MusicMaster Blog

Welcome to MusicMaster

BR Heimat – Munich, Germany; Wolfgang Radio – UK; Wisconsin 106-1 – Adams, WI; KGEZ – Kalispell, MT; KRRX, KSHA, Redding, CA; Now 107.5, Wolf Radio 95.7 – Chico, CA; WALS-FM, WSTQ-FM, WYYS-FM – Peru, IL; KBOY, 93.7 Now FM, 101.9 LiteFM, 105.1 The Wolf – Medford, OR;

The Official CRS 2015 Kick-Off Party – The Legends at Legends

MusicMaster is having a CRS party.  Would you like to come?

Visiting BVMedia

Max Müller and Rainer Eichhorn of ON AIR on their first trip in the new year, visited Roberto Bellotti of BVMedia, the Italian distributor for MusicMaster.

BVMedia just moved into their new office and showroom in the center of Milan. The new office looks fantastic and gives the chance to even do training sessions and bigger meetings there.

A lot of new projects were discussed and of course a good amount of great Italian food and super strong Espresso was enjoyed as well.

SCBA Winter Conference

Members of Team MusicMaster joined broadcasters from several Southeastern states at the annual South Carolina Broadcast Association Winter Conference. Radio, television, and social media broadcasters beat the winter blues at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center in downtown Columbia, SC on January 28 and 29, 2015.

Held each January, this conference features targeted training for sales and engineering professionals, general sessions for all attendees, a broadcast exhibition, a legislative breakfast, the Awards of Distinction Ceremony and an annual business meeting and elections.

MusicMaster gathered with automation partners Wide Orbit and ENCO to meet potential clients and visit with many current friends.

Ron Muffley, Network Engineering Manager, Bible Broadcasting Network visits with MusicMaster’s Jerry Butler

Ready for business at Wide Orbit with Lee Bell, Doug Bertelmann, and Brad Young

Trey Cooper, Engineering and Technical Guru, Radio Training Network, stops by the ENCO booth to chat with MusicMaster’s Shane Finch

Yodeling and more at Bavarias BR Heimat

Imagine the Bavarian Alps, a tasty beer and the sound of accordions, horns, a zither, a chopping board and from time to time some yodeling. You can’t? Then go and check BR Heimat and their very unique mix of authentic Bavarian Volksmusik!

Congratulations to Stefan Frühbeis (2^nd from the left) and his team who put a lot of effort in listening, choosing and categorizing thousands of Volkmusik tunes during the last months.

For those of you who’ve never seen all those strange instruments played in Bavarian Volksmusik, have a look at two very typical ones: the Hackbrett (chopping board) and the Zither.

BR Heimat went on-air a few days ago, it’s on DAB+ and Web and is managed by the MusicMaster Pros from German public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich.

MusicMaster Visits The Dude

After a successful conference with South Carolina broadcasters, MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant Jerry Butler invaded the Dallas Reese Morning Show at 94.3 The Dude!

MusicMaster Visits Alpha Media

The MusicMaster guys will look for any excuse to visit radio stations and to visit beautiful Savannah, GA. MusicMaster’s Jerry Butler and Shane Finch drop in for a quick chat with Alpha Media’s T.C. Michaels, and meet several of his co-workers.

From left to right: Gabe Reynolds – Operations Manager, Alpha Media Savannah; TC Michaels – WUBB BOB 106.9 Program Director; Zoey – Midday’s on WFXH Rock 106.1; Jerry Butler and Shane Finch of MusicMaster; Jonathan Channel – Afternoons on WXYY Y100; and Ryan Koch – MD and Nights on WFXH Rock 106.1

MusicMaster Visits Wisconsin Stations

Melanie Ross, Director of Marketing for MusicMaster, was in Wisconsin last week so of course she wanted to stop by and say hello to some of our MusicMaster Family.

Melanie Ross, Director of Marketing with Jeff McCarthy, Vice President-Programming, Midwest Communications

Jason Schmidt, IT Manager Entercom; Leigh McNabb, DJ 103.7 Kiss FM; Brian Kelly, Vice President of Operations, Entercom Milwaukee, 103.7 KISS, 99.1, and 1250; and   Melanie Ross, Director of Marketing, MusicMaster

Melanie Ross, Marketing Director for MusicMaster with Bob Bellini, Operations Manager for WKLH, WJMR and WNRG Milwaukee, Saga Communications

What Are You Thinking?

Getting comments and feedback from clients is always important and it’s one of the reasons MusicMaster is the great program it is today.  We have many ways you can do that and we’ve just added a new one:  making a comment on articles you find on our website blog and news articles.  Simply click on the header link of any post to view the entire article and at the bottom you’ll see your opportunity to comment on it.  Yes, you have to log in, but it’s likely you already have credentials to log in since you can log on using your Facebook or Google account to name a few. Of course, you can also create an account just for this as well. Join in and let us know your thoughts on what you find on our site.  We can’t wait to see what you think!

5.0sr14 is now Available

Go to Help, Check for Update to get the latest service release of MusicMaster Pro. This has lots of handy new features including the ability to click the Hour Selection bar in the Editor to the “now” time of today’s log while Instant Analysis can be set to show all panels no matter where the pointer is (see the Quick Tip for more details). Numeric and Currency fields are now right-justified. We’ve added a few more Special History reports as we continue to see MusicMaster used around the world and even added the ability to force a path when running the reports. We’ve improved RealTime, our in-studio component (thanks to WXRT Chicago for their assistance) as well as continuing to update our Nexus interface. Should you need any help with installing the update, please contact your Music Scheduling Consultant. Happy Scheduling!

Music Master of the Month

Dean Warfield
Program Director
650 AM WSM
Nashville, TN

“MusicMaster is vital to programming a station like 650 AM WSM. Five decades of music that include bluegrass, traditional, legends, and live cuts from the Grand Ole Opry, is a lot to keep up with and MusicMaster makes it all come together! Scheduling becomes less time consuming by digging into the database and utilizing the power of the software to find the desired sound and flow of music and imaging. One of the most important parts of MusicMaster is the incredible support team. From the novice to the seasoned pro, they are there with answers to your questions and come through with the solutions.”

Quick Tip: Schedule Analysis

If you use Custom Time Period settings, you may be interested in a recent change to the Schedule Analysis settings. If you are not in the time frame of the Custom Time Period, the Instant Analysis box would not display the information. For instance, if you had a Custom Time Period setting of 6a-6p to review something and you were looking at the 1am hour, you would not see that information. With the release of 5.0sr14, you can now check the “Always Visible” box in the setup so no matter what hour you are looking at, the information will display in Instant Analysis.

Recent Feature Articles From the MusicMaster Blog

In Case You Missed It: A Few Simple Rules
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. (Read more.)

In Case You Missed It: Scheduling Intros
By Paul Ziino

Lots of MusicMaster customers use Segue Protection rules to make sure slow songs don’t segue into fast songs or to prevent female artists from playing back-to-back. But have you ever considered using Segue Protection to match the talk-over times to the appropriate song intros? (Read more.)

Industry Event Calendar

There are industry events and conventions every month around the world. We always appreciate meeting our customers and finding out how MusicMaster is working for them. If you’re planning on attending any of these events, let us know. We’d love to meet with you if possible.

• February 8-10: Salon de la Radio – Paris, France
• February 23-26: NRB International Christian Media Convention – Nashville, TN
• February 25-27: Country Radio Broadcasters Country Radio Seminar – Nashville, TN
• March 4-5: Radio Ink Hispanic Radio Conference – Dallas, TX
• March 10-11: Great Lakes Broadcast Conference – Lansing, MI
• March 10-12: CABSAT 2015 – Dubai, UAE
• March 1519: Radiodays Europe – Milan, Italy
• March 26-27: Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters Annual Convention – Oklahoma City, OK
• April 11-16: National Association of Broadcasters Annual Show – Las Vegas, NV
• April 12: RAIN Summit West – Las Vegas, NV
• April 22-24: AllAccess.com Worldwide Radio Summit – Hollywood, CA
• June 2-5: BroadcastAsia2015 – Singapore