MusicMaster Blog

By Dave Tyler

I say it all the time, MusicMaster is such a robust and powerful piece of software, and it can do so many things that are likely underutilized by a lot of users. I am the same way. I have a Korg keyboard/synthesizer and I always figure at some point I will get around to really digging in further to see what it can really do…but most of the time I just wind up putting it “Grand Piano” and playing for 20 minutes and I’m done. However, I know that thing has vast, magical capabilities that I don’t know about. Today we may unearth one of those for you in MusicMaster!

In the song “Control”, Janet Jackson exclaims “Control, I want a lot of it”!!! Me too, Janet. So let’s talk about keywords.

Almost all programmers will be familiar with Artist Keyword separation. It keeps the same artists from playing again for a specific time frame that we set. It is one of the most important and most used rules in MusicMaster. But did you know you can also set up “Custom” separations for specific keywords? Let’s take a look at how and why we would do this.

If you are a Classic Rock or Classic Hits station, you probably have a ton of songs by The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Eagles, The Doobie Brothers, ZZ Top and more. While these are certainly core artists to the format, they have so many songs that it would be easy for them to schedule in a majority of the hours in your day. Let’s say you have a general Artist Separation rule of 1 hour and 10 minutes (kind of the industry standard), then those artists would be available to schedule just about each hour. Of course, you have other rules and goals in play that may nudge them around a bit, but simply because there are a lot of them, they always seem available.

I understand we are also getting into programming philosophy here and it is completely up to you to make your station sound the way you want it, and you may want these artists to play every hour, and it might be why you are the market leader. Then again, you might not want to be known as “Rolling Stones” station and choose to stretch the time between their plays a bit more, or you may want them to play more often because they test so well in your market that you feel you can’t play them too much! If you want that level of added control, you’ve come to the right place…let’s talk custom settings.

Before we get started, it is important to note that for custom settings to work you must already have a Keyword Time Separation or Hour Rotation rule (depending on which you are making custom settings for) in place for that category (either in the All Category Rules or in that particular category’s Unbreakable rule folder).

In MusicMaster, you can go to Dataset/Library/Keywords to open the Keyword editor.

From the dropdown, I will choose Artist Keywords and then scroll down to the Rolling Stones. We see two columns to the right. One for Separation and one for Hour Rotation, and most will have a check in the box. If the box is checked this means that it is using the general overall value (in our example the 1:10 we mentioned earlier) as its time separation. If you uncheck that box, then you can set your custom time separation for that artist. In my example below I have set the Stones to a 3 hour 15 minute custom separation to keep them from playing too much. You can also use this tool to speed up the availability of an artist by shortening the length.

Another good example of using custom separations is for One Hit Wonders. I programmed an A/C station in the 90s, and I recall there being three artists that were trouble for me. Nothing against them but Dan Hartman “I Can Dream About You”, Matthew Wilder “Break My Stride” and A-ha’s “Take On Me” tested great and were an easy pass for my rules because they were all male, medium/up-tempo songs, and the fact that they were one-hit wonders meant they didn’t have any other songs to compete with. So once they met their Minimum Rest time, they were back up to the bat. Great songs, but they were getting way too much exposure. A custom time separation rule would’ve been a dream come true for me at that station!

This idea can also be used Novelty songs. A good example is Elmo & Patsy’s “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”. I remember it was about a week and a half after Thanksgiving and we were already playing a few Christmas songs an hour and we were getting calls that we played that song too much. I checked and it was literally the second time the song had played in the two-week period, but it is a polarizing song and it really needed to be relegated to a much longer rest as well as hour rotation so it wouldn’t make an appearance during the same shift. This is a good example of using a custom setting on your Title Keyword but also leads us to the other checked box: Hour Rotation.

Here is an excerpt directly from our Help section in MusicMaster that expertly explains this feature. Hour Rotation refers to the rotation of the keyword, not the song. For instance, you might configure a Keyword with a one day, one hour rotation rule. This would mean that if a song with that keyword played in the 6am hour today, no song by that Keyword would be able to play in the 6am hour tomorrow (provided the test is configured as unbreakable). This can be a very restrictive rule and is typically not placed on keywords that are core to your database.

Using these custom settings provides you with an additional layer of control over your library and the sound of your station. As always, if you have any questions just reach out to your MusicMaster dedicated representative.

by Vicky James

It’s that time of year where we swap all of our winter fleece ‘n furs for our bright colorful florals! I typically will do a purge of things that I haven’t worn for years, pieces that are dated or things that I should’ve gotten rid of five years ago! Well ironically, this blog isn’t about old clothes, but it is about the stuff that’s sitting in your database that you’ve overlooked monthly, if not daily!

Here’s your guide to Spring Cleaning your database:

Tip 1: Cleaning Clocks

There is a way to clean up your clocks without “guessing” which clocks aren’t being used and to avoid accidentally deleting something needed!

Here’s how:

1. Click on the Clock Icon in the toolbar to open the Format Clock Maintenance

2. Click “Select” on the right

3. Select “Assigned Clocks”, then select “Assigned to Any Clock Grid”. This checks only the clocks that are being used in any assignment grid.

4. Then go back to “Select” again and click “Invert Selection”. Now only unused clocks will remain checked.

5. I suggest reviewing the checked clocks to be sure that you want to delete them.

5. After you’ve reviewed the clocks, Click delete and the unused clocks are all gone!

Rule of thumb… Anytime that you are making a mass change such as deleting clocks ALWAYS make a backup first so you can revert if needed.

And that’s how you would clean up your clocks!

Tip 2: Cleaning Keywords

It’s not uncommon for title keywords to accidentally get entered with an error or duplicate titles with different spellings. This is often found with Christmas titles, as you see pictured below.

In this example, we’re looking at the Title Keyword for “All I Want For Christmas”. Here, I’d like to have the Mariah Carey title match the other entries. Going to the Keyword Maintenance will allow us to quickly make the update.

Now, let’s navigate to finding your keywords. Click on Dataset, Library and Keywords.  Use the dropdown menu to select the keywords that you would like to check, be it your Artist Keywords, Title Keywords, Album Keywords, or any other field that utilizes a keyword. As I mentioned, in this case we will update the Title Keywords. Use Find to start typing “All I want for Christmas” and it should find both versions of the keywords shown above: “All I want for Christmas” and “All I want for Christmas is You”

Now, you can edit the keyword you want to change to match the other one. In this case, I’ve added “is You” to the end of “All I want for Christmas”. You’ll be prompted with a message that indicates there are now two identical keywords, asking “Would you like to combine these entries?” Select Yes and it will combine the two Title Keywords and update any songs that had the keyword that was changed.

Also in Keyword Maintenance, you can also use the Tools drop down menu to select “Remove Unused Keywords”. This would delete any incorrect or leftover keywords that aren’t currently assigned to any songs.

For more on Keyword Maintenance, check out this blog: https://musicmaster.com/index.php?p=7817

As a Bonus Spring Cleaning Tip… You can use Purge to declutter your databases of old deleted items that were removed from your database, like library, clocks, keywords, etc. Think of it like emptying the Recycle Bin. Purging is found under the Tools menu and if you look closely in the left corner as the resulting process completes, you’ll see how much of your database was cleaned up.

Should you have any questions please reach out to your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant.

By Paul Ziino

I know we’ve talked about it before.  However, I regularly am asked “why are my artists playing so close to themselves, but not indicating any rule violation?”  In 90% of these cases, the issue is that the songs either have no Artist Keywords or have the wrong Artist Keywords.

Artist Keywords are what MusicMaster uses to keep the same artist apart from themselves.

Let’s use these examples:

BEATLES
THE BEATLES
BEATLES, THE

As far as MusicMaster is concerned, those are three unique keywords and thus they wouldn’t be separated.

There is an easy way to clean these up.  Go to Dataset/Library/Keywords, then select Artist Keywords in the dropdown.  This is a list of all the Artist Keywords in the database.  Any changes you make in this list immediately update throughout the database.

Below we see the keyword “Christina Aguilera.”  If I wish to change it to “Aguilera, Christina,” just type right over the top of it.

When I do, MusicMaster alerts me that there is another keyword listed that matches and asks if I’d like to combine them.  I will click Yes, and now any song that had the “Christina Aguilera” keyword on it will be updated to the “Aguilera, Christina” keyword.

A quick suggestion:  For groups, enter the keyword as the group’s name, “LED ZEPPELIN.”  For solo artists enter the keyword last, first, “PLANT, ROBERT.”  Now when you sort your library by artist keyword, it will appear as desired.  Also, I suggest not including the leading “THE”, so just “BEATLES” or “WHO” or “EAGLES” and so on.

Once you’ve cleaned up your keywords you’ll notice that artist separation rules work better.  When artist separation is working, your whole station will sound better because you’ll have the desired rest between plays of the same artist.

By Jerry Butler

I get calls from time-to-time from programmers saying that their artist, title or composer separation isn’t working correctly.  Call numbers increase on this issue in the weeks leading up to Christmas with title separation.  Keep in mind separation rules look at your artist keywords, title keyword and composer keywords.  After analyzing the data, we often find that some of the entries are spelled just a bit different.  In order for the keyword separation to work correctly, all spellings in the specific  keyword have to be exactly the same.  How can you check this quickly?  Many programmers including myself would go through the library, sort and compare the artists or titles on each song card.

Here is an easier, faster, more thorough way to correct your keywords:  make those changes in your keyword maintenance window.

Click on Dataset, Library and Keywords.   Use the dropdown menu to select the keyword that you need to check.  For demonstration purposes, we will check the Title keyword.

I’ve highlighted entries for “O Holy Night” and “Oh Holy Night”.  In order for the title separation rules to work correctly, these need to be exactly the same.  Rather than changing every single song card, you can make the change for all songs right here.  I’m going to change “Oh Holy Night” to “O Holy Night”.  To do this, just click on the line and type the change. When I press [enter], I receive a prompt letting me know the keyword already exists and asking me if I would like to combine the two.  Click yes and any songs with ”Oh Holy Night” will be updated to “O Holy Night” and your rule will separate the titles correctly.

Check your keywords today and make sure your station’s artist, title and composer or any other keyword separation is running the way you want it to.