MusicMaster Blog

by Brian Wheeler

Not unlike a shopkeeper, programmers sometimes like to rotate inventory to keep things fresh. Some programmers will just move a few songs in manually, perhaps after getting research or after sensing a listening trend. But did you know there are a couple of handy tools to keep your product moving besides simply moving songs from one category to another? We’re going to discuss AutoMove and AutoPlatooning. While this feature is available in MusicMaster Pro, we’ll focus here on its use in MusicMaster CS and the CS Web Client.

AutoMove is a tool that lets you schedule selected songs to move from one category to another after certain conditions are met. To access this feature, you simply open a category, then right click within the category. You’ll see the Move feature, which includes the ability to set up AutoMove. The premise here is that you’re able to tell MusicMaster where to move this song and when to move it. Do you want to move songs seasonally? Enter a date for the song(s) to be moved. Do you want to rest songs after they’ve played a certain number of times? Enter the number of plays that should occur before the move should happen. Here is a sample view of what you may see when setting up AutoMove in MusicMaster CS.

As you can see, I’m afforded the ability to AutoMove songs after x number of plays. I can also return songs to their original category by a pre-determined date. I can set up the Automove to execute these steps yearly as well.

How Automove appears in the Web Client:

Auto Platoon has a similar capability but also enables you to set additional filters and gives you the ability to control when and how many songs get moved. In this case as seen in CS, I’ve elected to move 10% of the B category into a hold category the first Monday of each month. The songs that are chosen to move will be determined by category plays.

As a variation, I later chose to include a filter, only moving songs that had a tempo filter. That means that when my AutoPlatoon kicks in, the only songs that can be considered in the platoon must be slow songs (tempo 1 or 2) that occur in my active category. It’s not a commonly used filter, but it demonstrates the possibilities when thinking about how one may use the AutoPlatoon feature.

In this next photo we demonstrate another AutoPlatoon configuration seen in our Web Client. I’ve got the AutoPlatoon set to move 10 songs monthly on the first of the month. As you can see, 10 songs move into a hold category, and 10 songs will move from your hold category into the active category. This takes place when scheduling the date indicated on your AutoPlatoon settings.

AutoMove and AutoPlatoon are two very useful tools to keep things fresh in your station. As always, if you have questions or would like to discuss these or any other features in MusicMaster, your MusicMaster Music Scheduling Consultants are only a call or an e-mail away. Reach out! Let’s talk.

by Dave Tyler

For many years, the need for each of us at the radio station to wear more hats has increased. The idea of being just a Production Director or just an afternoon talent is long gone. Today, you might be the PD doing the morning show, followed by assigning production, cutting spots, sitting in a meeting with sales, doing a live remote, and back to voicetrack for your sister station. In many cases, we are programming multiple stations, and in extreme cases, multiple markets! There doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day, right? Enter MusicMaster CS.

MusicMaster CS has a powerful set of tools, functions, and even automated tasks ( for more on Automated Tasks, check out this blog….brilliantly written by….um…well, ok, I wrote it, but it is still pretty solid!) https://musicmaster.com/?p=11521>.

Let’s say I am the Market PD and I need to schedule music for the week for several stations. Using MMCS, I no longer need to do them one at a time. I can schedule all of them at the same time! Crazy right?! Here’s how you do it. Just open the Automatic Scheduler in the Enterprise and select the stations you need to schedule. Configure your settings. Check the box to “Schedule Simultaneously” and click OK.

It is an incredible time saver, but now that you’re sitting there in disbelief, it is time for me to blow your mind! Remember earlier when I mentioned Automated Tasks? You can set up an Automated Task to do the scheduling at a time you prefer. Imagine having MMCS schedule your stations for the entire week while you’re at home sleeping! Review my Automated Task blog to see how. It is pretty cool to walk into the station the next morning and only have to edit/massage the logs. Heck, you can even set up an automated task to export the logs!

MusicMaster CS solves a lot of problems and gives today’s modern user/music scheduler some incredible abilities to lift our mounting responsibilities and allow us to pay attention to the really important details of our workday.

by Brian Wheeler

Sharing clocks between databases is a very useful feature in MusicMaster Pro, and it becomes even easier to share in MusicMaster CS and MusicMaster Web Client.

There are two ways you can share your clocks in CS and Web Client. The traditional way of exporting the desired clocks and creating a Clocks.mmdex file is still possible. But I’ll also show you a new way to share clocks on these platforms.

In this photo, I demonstrate how to export clocks using an .mmdex file. You simply select the clocks you wish to share from your source station and select Export. At that point, MusicMaster will create an external file called Clocks.mmdex.

Once this file is saved, you simply go to your target station and import the Clocks.mmdex file to introduce these new clocks to your target. Note that items like forced elements pointing to specific song IDs will not carry over and must be reconfigured in your target station.

And this is how this feature looks in our Web Client. Very similar.

This is a fine way to share clocks from station to station in MusicMaster Pro, CS, and the Web Client.

In MusicMaster CS and the Web Client, sharing clocks is even easier AND more complete! In addition to the ability to share clocks as you always have in MusicMaster Pro, there is an additional way to share clocks, INCLUDING forced elements and other items that would traditionally need to be re-configured for your target station. I’ll explain.

Sometimes in the course of sharing clocks, there are elements that are unique to the source. Forced elements, etc. can’t be shared because they aren’t sourced the same from station to station. This is largely because Song IDs are used for forced elements and those numbers are unique to each database in MusicMaster Pro. With CS and the Web Client, your shared clocks will no longer yield unknown elements, as all those resources are shared at the Enterprise level. As a result, you are able to get the entire clock, elements and all.

Here’s how sharing clocks looks in MusicMaster CS. As an example, I’m ingesting clocks from another station within my network, taking a couple of clocks from my Classic Country station and ingesting them into my Hot Country station. I simply select the source station, then select the desired clocks.

The interface is identical in the Web Client. You simply indicate the source from which you’ll take clocks, select the desired clocks, and ingest them into your target station. Again, no more unknown elements, as you’re sharing these clocks internally.

The result is a seamless transition of your clocks from one station to another, elements and all.

As always, if you have any questions about this or any other feature, don’t hesitate to reach out to your MusicMaster MSC for more information!

by Vicky James

Are you over-clogging your database with duplicate titles in multiple categories to achieve a desired rotation for a specialty show or feature?

The Multiple Categories feature eliminates duplicating songs, allowing a single song the ability to be assigned to multiple categories while simultaneously maintaining its place in a normal rotation. You can add a song to as many different categories as you need.

For example, if you have an 80s Category, you may also want to use titles from that category to rotate during a specialty hour, such as The Party Playlist show featured on the weekends.

Here’s how to set it up:

To control this in CS, click the Edit Helper in the Category Field of a song in the library, and it will populate a box allowing you to select the Category.

Next, simply check each desired category where you wish the song to now live.

As seen in the image below, the song “1999″ by Prince is in the 80s Category. I have checked the PP category, and now “1999” will live in both categories.

Once the song has been added to the desired categories,  you can see it resides in both.

The Multiple Category feature is also available in the Web Client with nearly the same process.

In the Library Maintenance window, hover over the Edit Helper in the category field.

When you click into the editor, you can check each category to which “1999″ should be added.

As you can see in the image, I have selected the PP category. Now, “1999” will live in both categories.

Now, if you query that song, you will see it is in both categories!

For further help on Multiple Categories or to learn about more features in CS or the Web Client, feel free to reach out to your support rep!

By Dave Tyler

Let’s talk about a cool feature of MusicMaster CS. It is the Field Override function. I remember sitting in my office with other Program Directors and Music Directors going over new music (and sometimes older tunes) that we were adding to our individual stations’ playlists. I can’t tell you how many friendly arguments we had over Tempo codes! For reference, I am a 1-5 guy when it comes to tempo. That means:

1-Slow

2-Slow/Medium

3-Medium

4-Medium/Fast

5-Fast

I know many folks who do 1-3 or even 1-9. So anyway, I’d throw a song on to preview and say that’s a 3 (medium), and my CHR buddy would be like “You’re crazy dude, a 2 at the most and even that’s borderline” while my Light A/C pal would be like, “That’s a 4 for me!” And ya’ know what? We were all right! Tempo is subjective, but it could also vary on the same station depending on the kind of show or programming it is being featured in.

First, let’s look at the setup for a Tempo field that can be overridden. In Enterpris,e we can go to Library/Fields and we’ll “Create A New Field” that is a Tempo overall field (meaning it can only have one code, the song is a “3” or Medium overall). We’ll also check the box to make it able to be overridden, which gives it a superpower!

I would then go to Library/Attributes and assign my codes like the picture below.

Great! I now have available codes for Tempo for my songs. One song that pops into my mind is The Doobie Brothers’ “Listen To The Music”. Great song! My station is a Classic Hits station that leans a little Classic Rock during the day, but then our evening show is more of a Light Yacht Rock type thing. Because I have multiple stations that will use this song, I code it in Enterprise as I see it, and I feel it is a 3-Medium overall. Sure, it has some tempo, but considering the energy of the song, to me it is a Medium. The funny thing is I can hear a bunch of you going “Listen man that thing is a 4 all day long!” and that’s ok!

Now I go to my station and find that song. I have this song in two categories. My D1 category is an active category during my regular programming, while my RR category is only active during my Light Yacht Rock segment. To reiterate, during the day I consider this song a Medium, but I also include it in my Light Yacht Rock deal. There, because the overall vibe and tempo of the show is lighter and slower, this song in relation to the others in my evening show is a flame thrower, one of the faster songs, so it is coded a 5 in that category. Starting to make sense?

If I wanted to see what all of the settings were for Tempo on this song are, I can click Ctrl-O (O as in Override) and it will display that information for me.

As you can see, there is also a “Station” section. Let’s say Enterprise has this song coded at a 3, but I am a Light Classic Hits station…. then I might code it as a 4 or 5 at the station level. The Category section only comes into play if the song is in multiple categories in the same station.

Ok, so that is clearly useful and cool, and the more you let the idea of Field Override simmer, the more places you’ll find it can be used. So, with your mind already blown, let’s transition to our MusicMaster Web Client version for CS. I don’t mean to brag here (which really means: put some rocks in your pockets cuz the wind is gonna blow!) MusicMaster CS Web was the 2025 NAB Show Radio World “Best In Show” winner!!!!! But again, not bragging….just saying wink wink.

If you are CS Version 3 or higher, then the web client may be available to you. I am going to go to my station on the web and see if I have or need to create a Tempo field that can be overridden. As we know, I already have a field like this, but if you didn’t, then within Enterprise on the web, you could go to Library/Fields/Create New Field and make one. Just be sure to check the “Override” button, and when you do, voila, you have the field.

Or you might already have a Tempo overall field, but it is not set to be overridden. Bummer! But hey, this is MusicMaster, and we want you to have what you want. Though not all fields can be overridden, for this one, I can go to Library/Fields and click the “Make Field Overridable” and boom, there it is!

Now, if you want to see the override information in the Web client, just open the song in Library Maintenance and click the Field Override button, and it will display.

Field Override adds another layer of amazingness to an already incredible platform to project your station as high as you want to go.

by Brian Wheeler

With the ability to manage your data at the Enterprise level comes some interesting and valuable perks. One such perk is the easy management of shared assets across the many stations you manage. Should you decide to require cross-station song rest across multiple stations using the same songs, it’s very easy to enforce in our CS and Web products.

Here is how the rules would look in your CS software. Your available rules appear on the right, with controls for song rest, as well as Keyword time separation available for any keyword fields that are shared.

In this photo, I’ve enacted the Cross-station minimum rest and have made it unbreakable in all categories with a setting of 1 hour and 15 minutes minimum rest across all applicable stations. When you enforce this rule, another screen appears, and you’re able to select the stations that may share these titles that will also adhere to these rules.

This feature is also available in our Web Client. Here you can see that I’ve enabled a Cross-station keyword time separation of 45 minutes.

And below, I’ve been able to set the stations participating in this separation. A couple of clicks and I’m cross-protecting multiple stations at once!

In most cases, you may also wish to consider ignoring individual keyword settings when enacting this rule. By checking the box seen below, the rule adheres to the specific setting you apply for all stations.

In this case, 17 minutes is just enough to provide a cross-station buffer. That way, you’re not handcuffing another station with your stricter individual keyword settings.

This is just one of many exciting new features available to our MusicMaster CS and Web Client customers.

by Chris Hulsether

So, you’re ready to dive into user and role management in MusicMaster CS? Awesome! Whether you’re a radio programming pro or just got roped into “admin duty,” this guide will help you breeze through setting up users and roles like a boss.

Let’s break it down step by step (no tech degree required!).

First Up: USERS

This is where you create and manage the people who will use MusicMaster CS. Think of it as building your team’s backstage pass. But hold up—you can’t assign permissions to users until you’ve created Roles first! So let’s talk about that…

You will get an Add Role box where you will have a drop-down listing the available Roles. You can then determine which Stations the user will have access to. I will have more on how to create Roles in a moment!

What Are ROLES?

Roles are collections of permissions. You can think of them like job titles—“Program Director,” “Music Scheduler,” “Super Admin,” etc. Instead of assigning every little permission one by one to each user (ugh, tedious!), you bundle up what they can do into a role and assign it in one shot. Boom. Efficiency.

Oh—and here’s the cool part: Roles are cumulative. That means if you give a user more than one role, they get the combined permissions of all those roles. Double win!

I have more on Roles in a little bit, now back to adding a new user!

Adding a New User

When you open the user section, you’ll get a screen where you can fill in their basic info (name, email, username, password—you know the drill).

Once you click Add, you’ll be prompted to assign a role. You can pick the station(s) they should have access to, and the role(s) they’ll rock in those stations.

Bonus: You can assign multiple roles to one user! For example, Jeff might be the Programming guru at MMCS-FM and also the Music Director at MMCS-AM.

As you add roles, the Permissions panel will update to show everything the user can do across all their roles. It’s a live, running list of what kind of power they have.

Enterprise vs. Station Roles

There are two types of roles:

• Enterprise – system-wide access
• Station – station-specific access

Each permission shows up color-coded (green, yellow, red) so you know at a glance what they can and can’t do.

Role Options in MusicMaster CS: Who Does What?

So you’ve got users, and now it’s time to assign them some superpowers a.k.a. Roles. In MusicMaster CS, there are two types of roles: Enterprise (big picture stuff) and Station (focused, boots-on-the-ground tasks).

The cool part? Remember, Roles are cumulative—give a user multiple roles, and they get all the permissions combined. Like stacking power-ups.

Here’s a breakdown of what each role can do, divided into two neat lists for your scrolling pleasure:

Enterprise Rights

Station Rights

📌 Pro Tip: If a user is assigned the Super Administrator role, it overrides all other roles—kind of like becoming the DJ Jedi Master.

Need help assigning the right roles?
Your Music Scheduling Consultant is always just a message away. Reach out if you need a hand getting things tuned just right!

Manage Like a Pro

From the Manage Users and Roles screen, you can edit, clone, or delete users and roles. Want to duplicate a user’s setup? Just right-click and clone. Easy setup = more time for coffee.

Same goes for roles—clone one, tweak it slightly, and save under a new name. Super handy when you’ve got similar but not identical responsibilities to assign.

Active Directory? No Problem!

If your team uses Active Directory, you’ll also see an option for “External Account.” You can link their AD profile with the MusicMaster CS account. Quick and painless.

Importing & Exporting Users

Want to add a bunch of users at once? Import a .CSV file with the correct columns and boom, they’re in. You can also export the list to use in another database.

Want to Spy—uh, Check Who’s Logged In?

You can even see which users are currently logged in, when their session started, and what station they’re working on. No judgment, just transparency.

Got Questions?

If you’re unsure about anything or want some help getting your roles set up just right, don’t hesitate to reach out to your Music Scheduling Consultant. They’re awesome and ready to help you fine-tune your setup like a hit playlist.

That’s it! You’re now fully equipped to master Users and Roles in MusicMaster CS. Go forth and assign!

By Dave Tyler

In the current age of broadcasting, the idea of being just a Production Director or Music Director or any other position in a station simply doesn’t exist. All employees, no matter what level, are expected to wear multiple hats and shoulder a variety of responsibilities. As the leader in music scheduling, MusicMaster understands that any time we can save you something as small as a mouse click will save you time and allow you to better manage your workload.

MusicMaster CS is a robust platform that streamlines so many of our daily tasks. CS can manage hundreds of stations and/or formats, thousands of songs, and so much more, all from one place. CS allows top-level users to manage this and assign user roles at the station level.

As someone who has programmed multiple stations and formats at the same time, I know it can be daunting to get everything done. With fewer staff members in stations these days, we do not always have the luxury of delegating. The plates that we have spinning are our plates, so time management quickly becomes a prime concern.

What is priority number one? We can say making money, and that is true to a degree. I mean, we need to keep the doors open. But at the end of the day we need to have our product, our programming on the air. There must be something to view or listen to, and therefore something to sell.

You can imagine that a market programmer, regional programmer, or national programmer needs an efficient workflow that can accomplish intriguing programming across potentially dozens to hundreds of stations. You may think this is more than one person can do. Well… it was.

MusicMaster CS has a feature that we as programmers have been wanting since the birth of music scheduling software. The ability to have the program automatically schedule music logs! What??? Yep, it is a reality now. MusicMaster CS has a mega feature called Automated Tasks!

• Which Automated Tasks are currently available? Let me tell you:
• Category Sync
• Create Database backup
• Create Station backup
• Export to Automation
• Export Special History Report
• Library Sync
• Nexus Publish Meta Data
• Publish Changed Hours
• Purge History
• Reconcile Schedule
• Send Queued Notifications
• Station Distribution

Impressive right? And you can set it up to have these tasks happen while you’re sleeping or on vacation or as part of the weekly routine to give you more time to give attention to your other responsibilities.

Today, we are going to focus on the all-important “Having something on the air” thing. Let’s set up an automated task for scheduling music. Enterprise is the mothership of CS. It is the main control room for all the data for the various stations/formats etc. From here, we will set up (or add) an Automated Task.

Once I click Add New Automated Task, I will see a box that allows me to set up which feature I want (Start Automatic Scheduler). I make music changes on Tuesday and run the task Tuesday night at 8p for (Thursday-Wed) and that gives me Wednesday to edit/massage my logs before exporting them to automation to begin on Thursday. I then click on Details to set up which station(s) I want this to apply to.

I have selected two stations: Dave and Smooth Jazz and I have selected to schedule out for 7 days which is 168 hours. (Through next Wednesday)

When I select the station(s) I want, the configuration box will immediately open. If you have used MusicMaster Pro in the past, this box will look familiar. You can set which categories are to be scheduled, the options you desire, and any filters you may need for the scheduling session.

Once done here, click OK and then OK again on the Stations screen. Then, hit Save on the “Add Automated Task” screen and guess what? It’s done. Your music will schedule automatically week after week, even if you’re sipping an umbrella drink by a pool somewhere!

Now I know what you’re thinking: that’s great that it’s scheduled, but now the logs are just sitting there. As mentioned, I can manually export those logs on Wednesday to automation, or… and this process will be another blog… but you can also use Automated Tasks to set up an automatic “Export to Automation” task! I can hear the “Whoa, that’s cool!” and high-fives from my desk right now.

Automated Tasks is a feature that schedulers like us have wanted for many years, and it is here. This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the sheer power and rich features of MusicMaster CS. As always if you have any questions, you can always reach out to your MusicMaster rep for answers.

by Brian Wheeler

A fantastic feature of MusicMaster Client-Server is the ability to use category groups to set specific rules for your station’s database. For example, if you decide you want to have a specific set of rules that only your current categories would use, you can achieve this by applying rules in a Current Category folder in your rule tree. This allows you to set rules that only apply to the current categories indicated therein, enabling you to quickly apply rules to a group of categories without having to individualize the rules for each category. You can still create individual rules for individual categories, of course, but if there are broad rule applications you’d like to apply to a specific group of categories, Category Groups streamlines the task.

The first step in the process is to define a category group. To do this, go to Library, Categories, or simply right-click on your Info Bar and select Category Groups. You can now select the categories you wish to include in the category group, name the group, and then save your group. The new group will now appear in your rule tree.

Pictured here is a rule tree with several specific category groups. Note: the category groups entitled Music Categories and Non-Music categories will be pre-built in your database.

Using the category groups already in place, you can apply rules to all of your Music categories and a separate set of rules for all of your Non-Music categories if you so choose. In my photo example, this database can now have another set of rules for Currents and Recurrents, and yet another set of rules for Golds can be enforced as well. Perhaps you want to have more relaxed rules for your holiday music? You can do it with ease by using the Category Groups.

Of course, MusicMaster CS still provides all the capabilities of MusicMaster Pro, with the ability to apply rules to all categories, rules isolated by category, the ability to bypass specific categories, and our world-class Optimum Goal Scheduling features.

As always, should you have any questions regarding this great new feature or any others in MusicMaster Pro or MusicMaster CS, your helpful MusicMaster Scheduling Consultants are a phone call or email away!