MusicMaster Blog

Pro 8 Audio Editor

By Dave Tyler

You have asked for it. Heck I have asked for it and it is finally here in MusicMaster Pro Version 8: The Audio File Editor! If you already have your song cards in MusicMaster linked to your audio files then you are ready to go. If not then check out this article on how to set that up: https://musicmaster.com/?p=3486.

The Audio Editor allows you to accomplish some basic but important functions for your audio including Normalizing audio, trimming silence and even setting the runtime for playback in MusicMaster. As long as you do not already have an external audio editor set up, you will see the new Audio File Editor by default with SHIFT-F12.

Let’s look at of the available options. To get started open a category and right click on the song and choose Audio/Edit Audio File or SHIFT-F12.

Now let’s start by trimming the silence. This is a great feature because it allows you trim silence based on a “Silence Threshold” of your choosing from the front of the audio, end of the audio or both sides. Simply click the Trim Silence button, adjust your settings and click OK!

You may have noticed if you scoped an hour of music or just let an hour play in MusicMaster that sometimes a song will end and there will be a long perceived silence before the next song plays. This could be because there is a lot of extra silence at the end of the sound or maybe, like The Beatles, “A Day In The Life” the song has a very long fade. With Auto Runtime, based on your settings for “Silence Threshold”, you can have MusicMaster automatically determine where the song should segue into the next element. When you save this, it also updates the runtime on the MusicMaster song card automatically.

And finally, “Normalize” I love this. As you know the recording industry has changed and every file is compressed pretty heavily nowadays. If your library includes songs from multiple decades then you might find a vast difference between the levels of a 70’s tune and a 2010 song. Normalizing your audio will help get these closer together to each for a consistent listening experience. While in the past this might have been difficult, MusicMaster makes i SO easy to do. Click Normalize, adjust your settings and click OK. We’ve even included a DC Offset Removal feature that will help center your audio if it is found to be off at all.

One more important note: Since you are editing the actual file used on the air, a new Permission has been added to Tools, Options, Database Security. The Tools, Audio Editor permission will allow you to give or remove access to this feature. Remember you will also need to Enable Security on the Dataset Security option to complete this process.

MusicMaster Pro version 8 is available now and a leap for Music Schedulers. This is just one new feature that can be found in this groundbreaking version of the World’s #1 Music Scheduling software.