MusicMaster Blog

Level Up!

By Dave Tyler

As a Music Scheduling Consultant for MusicMaster and a 35+ year radio veteran, I have used just about all the scheduling software programs available over the years. I see time and time again how intuitive and powerful MusicMaster is. If you want to do it, if you can hear it in your head, MusicMaster can make it happen. There is so much horsepower under the hood and so many tools in the trunk it will blow your mind.

Recently I had a top-notch programmer, who is very detailed oriented and knows everything about his database, contact me with any interesting question. He was running a “Quiet Storm” type program on Saturday nights and in keeping with that style it was all slow songs. His issue was that he knew he had to increase his search depth but when he did that he did not like how it affected his regular week rotations and asked if there was a solution.

It was my pleasure to say “YES!!!”. During the week he wanted his A category to only dig 1 deep and other categories no more than 50% however on Saturday nights he needed to dig deeper because he had clock filters in place calling for only Tempo 1 and 2 (Slow and Slow Medium) songs. Looking at his Schedule Properties window for his normal week (Dataset/Schedule/Schedule Properties) it looked similar to my example below:You can see in the top left corner that in “Level 1” his setting are consistent with what I mentioned above. This is the search depth settings for the entire week. Keep in mind though he wants these search depths to increase for one 5-hour period each week. To do this we need to level up! By pressing the little calendar icon to the left of where it says “Level 1” we will launch the “Show/Hide the Level Assignment Grid” and we see that it is all 1s across the week.

So let’s change the grid so Saturday night from 7p-Midnight now reflects a level setting of 2. Once we do that the drop down box displaying the level will also change to 2. We change our search depth settings to 100% and then click Save and we are done.

Now the client has accomplished the goal of increasing search depth during a certain time period automatically. This takes very little setup and is such a powerful tool!

For more information on how to do this or any other question you may have please contact your dedicated Music Scheduling Consultant. Our goal is for that great radio station you hear in your head to be coming out of the speakers of every radio in your market. Let’s make it happen!

MusicMaster WideOrbit Voice Tracking

By Jesus Rodriguez

Recently because of our industry’s current state and lockdowns, more stations have to resort to voice tracking. This blog will show you the standard and preferred method of setting up your MusicMaster database to voice track with WideOrbit, formerly known as SS32 or Scott Studios.

It is first essential to understand the different voice tracking “Join Types.”

Join Types:

JU = Join or link UP in the playlist or link the voice track to the playlist’s previous cut. This prefix would be used when coming out of a song going into a non-song event such as a liner or a stop set.

JB = Join to BOTH the pre and post cuts and would be used when the voice track is between two songs

JD = Join DOWN to the post-cut only and would be used when the voice track follows a non-song event such as a commercial or imaging element

JN = Join NONE or NEITHER the pre nor post cut and would be used when a voice track is designated as a generic announcement such as a weather cut, and the voice talent knows to mention neither the pre nor post cuts.

Now let me explain why this is important. When recording the voice track, the voice talent announces the Title and Artist of either the cut before the voice track, the cut following the voice track, or both, and the JN prefix are used. One of the songs gets deleted or moved after the voice track is recorded, the voice track would play, and the listeners would hear the DJ announce the wrong Title and Artist of the cut that played on air. If the proper linking or “joining” prefixes are used, and the voice track loses its link to the event it was linked to when the voice track was recorded; the voice track will not play

How do we implement this into our MusicMaster data? There are two options: using a log note or creating a category or categories for each of the Join Types. I would advise you to consult with your WideObit representative on which method would be best for you. The log note type has been a heritage way of doing it, but it has some limitations if you plan to voice track for more than a month. You can copy and paste the log notes below that best suit the join type you need into your clock using the log note element type. Then adjust your air minute and seconds as shown below as 20:00 and your length of the voice track as shown below as 00:30.

Log note Method:

,,VTK,JUTIME,”20:00 Voicetrack”,,00:30,,,

,,VTK,JBTIME,”20:00 Voicetrack”,,00:30,,,

,,VTK,JNTIME,”20:00 Voicetrack”,,00:30,,,

,,VTK,JDTIME,”20:00 Voicetrack”,,00:30,,,

Category Method:

We have been advised that this is the preferred method to use, but there is no wrong answer here as every database’s needs are different. Once you have selected which Join Types you would like to use, create a category for each. You can create a new category by going to the menu bar Dataset, Library, Categories. Next, click on the Add button on the right in that window. Give it your Category Code, Category Name, Category Type, and Category Color. I would advise you to use the two-letter Join Type as your Category Code and the Join Type name as your Category Name for consistency.

After creating the categories, we will now make at least 1,000 song cards for 1,000 voice tracks that can be used. You can use a higher count if you do a lot of voice tracking. The goal here is to take weeks, if not months, before anyone’s voice track circles back around in rotation, preventing an accidental overwrite of a voice track pending to go live on air in the upcoming days. On the menu bar, go to Dataset, Library, Add New Songs, then type in 1000 or the amount you prefer and click ok.You will now see 1,000 empty song cards. Next, we will use the mass changer to assign the WideOrbit Category you are using for your voice tracks, the WideOrbit Type/Prefix, WideOrbit Asset/Cart number, and your Artist/Title description.

First righ- click within your WideOrbit Category Field of any song card, then select Mass Changer. Make sure your Target Field drop-down is set for the WideOrbit Category Field. The Operation drop-down should be set to Assign Specific Value. Songs to Change set to All Songs, Confirm Each Change I usually go with No, and Value to Assign type you will enter your WideOrbit Category Code for your voice tracks. Click ok, and you should now see your WideOrbit Category code in your field for all the items.

Next, let’s do the same process but for your WideOrbit Type/Prefix in the Target Field to add the JB join type or whichever you selected for the Value to Assign. Click ok, and you should get the same results of your join type populating in every item in that field.

It is time for the WideOrbit Asset/Cart numbers. You may have already been designated a series of cart numbers to use for your voice tracks, but if not, I like to use a high series of numbers like 8,000-8,999 if available. We will do the same process with the mass changer, but make sure your Target Field is your WideOrbit Asset/Cart number field, and your Operation is Assign Sequential Values. Set your starting value to the first number in your sequence. In my case, it will be 8000. You will click ok, and that field will populate with 8000 to the last number needed in sequence to fill them all.

We will now add your Artist and Title description to those fields. This process is the same as the first one we did but ensure your Target Field is set to Artist with Operation set to assign specific value. I like to keep it simple and use Voice Track as my value. You will click ok and see that description populate in that field in all your items. Repeat for your Title field. I tend to use Voice Track again to describe that field for consistency, but you are welcome to use anything you like, possibly your station name.

Last in the mass changer process will be your runtime. The process is the same as the previous ones to get to the mass changer then set your target field to Run Time and Operation to Assign Specific Value. You can have your run time value be what you like, as shown in my example below as 00:30. Click ok, and that length will populate in your field on all the items.

You can repeat these steps if you plan to use more than one Join Type. Your WideOrbit MusicMaster voice track category is now ready and should look something like this below.

You can now add this category to your clocks as fixed positions so that it rotates through them.

There are a couple more things I would suggest you do to guarantee an even rotation of your voice tracks and have no issues with rules interfering with your category. First, go to Dataset, Schedule, and Schedule Properties. Locate your category on the list and set the column for Depth to 1.

Second, go to Dataset, Schedule, Schedule Order, select your category from the drop-down, and click on the Category Order Management tab, which is the third tab in this window.Set the Stack Order Management to Standard Card File.

Finally, let’s make sure you do not have any rules affecting your voice track categories to plot naturally in sequential order. Go to Dataset and then to Rules on the Menu Bar. Once in the Rule Tree right click on the bold MusicMaster Rule Tree at the top, go to Rule Tree Properties.

Place a checkmark in the box for the voice track categories.

This selection means these categories will bypass the All-Category section of the Rule Tree so the tracks will plot naturally. Ideally, you would not have any rules in the category itself either, but if you need some for any reason, place your rules directly in the category itself.

You are now set and ready to voice track using MusicMaster with WideOrbit!

If you have any questions, please contact your Music Scheduling Consultant.

Search and Find within MusicMaster

By Chris Malone

If you do not have the Search Bar activated in MusicMaster, you may want to give it a try. Using the Search Bar is an efficient way to quickly search the library for existing song data.

To activate this feature and make it a part of your normal view, simply go to View from the file navigation menu and select Search Bar.

Many users rely on the Search Bar to find artist and title information across their entire database, but here is a quick tip to allow other data fields to become ‘searchable’ when you search the library.

Let’s use a scenario where the PD wants to be able to search the library by Wide Orbit Asset ID in order to quickly find the song he/she needs. You’ll need go to your Field Editor, under Dataset, Library, Fields and find the Wide Orbit Asset ID field so you can then set it to searchable. Below, we can see the WO Asset ID field properties box. You want to change the Search Bar option from No to Yes in order for this field to become searchable.

This will now allow you to search the library using Wide Orbit Asset ID in addition to other fields that may already be searchable in this database such as title and artist.

For example, if the PD is looking for cart number 2103, they can type that into the Search Bar and quickly locate the element attached to that cart number in their database.

As a warning, you do not want to go overboard with a ton of Search Bar friendly fields. Only use this for fields that are necessary to quickly call up data. For other items such as tempo, mood, and gender attributes, it’s best to use library queries under Library Maintenance. We have an instructional article to help better understand library queries here: https://musicmaster.com/?p=171

Final note: Use caution when adjusting anything in your Database Field Editor because it is foundational and not a commonly used area of the program. If you have any questions about what you want to change here, do not hesitate to call your MusicMaster Music Scheduling Consultant for assistance.

Diversity in MusicMaster

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

Diversity is a topic you often hear these days. If you’ve wondered how to take diversity into account but have struggled with the “how”, this is for you.

Like anything you wish to track, having fields that contain the information is essential. While you might be inclined to lump many diversity concepts into one field, it’s cleaner to keep individual criteria in their own field. Here are some examples of what the fields could be and the types of codes:

Gender

F=Female

M=Male

N=Non-binary

Nationality

A=American

C=Canadian

G=German

Race

A=Asian

B=African American

I=Indigenous

In MusicMaster PRO 7 you can go to Library, Fields to create these fields if needed. The above fields would be best suited to the Attribute-Multiple field type. You can make the length whatever you feel appropriate, keeping in mind that the length equals the numbers of individual codes you can put in the field. You can have many more codes available (all upper case, lower case, numbers and characters on the keyboard). For instance, if you give Race a length of 15, this means you could put 15 different Race codes on one song card.

With the fields now available, you can go through your library and add these codes to the music. [Tip: Adjust your layout and save it so you can come back to the same design while you are working on this.] Since you know your library so well, while this will take some time, it likely won’t be hard to do.

With the library coded, using Library Analysis on each of these fields for your active library will give you some idea of how your library is built. You can right-click to access Library Analysis. Whether you find issues or concerns with these results will strictly depend upon your programming objectives. If nothing else, it will help you identify areas where you might want to add or subtract songs. Here you can see the three defined Gender codes and their percentage. Only the active library was loaded, so this is an accurate reflection of the distribution of these codes in the music that is being rotated.

Next up is considering whether you would like to add Rules. A simple example would be adding a Gender F rule in a Rock station. I know what you’re thinking: I play mostly guys, why should I code for the female rockers? While it is common not to code or test for this since you are playing mostly guys, consider how often you want to play the ladies. By adding the Min\Max Quota for the Hour Rule, you could, for example, set it to one minimum, two maximum per hour, ensuring you will get your female rocker consistently. Here’s an example for my classical friends. Use that same Min\Max Quota for the Hour Rule to ensure you play one Romantic or Baroque work each hour. Of course, I hope you are now beginning to see that a rule like Min\Max Quota can help you with all of your diversity concerns. If you want a specific number per hour, this rule can help you do it. There is also a version of this rule that can be applied to the Sweep as well, further subdividing the hour.

With the library coded and rules in place, it’s time for accountability. That can be done in a couple of ways: Instant Analysis in the Schedule Editor and the History Browser. Each has its benefits and together you get the best possible picture of what has occurred in your logs.

Instant Analysis is a great way to focus on a specific thing that you want to track in your log. Combined with the ability to tailor the time periods, this feature gives you a quick view into how well you are meeting your goals during a specific time period.

Let’s set up Instant Analysis first. This is done in the Schedule Editor until Schedule Analysis. When it opens, pick the Instant Analysis tab.

You can add as many of these as you want. Notice I have a set for the current hour as well as the whole day. You’ll have various Display options so you get the data in way that makes sense to you. That might be a simple total or the count and total percentage. If you wanted, you could set up Tools, Options, Custom Time Periods, where you could create new time ranges. This would let you do something like 6am-6pm or any other daypart you want to look at more closely. Once created, those Custom Time Periods would be available to choose when you set up your panel.

With this set up, you can use the Toggle Toolbars icon to display Instant Analysis. Here’s what it looks like:

I can now see what my percentage is for each Gender. Since this updates as you look at replacement songs, you will instantly see how the change you are about to make affects your numbers.

The History Browser can be used to track your diversity (or any other) coding over a larger time frame, making sure you are meeting the “big picture” goals you have. Here’s a suggested setup:

Time Period – The last three months

Categories – Actively rotated music

Filters – None

Display – The field you want to review, in this example, Gender

Display Graph (lower portion) – Airtime Density

Here’s what it looks like:

This is a good illustration of how simply looking at a day can be misleading. If you look back up at the Instant Analysis example, the Gender M code played 37.18% during the day. In this three-month History Browser report, the total is 41.44%. Over a larger time frame, there was a subtle but noticeable increase in the Gender M code. Without using both of these tools, you would not know that.

I’ve given you a few examples of how to incorporate diversity into your playlist. You should see that coding for diversity isn’t any different than the other characteristics you likely code for in your library. Code for the diversity that is important for your community and musical genre and let MusicMaster help you do that.

Please do not hesitate to contact your Music Scheduling Consultant for assistance in any part of this process.

Scheduling from A Different Time Zone

By Jesus Rodriguez

It appears that with COVID and the unfortunate downsizing in our industry, there are more music schedulers doing logs for stations outside of their location. Some are scheduling for stations located in a completely different time zone. While some are scheduling music remotely, accessing a local machine at the station, or sending backups to each other so that the local office can export the logs. Others are doing everything from their home computer or office location while exporting the log directly to the station across the country.

So, what is the big issue, you ask? Many are exporting the same log to multiple stations and need for the shows to air at the same local time. For example, if you were scheduling in Los Angeles for New York, then the LA midnight hour is heard at 3 am in New York.

You could focus on having one log and share it among your other stations without any concern that your “Tune in at midnight tonight” show promo will be accurate with no problem that the show will air at 3 am because of your time zone difference. You probably already realized it takes a load of work off your plate by reading the last sentence not to manage two different databases.

The export design can assist you with this hurdle by using Time Shift located in the MusicMaster Export Designer. You can find this in the Start menu under “MusicMaster”. Open this and pick your station. Next, go to File then Design Properties. In the Misc. section, find “Time Shift Hours”.

You can export your New York copy of the log with by putting a 3 in Time Shift, which will export everything three hours back. This feature will help have a mirrored programming for any time zone where you share your logs. If you were in New York sending it the other way to LA, you would add a minus sign -3 in your Time Shift.

“But what about my sweepers? They are different at both markets that will never work for us!” I hear you loud and clear with have to answer for that too called Virtual Breaks. This feature allows you to select the correct sweepers for the proper export. Here is a video tutorial on that topic. https://youtu.be/73_7_74aYvE

Combined, these options give you the control to schedule your logs so they’ll sound the way you need them no matter what the time zone.

If you have any questions, reach out to your Music Scheduling Consultant.

Song Rest: Rules or Goals?

By Dave Tyler

We are all aiming for good, even rotations. We want all songs in our categories to play. It feels good when you look at the History Graph and see those beautiful patterns filling the day.

The starting point for this is song rest. If a song was not required to rest it would always be available to schedule and this could lead to potential problems. We all have those wonderful medium-tempo, feel good songs that are easy to schedule. If the song happens to be a one-hit wonder then it is even easier to schedule because Artist Separation is never a problem either. Without song rest, you could have a one-hit wonder scheduling more than a core artist. On the other end of the scale, you have songs that are more difficult to schedule. This might be because they are a fast or slow tempo or have a lot of featured artists on them causing Artist Separation rules to constantly fail.

Song Rest can help with these concerns. MusicMaster offers several ways to manage rest. Minimum Rest allows you set a custom time for a category so songs that have been scheduled sit on the bench and allow the other songs in the category to play. I love using the word “Churn” to describe this process. As the category churns we get to hear the entire category.

Setting a Minimum Rest rule requires some important math and is not something you just set off the top of your head. I don’t know about you but I know for sure math was not present on my list of why I want to be in radio! MusicMaster has several ways to find the right number. In your MusicMaster Rule Tree you can click on the magic wand icon and activate the Rule Wizard. This does all of the math you and I don’t want to do! It looks at how many songs are in the category and how many times you are calling for that category in clocks in your active grid and then offers a time that you can use. The brilliance is that the suggested Minimum Rest is only 60% of the slowest average turnover of the category. That means you can put this time in with the highest confidence it will not affect the rotation of a category.  Keep in mind if you make changes to your clocks or the size of your categories, these settings need to reviewed and corrected.

Below is a picture showing the Rule Wizard and we can see the time it suggests for the A category. To use this suggestion, I can just double click on it and it will either be added to my Rule Tree or update the existing rule.

You could also click on the Turnover Analysis icon and you will see the suggested Minimum Rest number there as well. Please note in the pic below the suggested rest is different than the one in the wizard but off by a single minute. Both numbers are good. The algorithm used by the Wizard brings the number to the nearest “5” while Turnover Analysis goes to the specific number but again both numbers are spot on!

Using the Turnover Analysis number you would now go back to the Rule Tree and either add the rule from the “Song History Rule” under the available rule types or adjust the existing rule in the Rule Tree.

….but wait there’s more! MusicMaster also pioneered the cutting-edge tool of “Optimum Scheduling Goals”. Unlike a rule that can potentially leave an unscheduled song if no song can be found that passes, Optimum Scheduling Goals search the entire search depth and break any ties with the Optimum Scheduling Goals you’ve chosen.  Even better, Optimum Scheduling Goals do all the math for you without reviewing it because it does this every time you schedule.

Here’s a simple overview of how Optimum Scheduling Goals work:

The search depth is reviewed and if there is only one song that meets all of the unbreakable and breakable rules, that song is scheduled. If there are multiple songs that meet this criteria or only songs that break breakable rules, the highest scoring songs are passed on to the Optimum Scheduling Goals to break the tie. A simple example is our Song Rest. What happens when there are multiple songs that all meet the Minimum Rest setting on the Category? Without the Optimum Scheduling Goals, the first song that passed the Minimum Rest rule would be scheduled. With the Optimum Scheduling Goals, it now looks to see if there might be an even better song it could schedule.

Now think about how this might work with the other rules you have in your Rule Tree.

If you have all of your rules for Artist Separation, Coding (tempo, etc.) and Hour Rotation AND you choose to use a Song Rest Optimum Scheduling Goal, MusicMaster make sure these rules are passed and should there be any tie, it will use the Song Rest Optimum Scheduling Goal to break the tie.

If you have all of the above rules as well as Minimum Rest and also included the Song Rest Optimum Scheduling Goal, this has the added benefit of making sure there is some “floor” to your Minimum Rest time and from there, the Optimum Scheduling Goal may come into play to give you even more.

Either way will handle Song Rest. The best one for you really comes down to your programming philosophy and how YOU want to manage or control rest with each category.

As always if you have any questions regarding rules or goals just call your Music Scheduling Consultant and let us help.

Library Maintenance Time Savers

By Chris Malone

There are many ways to save time and cut corners when working on your library, but here are my top three ways to short cut library maintenance projects when you right click on any field in your database.

Mass Changer

This tool comes in handy for a variety of tasks such as: add/remove specific attributes or keywords, search and replace certain words or phrases or even assign sequential values to numerical fields. You can apply Mass Changer to other fields in your library maintenance (such as attribute and keyword fields).

I want to convert the Upper-Case titles to Mixed Case.

Warning: We recommend to ALWAYS take a backup before attempting to do any mass changer work in MusicMaster, these changes irreversible unless you have a current backup to restore.

Library Analysis

There is no need to pull out paper and pencil to figure out what’s going in a category or category group. You can run a Library Analysis to give you a view of what your inventory looks like with any given attribute or keyword. In this example, I opened our ‘Rotated Music’ category group and ran a library analysis on the Gender. This gives me a way to review my coding to better gauge if the station’s music selection is aligned with the overall strategy.

Find Matching Values

This tool allows you to find matching values across any given field in your library. In my example, I’m looking to add a ‘Slow Jams’ hour, so I conducted a Find Matching Values on the Tempo attribute field for the attribute code of 1 (which equals slow in this database). Now that I have the matching songs together, I can proceed to create a Save List that I can later use to build a Saved List clock with all ‘Slow Jams’.

You may already have a few ideas on how you can instantly get creative with our library maintenance tools to make life easier.

If you need any assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your MusicMaster Music Scheduling Consultant.

Daylight Saving Time – Hope Springs Eternal

By Brian Wheeler

I don’t know about you, but I’m about ready for Spring to arrive! It seems a lot of people have endured more than their fair share of Winter and it is time for things to thaw out a bit. With that change also comes a slight time shift for many of us. Here in the U.S. and Canada, we will ‘spring forward’ one hour on March 14, 2021. MusicMaster will skip an hour at 2 a.m. to account for this change.

There’s not much you’ll need to do for this. MusicMaster will take the settings from your computer operating system for how you’ll handle DST in your area, but you can check to see if your settings are correct in MusicMaster by going to Help, System information. That will bring up the following box:

As you can see, it states that Daylight Saving will be recognized on the second Sunday in March at 2 a.m., and the fallback will occur the first Sunday in November, also at 2 a.m.

To confirm that your copy of MusicMaster is set up to recognize Daylight Saving Time, go to Tools, Options, Additional Options. A zero in the Ignore DST column will ensure that normal Daylight Saving adjustments will occur. If you do not wish for MusicMaster to adjust for DST, you would place a 1 in the column.

NOTE:  If you are using MusicMaster CS, please go to Enterprise, Stations and pick your station.  Then go to the Misc. section to find the Ignore DST setting.

There will be a slight impact on your rotations on the morning of March 14^th because you are skipping an hour on the overnight. The good news is, the adjustment is happening in an hour on the overnight, and it’s a Sunday. Most programmers agree that listenership is a little different on the weekends, so by the time Monday rolls around your rotations will be back to normal and it should have little to no impact on your rotations for the week. To show you the difference, here is a normal five song, one song per hour current rotation:

Ahh…a nice stairstep pattern. Now here’s the same song after DST adjustment:

There is still a nice stair step pattern but if you look closely, the play On March 14 in the first capture is at 2am. In the capture above, you will see that it’s in the 3am hour. That gap is due to the extra hour being skipped. Again, after a day with these new rotations, the new pattern is fully established by Monday.

If you have any further questions regarding Daylight Saving adjustments, feel free to reach out to your MusicMaster Scheduling consultant and they can help get the spring back in your step.

And the winner of the MusicMaster User Tips Contest is…

by Brian Wheeler

Thank you to everyone who participated in our contest! We asked you, our faithful and ever-knowledgeable MusicMaster users to send us your Pro Tips for using MusicMaster. We received responses from all over the map. Our panel of judges have convened, and these are our three finalists:

Matt Pelishek, PD at 99.3 Life FM in Bakersfield says:

“My best tip that has saved me a ton of time is this – just call MusicMaster and let them figure it out, and then I take the credit at the station.”

That’s some pretty good advice, Matt! If you’re stuck and not quite sure how to do something, there’s no point in languishing any longer. Give MusicMaster a call and we can help!

Shawn Sullivan of Happy Trucker Productions sent along this gem:

“When I need to time out an hour, I set up a query to drop in at the end of my hour. I drag the query into the schedule editor, enter the time I am looking for, and MusicMaster gives me a list of songs with that exact runtime. Queries are a great way of getting what you’re looking for without a lot of hassle.”

Great suggestion, Shawn! That’s using your noggin for something more than a hat rack for that Happy Trucker Hat you’re sporting. By the way, how does a guy get one of those?

Our grand prize winner comes from The Great White North. Laurent Boulet from CJMF/FM93 in Quebec City, Quebec sent us these words of wisdom:

“My tip would only be 3 words

TAKE A BACKUP !

At the end  (or beginning) of each day   TAKE A BACKUP !

Before doing special operations like unscheduling  TAKE A BACKUP !

Before changing clocks  TAKE A BACKUP !

Before any kind of mass changes  TAKE A BACKUP !

Just for the fun of it  TAKE A BACKUP !

When there’s nothing good on TV  TAKE A BACKUP !

When you have no idea what to eat for dinner !   TAKE A BACKUP !

They literally take 3 seconds and you have no idea the amount of time they will save you when you lose something or do something wrong, or are not especially concentrated like that particular Thursday PM just before Christmas.

So   TAKE A BACKUP !”

Wiser words were never spoken, Laurent. We’ll be reaching out to Laurent to get him set up with a fabulous prize out of the prize closet. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Rule Tree Basics – The use of “Rule Groups”

By Joe Knapp

What is a Rule Group and why should you use it?

I refer to Rule Groups as boxes you can put some rules into.

Rule Groups give you the ability to use Dayparting or a Format Clock list to control when those rules apply, select which Categories will respect those rules and even let you apply a Filter to select which songs must test those rules.

You can put Rule Group “boxes” anywhere in your Rule Tree. They’re often used in the “All Categories” folder, but you can also use them in specific Category folders too.

Simply put, Rule Groups make it easier to organize and adjust rules.

When you open the Rule Tree, on top right-hand side is a Folder called: Special Rule Tree Items. Open the folder and you will see Rule Group inside. Grab the Rule Group with your mouse and drag that across to the “All Categories” folder, or to a specific Category folder on the left-hand side of the screen. Once you let go, the Rule Group Properties box will open automatically. Once you’ve added a Rule Group, you can right-click on it at any time to review or modify these Properties.

The six areas of the Rule Group you can adjust are highlighted below.

Let’s go over each of these and what it can do for you:

• Description: is just a name you give the Rule Group. Try to use a name that helps you remember the reason you want the rules included in this group, such as “Morning Drive Rules” or “Tempo Segue for Female Vocals.”
• Availability. This allows you to decide when the rules in this Rule Group are tested. Typically, programmers like to keep the rules engaged while using the auto scheduler and while editing. Some just want rules to apply only while auto-scheduling, others only while manually editing the logs. There is even a setting called “Rules in this group are never tested”. You can use this to “shut off” all the rules in this Rule Group without deleting them. This allows you to activate them again later.
• Time Restrictions. This allows you to “daypart” your rules. If you wanted a specialty show to sound a bit different than your normal programming, you can isolate different times of day and apply different rules to any location within the week. Remember that the Daypart codes you apply to Rule Groups may also be applied to songs. If you change a Daypart code, those changes will affect any song or Rule Group that uses that code. Consider naming any daypart for a Rule Group with something that makes it clear it’s used in the Rule Group, so you don’t accidentally change it and affect your rules.

What about the drop-down box in the Time Restrictions settings? That box says “Test against plays in any time period” by default. But what if you want to set up Hour Rotation rules that ignore weekday plays on weekends, and vice-versa? The option to “Ignore plays outside this time period” lets you do that. Put your weekend Hour Rotation rules in a Rule Group, daypart the Rule Group to only test on weekends, then set it to ignore plays outside the dayparted hours. MusicMaster will pretend the weekdays don’t even exist when testing these Hour Rotation rules on the weekend. You should also create a second Rule Group that is set up the same way but dayparted to only apply during the weekdays. The Hour Rotation rules you put in there will ignore plays that occurred on the weekend. There’s another option to “Ignore failures outside this time period.” Use this option when you want MusicMaster to see the plays outside the dayparted hours but ignore any failures against them. This is handy for special shows you might schedule on weekends where you only want MusicMaster to test the rules within the special show itself.

• Group Mode. Most people use “Test rules as if they are not in a rule group” because it allows them to see which individual rule failed in a Recap Report. “Rule Group fails when any included rule fails” causes the entire Rule Group to fail if any rule you’ve put in that group fails. MusicMaster doesn’t bother to test the rest of the rules in that group once it finds one rule that fails. When using this mode, you’ll see that the entire Rule Group failed in the Recap Report.

The most interesting option is “Rule Group fails when all included rules fail.” This one let’s you do some things that would be virtually impossible in any other system. For example, let’s say you don’t want two Slow Tempo songs that are both sung by Female vocalists to play back-to-back. It is alright, though, to play two Female vocalists back-to-back if one of them is not Slow. You’d put just two rules in the Rule Group to handle this special case. One would prevent two Slow songs from playing back-to-back and the other would prevent two Female songs from playing back-to-back. Both rules would have to fail before the Rule Group fails. If only one of them fails, the entire Rule Group passes.

• Clock Restrictions: You can use this if you’d rather just type in the Format Clock letter codes instead of using a Daypart code in the Time Restrictions section. For example, if you have a Sunday Morning Jazz show for four hours and you’re just using one or two clocks, typing in the Clock Codes separated by a comma would achieve the same exact thing as Dayparting the Rule Group. But, if you later move that show’s Clocks to different hours, the Rule Group will automatically follow that show to the new time period.
• Song Restrictions: This setting allows you to select a Filter and/or a list of Categories that would apply to this Rule Group. In my example screen shot, you’ll see the name of this Rule Group is Recurrent-Gold, so I’ve just selected those Categories and a fill category to adhere to the rules in this group. Note: If you have bypassed any Category using the All Category bypass option in the Rule Tree, that designation will supersede any settings here. In other words, if you bypass Category A, even if you include Category A on the category list here, it still will not be tested.

The Filter option is very powerful. It allows you to apply rules only to certain types of songs. For example, you might apply a special separation rule to songs with an Instrumental Sound Code if they also happen to be coded with a Jazz sound code.

How many Rule Groups can you have? As many as you like!

If you have any questions about Rule Groups, or would like to know more about the MusicMaster Rule Tree, contact your Music Scheduling Consultant, refer to the “Help” section of the software, or stop by our website and click on the “Learn” button.