MusicMaster Blog

Phantom Burn and Familiarity

By Joseph Knapp, Founder, MusicMaster Inc.

Shortly after streaming music services made it possible for radio listeners to hear their favorite songs on demand, the landscape of radio changed dramatically. Now your audience can hear any song at any time, create their own playlists and share their playlists with their friends. Most of these services now suggest similar music, leading people to discover new music they’ve never heard before and often music that your station is not playing.

Once upon a time, listeners had far fewer opportunities to discover new music. The biggest influence was radio. Top 40 radio introduced new songs to the audience. Tight rotations made your audience familiar with the new songs. It didn’t take long for them to decide if they liked a new song. After a certain number of spins, the audience would grow tired of hearing the song.

Before music research became popular, it was nearly impossible to determine if a new song was widely liked, or disliked, by your target audience. It was also difficult to determine when a new song had been played often enough for your target audience to grow tired of hearing it. Research made it possible to dump the ‘stiffs’ quickly and move the hits to a slower rotation category at just the right time.

Now that radio no longer controls new music discovery and the exposure of hit music to the audience, music research has become even more important. New songs added to your rotation can burn a lot faster than before, due to additional listening opportunities from outside sources. You may also be missing out on new music that is quickly becoming a favorite of your listeners.

Watching what other stations are doing using media monitoring services can give you some guidance, but it can also lead you to false assumptions. Your market and your audience may have different musical tastes and repeat airplay tolerances. If being local is important to you, your music rotation choices should also be based on local trends.

Is it possible that many formerly local radio stations failed to maintain the audience revenue necessary to support the local programming talent and entertainers necessary to remain profitable and compromised playing a national satellite or syndicated provider instead? Perhaps the cure was worse than the disease for these stations. Bottom line revenue cuts are rarely as profitable as top line revenue gains.

I offer these observations simply as food for thought, but I’m always happy to ‘talk radio’ with anyone!

F9 and Finding an Old Favorite

By The W.I.Z.A.R.D.

Cooking has undergone a renaissance where adding spices from different cultures or just in different combinations can make all the difference. Perhaps you’ve done some experimenting in the kitchen where you try a new twist on your favorite dishes.

Would you ever consider doing something like that with your MusicMaster data? Would you like to add a little spice to your playlists? Let’s see if you’re ready.

Does this describe you:

You press F9, look through the same list of songs when you have to fill an unscheduled position or just need to do something different. You regret to admit you’re a little bored picking the same songs all the time.

You have lots of music in your library that you don’t play on a regular basis, the proverbial Hold category or category with the songs that came in after the cutoff of your music test.

If either of these fits you, here’s a simple thing you can do to change things up. Go to Tools, Options, Schedule Editor Options and open Replacement Song Options.

The Search Mode will default to F9. The Default Category List will default to Use category of currently scheduled song or element. Change that to Specific Category List. Now pick those categories that have songs that could play and still meet all your programming goals. Okay and close the screen.

In the Editor, where F9 previously would have given you the songs from the original category, now you’ll get the new list you selected. What this ultimately means is that every time you have to fill a position or you want to make a change, you’ll be picking songs that don’t routinely schedule. These songs still fit your format and programming goals. You’ve just given your audience an “oh wow” moment. That’s a win no matter how you look at it.

Should you want the original category, you can always use the binocular icon to change the category list. This change simply brings these perhaps forgotten songs back to your attention to get a little love.

One more thing: When you open Replacement Song Options, there is a drop down there. You’ll find other replacement options listed where you can also configure the settings.

There is so much music that works in your format that doesn’t get regularly played. This is just one way to make it easier to add that spice into your playlist. Cook up a playlist that has your audience craving more.

Should you have any questions or need assistance setting this up, reach out to your Music Scheduling Consultant.

Category Fallback Options
by Paul Ziino

You are editing your log. You double-click on an unscheduled position to look for replacement options but there are none available—all songs in that category violate your unbreakable rules. Now what do you do? You probably click the query icon and change the category to look through. Well, what if that category’s songs all violate unbreakable rules? You have to go through that process all over again.

In Version 8 we have introduced a new feature called Category Fallback Options. This allows you to preset the categories you’ll allow the replacement song window to look in when the original category’s songs don’t pass the unbreakable rules.

Go to Tools/Options, then under Schedule Editor Options select Category Fallback Options. Here you’ll see the list of your categories. Each category allows you to enter a sequence of other categories to look in.

In my example above, if the replacement can’t find an A that passes the unbreakable rules, it’ll go next to category 90. If no 90 passes the unbreakable it’ll fallback to category 80, and if still no song works it’ll fallback to category 70. No longer will we need to re-query in the replacement window, MusicMaster will do it for you!

Notice you can check the box to do this for Replacements (F9) as well as Quick Replacements (Shift-F9).

To get version 8.0 go to Help/Check for Updates and follow the prompts. If your MusicMaster subscription allows for updates, you’ll be able to retrieve the installer right there. Keep in mind, upgrading to version 8.0 does require an automatic database upgrade, so you’ll want to make sure to backup your data first, and verify that all MusicMaster installations are eligible for upgrade before proceeding. We suggest you work with your IT folks to do any upgrades to your software.

No Fooling around today: MusicMaster PRO 8.0.2 is available to you under Help, Check for Update. Changes include:

Adding better visibility to fields you’ve set to use in the Search Bar. When you open Fields, the default search bar fields will show checks when you have made no other changes to the search fields.

Changes have been made to improve the reliability of copy and paste functionality in Library Maintenance

The ability to sort by Song Rest in the Schedule Editor replacement window wasn’t working when you clicked on the column header. Thanks to the eagle-eyed users who spotted that.

Adjustments have been made to the SACEM DIP43 report to address new standards. The BMI/ASCAP Report has also been adjusted to use the Community Upload format.

You can find the full list of changes under Help, Release notes. Contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

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.

By Laurie Knapp

In Version 8, it’s easier than ever to use Migrating Positions with Flex Rules. There’s a new wizard for adding Migrating Positions, a Pattern Builder which shows you sample clock assignments, and more display information to indicate potentially problematic Flex Rules settings.

About Migrating Positions

Migrating Positions are not new to MusicMaster Pro Version 8, but in case you have never used them before, here is an overview of how they work.

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Almost Perfect – Setting the Order For Your Rules

By Brian Wheeler

We’re dipping into the mailbag this time around. I had a client ask me, ‘should the rules in my rule tree be in any specific order?’ My answer is they don’t HAVE to be, but there are benefits to arranging your rules strategically.

For example, let’s say you’ve got a series of unbreakable rules enforced, and the first rule in the list is a stringent one…let’s say it’s Artist Separation. If MusicMaster tests a song for Artist Separation and the song in question breaks this unbreakable rule first, will MusicMaster keep testing or just move on? The answer is, MusicMaster will stop testing the remaining unbreakable rules and will move on to the next song in the search depth because this song can no longer be considered for the position. You’ve just saved your automatic scheduler the time and effort of testing the other rules. Of course, I have no way of quantifying how much time that saved, but efficiency is a good thing, right? My recommendation is to get those rules in an order that eliminates the most obvious songs right away.

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Stack ‘em and Count ‘em

By Chris Malone

Several brilliant mainstream format programmers have reached out wanting to zero in on the rotation of their cream of the crop Power songs and fully understand the scheduling pattern of the standard card file method in MusicMaster. Little known fact, you can establish the desired slot position, trace the slot, and even visually see AutoBurn in real time by creating a text field that serves as a numbering system for your Power Currents.

We can all agree this history graph reflects a mainstream, hyper turnover power category that looks spectacular inside the Turnover Analysis. To achieve such great rotation requires that a Power category bypass all category rules and have no specific category rules, so songs can plot in a natural order. Under Dataset, Schedule, Schedule Properties – you’ll also want a category like this to have a search depth of 1. The category order management (Dataset, Schedule, Schedule Order) should be switched to standard card file.

Now here’s where you zero in, you can create a numbering system that allows you to establish rotation position number for each song. It serves as a verification that the right things are happening as expected under the hood; furthermore, when a song is moved from Power Currents, a new song can replace that specific rotation position without disrupting the category’s natural turnover.

In this example, I’ve created a simple text field called “Rotation”, the songs in the category are numbered 1-7. Keep in mind this is a simple text field. There’s nothing dynamic or rule related to this field other than it allows the user to create a numbering system for these songs and create a desired stack order in the standard card file of this category. Remember, any number entered in this field will ‘travel’ with the song to any other category until the number data from that field is physically deleted or modified by the user.

When you go to Dataset, Schedule, Schedule Order for the Power Current category, I can add a field to include the ‘Rotation’ field and I can put these songs in the desired schedule order and let it rip. A common misconception is that the schedule order is your desired rotation order and that’s not the case. The schedule order simply shows what song is next in the standard card file to schedule.

In the example above, the song at rotation position #6 is next up to schedule, in my desired rotation stack order. When a song is moved out of the category at any given rotation position, the incoming song can replace that rotation position in your desired stack order to prevent in wobbles in rotation.

You can even add this “Rotation” field to your schedule editor to follow along to ensure your Powers are rotating in the standard card file order you designed through out the scheduled day.

For more on category order management or how to create a text field in your database, please reach out to your MusicMaster Music Scheduling Consultant.

We have had reports in the past few weeks from users who have their MusicMaster Access database on a network share that have started getting error messages when more than one user attempts to access that station at the same time. These errors will report that the database file is already in use or cannot be locked.

There is nothing wrong with MusicMaster. This error is due to a problem with a Microsoft Office update that was released in December.  Microsoft became aware of the issue almost immediately and has been rolling out fixes for the various Office versions to correct it. They have also provided a status page where you can see when the fix was available for the version of Office that you have:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/error-in-access-when-opening-a-database-on-a-network-file-share-6cbc1560-62c2-46e7-9980-d079a46f5acc

If you are currently experiencing this problem, we would recommend that you try to download and install the latest available Office updates or you could also try to remove the patch that caused this problem on your system. In most cases, the update that corrects this issue should have already been installed, or will be very soon.

CLASSICAL DATA MANAGEMENT

By The W.I.Z.A.R.D.

Like many classical stations, you may be overwhelmed with the sheer volume of pieces you have available.  We will never speak of the 50,000, 100,000 or one million pieces you have again!

This plan is a way for you to rethink how you manage your classical library. It’s designed for those who are not already automatically scheduling logs in MusicMaster. If you are already automatically scheduling logs and would like to do this, we would recommend you Clone your database to do so.

The plan assumes a general knowledge of the software. If any concept is unfamiliar to you or you are unsure how to do it, please contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant for assistance.

PHASE ONE:  Library Review and Categorization

In this phase, you should be looking for the number of pieces you need to play in one month. To do this, you might have to make an educated assessment of how you schedule. For instance, it’s typical for classical stations to play four pieces per hour. Multiple four by the number of hours a day you play classical music. Keep in mind, you may have to calculate this for each day if there are differences. Once you know the number of pieces needed for a week, multiple it by four to get your monthly number. Here’s an example:

Let’s say you play four pieces an hour for 18 hours a day, seven days a week. We use those numbers plus a final “times four” to get the monthly total.

4 x 18 = 72 x 7 = 504 x 4 = 2,016

If you find 2,016 pieces to play, you will not repeat a piece during the month. While those are playing, you can find more pieces. Breaking down the task this way should make it much more manageable to categorize your library.

The best part of this is that you probably don’t need 2,016 pieces because you will be repeating these pieces.

This is where category management comes into play. We’d suggest you go to Library, Category and create at least three new categories for fast, medium and slow rotation.  You can name them whatever you’d like. Just keep in mind that each category signifies how often you will hear the pieces in it. You’ll see what speed these categories will have when we get to Phase Three.  What you are doing now is simply indicating that some pieces will be playing faster than others.  For instance, “war horses” might be in the fast category while a more obscure work that fits your programming goals, ends up in the slow rotation category.

To get started, go to Tools, Backup. Make a new Backup. What you are about to do is change your data. At any point during this process if you have made significant changes to the data, make a new backup. You always want to be able to revert if you wish to do so.

With your backup done, call up the entire library and then use the marking option to confirm you have no marked songs in your library.

Open any of your previous categories. It might be helpful to sort the list by Composer and Title. We also recommend having fields like Conductor and Orchestra/Performer displayed. Scroll down and use F7 to mark pieces.  This will give the pieces a background color. You might look for those pieces you want in the fast category, quickly running down the list.

This process is not designed to be tedious. Go through the list quickly and determine if the piece qualifies for the category you are looking for. If you need to think about where you’d put the piece, skip it. The point of this is to move as many pieces as quickly as you can into the new categories. You can always go down the list multiple times if needed.

You likely have more than one performance of a piece. Be critical. Do you really play all of them or are there just one or two that get your air time? Only move the performances you really want to play. Whatever is left can remain in this old category.

Once you’ve gone through the list, right-click to open the Context menu where you will have a Move, Move Marked Song(s) option.

Once you select that, a Category Selection box will appear. Simply click the appropriate category and your selections will move.

You can now go down this list again and pick pieces for a different category or see if you can find more to put into the first category you chose. Continue to do this until you are done with the category. Whatever is left should go to a new Library\Hold category that you can make. Continue reviewing your existing categories moving pieces to your new categories.

NOTE: The pieces you moved are still marked. It’s always a good idea to clear the marks after you are done.

Here are a couple of more things to think about while reviewing your library:

When you are satisfied that you have enough pieces in your new categories, you can review the coding on these pieces. This is an important process because it can determine your overall sound. Too often we see the coding of music is incorrect which causes problems when rules are set up. Does the Composer have the same musical period on his/her works? Does every violin work have the appropriate instrumentation code? Have you distinguished between chamber works and orchestral works? You can easily see how having any of these codes incorrect on a work could cause problems when scheduling. Determine what Attributes are important to you, make sure the specific codes are correct and then review your new categories to make sure the codes on these pieces are accurate.

If you’ve moved more than one performance of the same work to a new category, we would recommend you packet these performances to group these pieces together. If you don’t do this, you might hear the work too often. Packeting keeps the like works together. You don’t want to guess whose Symphony 1 is in the packet, so name your packet with the Composer and Title in the name. You can do this through the Packet Editor (Library, Packets) or through the context menu in Library Maintenance.

PHASE TWO:  Clock building

Once you have pieces in your new categories, you can begin to make clocks using your three new categories. As you do this, think about how often you want to play the category.  For instance, if you are playing four pieces in an hour, it’s easy to consider playing one piece from each category. Do you even want to do that? If you do, what category will the fourth piece come from? Do you want that changed over time?

We recommend you keep this simple and create just one or two clocks to start.  This will allow you to do the fine-tuning on a few clocks. When you are satisfied, you can start to clone and make more clocks as needed.

With clocks created, go to Clocks, Format Assignment Grids and create a New Grid, assigning these new clocks.

PHASE THREE: Analysis

With your library categories set up and clocks built, you can now go to Analysis to see how often the categories will play. Turnover Analysis has a wealth of information. Focus on the Mean Turnover, which is what you think of as the typical average. How fast is your fast category? Is that how often you want to hear the pieces? If the answer is Yes, congratulations. If the answer is No, you have three choices: change the number of pieces in the category, change the number of times you are calling for the category in your clocks or some combination of those two. Remember that Turnover Analysis is showing averages. This doesn’t mean every piece will turn over at the exact speed listed. You’ll also see Short and Long Turnover information as well.

You can also use the bottom graph of Turnover Analysis to see how an individual piece will rotate through your day(s). Use the Hide Blank Rows option to get a better overall view. Notice in the picture below that 10 weeks are show, but not 10 lines. This is because the category isn’t playing in the third and sixth weeks given the number of pieces in the category and the way it’s called for on the clocks. By hiding the blank rows, you have a good idea of how the piece will be played over time. Just remember that any rules you apply to a category can impact how it rotates and that isn’t taken into consideration when you look at this screen.

PHRASE FOUR:  Rule building

We highly recommend getting the basics correct first: composer separation, hour rotation and minimum rest. The Rule Wizard can help by making suggestions for the settings of these rules. With these in place, you will keep some distance between your composers, make sure pieces don’t play in the same hours and rest the pieces before they play again.

To make your station sound even better, consider rules for your key Attribute information. For instance, once you play a Baroque work, how many titles should go by before you hear another one? Is it okay to play two violin works back-to-back? How many orchestral works can you play in row? These are the kinds of things you should consider when setting up Attribute rules.

Remember, if you are not confident the coding is correct, setting up rules will not be helpful. Go back to Phase One and fix the coding in the library. Then rules you create will be meaningful.

PHASE FIVE:  Scheduling

With the first four phases done, you are ready to have MusicMaster automatically schedule your first test log.  When you do this, you’ll be looking for those places where the program scheduled music in a way you wouldn’t want.  You can then tweak the data to minimize those things. Try not to get carried away here. You will probably always find some piece to swap or replace. It’s natural. What you want is a log that follows your programming goals with a minimal amount of effort on your part. Perfect isn’t possible. Very Good is attainable.

PHASE SIX and BEYOND: Maintenance and Review

Phase Six starts with going back to Phase One and starting over. Yes, it’s a Deming Circle. Just because the pieces were appropriate today does not mean they will still be relevant to the category in six months or a year. The same is true for your Clocks and Rules. Music is a living thing and so is your use of MusicMaster. Reviewing this plan every three or six months will ensure your music never gets too far away from your programming goals.

A few other things to consider:

As new music is released, be ruthless. If you are adding a performance of a work you already have in your new categories, ask yourself if it is better than the ones you have. Should it replace one of your existing pieces in rotation or be added to the ones you already have?

Gold Recycling is designed to replay music for an audience that is unlikely to have heard it the first time. Do your early morning listeners also listen late at night? If not, you can “recycle” the music.

Auto Platoon lets you move pieces in and out of rotation to keep the category fresh while maintaining your category size. You might draw on music in that Library\Hold category or get even more discreet by moving only a certain composer’s work in and out. Do you really need to have all the Violin Concertos by Vivaldi in active rotation? If not, you can play a subset at any given time and swap them out. Your core will love that they are hearing the different Concertos while your likers remain content.

CONCLUSION:

We hope this general overview of how to manage a classical library has been helpful to you. We are here to assist you with ideas and suggestions. Please contact your Music Scheduling Consultant for any assistance you may need.