wizard icon and it will start working its magic. After analyzing your data and looking at things like how many songs are in your categories and how many times those categories are being called for in your active grid voila, RESULTS!

Keep in mind MusicMaster and the Rule Wizard and simply crunching numbers and doing calculations. I know I didn’t get into radio because I loved math. If you did more power to you but I got into radio so girls would think I was cool (still working on that, just don’t tell my wife!) So these “Suggestions” that pop up are just that. In my example above you can see my Category D (80s/90s) has a minimum rest rule set much higher than the suggestion. I bet this database is getting a lOT of unscheduled positions for that category because of that rule. If I want to correct this all I have to do right click on the recommendation and choose “Update Rule”. Then save the rule tree and I am done.

Keep in mind that the Rule Wizard does not have a “Programming Philosophy” like you do which is why these are “Recommendations”. In the end you decide if that suggestion makes sense. My above setting is so out whack that ignoring would likely mean more unnecessary work being done by me each day while massaging my logs.

Here are a couple more important things to remember when using the Wizard. The Wizard makes its calculations based on the last scheduling session. If you just scheduled your weekend then ran the Wizard that may not be the a clear view of what your database needs. I always recommend scheduling a full week, 7 days so that the Wizard has a comprehensive view of the big picture. You can always unschedule the music when done. The other item to be aware of is that the Wizard knows you likely have other rules and settings that will affect your songs getting scheduled and it takes this into consideration when making its recommendations. If you put your Minimum Rest rule at 100% of what is possible and there were no other rules in your database then that might be okay, but you do have other rules like Artist Separation, Tempo rules, Dayparting, Era etc. If you set it at 100% because it is not the ONLY rule you have you would get unscheduleds and probably a bunch. The Wizard understands this and so once the numbers are crunched and it comes up with the 100% it backs it down by about 30% to give room for other rules to come into play. The recommendations given by the Wizard are conservative and generally a safe bet to go with.

MusicMaster has other ways to determine things like Minimum Rest. You can go into Turnover Analysis and see results in there and jot them then go make the changes but why when the Rule Wizard can save you that time so you can get back to trying make girls think you’re cool?!

If you have any questions, please call your Music Scheduling Consultant.