MusicMaster Blog

Here’s a very cool Rule Type available in MusicMaster: AutoKick. Find it in the “Song/History Rules” folder, then in the subfolder of “Hour Rotation Rules”. While this rule type can accomplish the same goal as setting an Hour Rotation, Day Offset Window of 1 day, 1 hour, the window size you set can be more narrowly defined. You can set a breakable or unbreakable rule for a category that is defined to the quarter hour, half hour, as well as a full hour! I like to suggest this to programmers who have very fast music rotation categories, or where you are simply trying to make certain that the same non music items (sweepers, positioners, jingle elements, as an example) aren’t falling into the same positions daily.

Looking for a simple way to print all of your currently active clocks in MusicMaster Windows? Go to DATASET-CLOCKS-FORMAT CLOCKS, or click on the clock icon on your tool bar. No need to click the check boxes, or refer to the assignment grid to create your print job. Just click on the SELECT rectangle on the right hand side, and then ASSIGNED CLOCKS-Grid: (Name of the Currently Active Grid)…You’ll then be returned to the FORMAT CLOCK MAINTENANCE list, where you’ll note that all the clocks that are active on the grid you chose are checked. Then, select the PRINT rectangle on the right hand side, and you’ll be presented with the FORMAT CLOCK PRINTING OPTIONS box, where you can decide what you would like to include/exclude from the print job, and in addition to printed versions of the linear clocks, if you’d also like to have each of them print in a “hot clock” type fashion. Next select the CONTINUE rectangular choice box, your selected printer choice, and then finally the OK box. Done!

By Drew Bennett

Let’s make prompted queries! They’re great when you want to search for something a lot but that something is always something different. Make sense? It will. (more…)

By Marianne Burkett

If you’re the type of programmer that elects to hand schedule – especially your heavy currents, make use of the Shift F9 key in the editor. Rather than bringing up a song replacement screen, Shift F9 will select the first song in the category that passes the rules. If you have unbreakable rules it cannot pass – it will alert you. If you don’t have any rules in your category it will automatically bring up the most rested song! Happy Scheduling!

By Paul Ziino

Every so often we get calls from MusicMaster users indicating “…my BMI report was rejected because they said it’s blank.” In most of those cases, the user likely missed a very important step—filling out the report’s Options tab. (more…)

by Paul Ziino

A quick tip for you when copying clocks: make sure to highlight the clock you wish to make a copy of before clicking the copy button in Dataset/Clocks/Format Clocks. The checkboxes are used for mass Deletion, Printing, Exporting, and Changing.

By Paul Ziino

There is a ton of information available in Turnover Analysis (Dataset/Analysis/Analysis, or the blue spinning arrows icon in the tool bar)! You can see song and slot count, Short and Long Turnover, and more…just right-click in the upper half of the screen and check any of the items you wish to add to your view. Things like Suggested Minimum and Maximum Rest, Average Spins per Day or Week, and Hour Exposure to name a few. You can change which assignment grid is being analyzed, too.

In the lower half of the screen you can adjust slot counts to see predicted rotations with more or less slots in the category, you can access the auto-burn spreadsheet, view format clock category usage, and even more!

by Paul Ziino

If you are a new MusicMaster user starting out with a brand new database, I like to recommend a few simple rules to get things going. (more…)

Most of you are aware that you can daypart a song or promo in MusicMaster by using the dayparting field. However, were you aware you can also restrict which part of the hour a song card is permitted to play? Let’s create a new restriction today on a song you NEVER want to play in the first 15 minutes of the 5pm hour. Double click on the dayparting field, put an “X” in the 5pm hour – then look to the Pink Pie icon at the top of the Daypart Restriction box, and click on it twice. That gives you the quarter hour options. To restrict a song from opening the hour – just remove the X from the first quarter hour. Save and Apply. Of course, be sure the dayparting rule is in effect in your rule tree as well!

By Paul Ziino

Always creating the same query over and over for the same bunch of categories? You can create a Category Group instead!

Go to Dataset/Library/Categories, then click Groups. On the Category Groups screen click New and name this group–something like "Active Music" or "Current Rotation" or whatever you—like and click OK. Now check each category you want to include in this new Category Group and click OK. Back to the Category Groups screen click OK once again. Your new category Group will be listed in the Music tab of the info bar beneath Entire Library, Music Categories, and Non-Music Categories. You can also access this new Category Group when you are in any query box by using the dropdown where it says "Entire Library".