MusicMaster Blog

By Dave Tyler

Lately I have been getting a lot of calls and emails about the ability to copy songs from one database to another and if it is possible in MusicMaster. It is! MusicMaster is a Windows-based program so those same Copy/Paste features you use in Excel work in MusicMaster.

Let’s use this example. I have an Oldies/Classic Hits database and one of the PDs from our sister station wants to use the same category and songs in their database. It is possible but there is a caveat, and it is an Important one. If both stations actually share the audio and therefore the automation numbers or filenames are identical then you are good to go. If they are not you can still copy the basic metadata (Title, Artist etc.) but you will need to add the automation information manually on the receiving side.

In my example Station A has a Secondary 60’s category that I want in another database. I open MusicMaster twice. One incident has Station A (The original) and the other Station B (The receiving station). This is a really simple and straightforward process but I always recommend making a backup of both station before doing any mass actions like this. In the Station B click n the “Add Songs” icon and, per our example, add 33 song cards.

Now that you have the empty song cards waiting to be populated there are really three options you have in the copy/paste process.

You can A) Copy the entire category at once and then paste it all into the receiving station. You would do this by clicking on the little grey box in the top left corner of the category. You will see all songs are now selected. Simply Ctrl-C to copy (pic Below). Go to the top left cell in Station B and single click in it then Ctrl-V to paste. Please note when using this process you MUST be sure that ALL of the fields are in the exact same order in both databases or you risk pasting incorrect information in. For example if Station A had the fields in the order of Title, Artist, Artist Keyword and Station B had them in the order of Artist, Title, Artist Keyword then Station B would have the Artist in their Title field and the Title in the Artist field. Yikes! This is also why we made that backup prior to starting.

Our second option is to just copy the fields we want. In this example let’s say I do not want the Category field because the receiving station will call this category something different, however I do want all of the other fields and they are ordered the same in both stations. I could then simply click in the top left cell (In this case it would be the first Title cell), then scroll to the bottom of my 33 songs and single click into the bottom right cell for Runtime and you will see it selects all of the songs. Again Ctrl-C to copy (Note in pic below the “Category” field is not selected), then single click into the top left cell for Title in Station B and Ctrl-V to paste.

The third and final way is to go Column by column. Although this sounds like it would take a lot of time it really doesn’t and is my preferred way of doing this because I don’t need to go through the setup of making sure all of the fields are in the same order. In this example I just single click in the top cell for Title (in my example “A Hard Days Night”) then scroll to the bottom and Shift-Click on the last Title (While My Guitar Gently Weeps) and the entire column is selected.

Ctrl-C to copy and go to Station B, click in the top cell for Title and Ctrl-V to paste it in. Repeat the process for any other fields you require.

Copying from one database to another is very easy and quick to do. As mentioned earlier, be sure to make a backup in case something goes awry. We can’t say it often enough! It’s way easier to restore a backup after a mistake and takes the pressure off the process, no matter what you are doing.

If you have any questions just let us know. All of the Music Scheduling Consultants at MusicMaster would be happy to help you.