MusicMaster Blog

By Marianne Burkett

Special Sets in MusicMaster are a great way to do things like twofers, matching up artist liners to songs, etc.  As we build our clocks with special sets, sometimes we do things in a hurry and forget the important details section.  In the example below, you’ll see the special set is matching up Title Keywords with the setting of All(Exact).  It is looking at Next Song (Music Only).  In the bottom area we’re using rules from the category “Artist Intros” and Bypassing any rules that might keep Title Keywords apart.

A Special Set in this configuration would need an Exact Match in the Title Keyword Field in both the Non-Music Artist liner category and the Music Category that comes after the Special Set in the clock.  It will only work with an Exact Match from Field to Field.  The liner is looking at the next song scheduled.

The following configuration would work if you didn’t have an artist liner produced yet for a specific song and wanted some kind of Generic liner to schedule automatically.  You would put a Generic keyword in the song and liners and add the generic category to the Special Set.  Your match configuration could be “1^st to Any” or “Any to Any”.

I receive calls on a regular basis when “some” Special Sets are working and “some” are not.  It’s all a matter of going directly to the specific clock where the Special Set isn’t working and examining the configuration.

If you are careful setting them up, you shouldn’t have issues.   A book could be written on this subject alone, but today’s blog is just a reminder for you to be careful when adding your Special Sets.  Pay attention to which direction you are looking in (next or previous, song or music only), what Field are you matching and the type of match (Exact, First, Any or All).  When done correctly, Special Sets save you massive amounts of TSE (Time Spent Editing).

As always, if you have any questions, just give us a call.  Happy Scheduling.

By Brian Wheeler

You had your rules perfectly set. Your categories were looking good, rotations were purring along, things were going nicely. But in recent days, things aren’t rotating quite like they were. Your well-oiled machine is now running like a misfiring jalopy. What could it be? It might be time to analyze your data.

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By Dave Tyler

I am glad you are here and reading our blogs. All of our blogs are written our staff who are long time radio pros, your colleagues, and there are a ton of great ideas here.

As programmers, we all schedule our music and then “massage” it – or check it out to fill any unscheduled positions and just give it a good once over to make sure tomorrow’s music will sound the way it should. Some programmers just schedule and send the log, while others will take an hour or more to look over every transition. I will say this up front, MusicMaster gives you all of the tools you could possibly need to basically schedule, check for any unscheduled positions, and send a great log. If your database is built well from the category level up through your clocks, grids and into well thought-out coding and rules, then there should be very little left to do after hitting “Auto-Schedule”. With all of that said, the prideful Programmer still wants to make sure he/she is sending the best product.  I would like to suggest a great way to “Listen” to your log!

Before being able to listen to your log you are going to need to link your song cards to the actual audio. This can be done via Audio File Settings in Tools/Options. One of my compadres here at MusicMaster wrote a terrific blog on how to set up your audio.

Once your Audio Files are setup, then you can open a scheduled log. In my example, I right click on Shannon Lawson, then select Audio, and I get a lot of different options as you can see below:

You may choose to play an entire song or play all remaining songs. One of my favorite tools here is to “Scope All Remaining Songs”.  Using my example, if I were to choose this here, it would play the intro of Shannon’s song to the vocal then fade and play the end of the song followed by the TOH ID, and then the intro to Garth and so on. You could literally listen to your entire log in this “Scoped” fashion. There are several options for you to explore, but this is an innovative way to actually hear the flow and vibe of the day you scheduled.

There are so many cool tools for you to use in MusicMaster, so explore and find what works for you and if you need any help, any one of us on the Support team would be eager to help you.

By Jesus Rodriguez

Are you sure your station is the format you think it is? Whether it’s the genre in general that you play or how the different sub-genres play on your station, I’d like to take you through an exercise to so you understand exactly what your format at this moment.

I often get calls from users saying that they hear too much R&B on a Hip Hop station, the CHR station is playing too much Urban music, the bilingual station is playing more English music than average, the rock station sounds too alternative, etc. I usually get these calls the most right after music test results have been implemented or when there’s a wave of music shifting in the format. When I get a call saying “Jesus I just can’t have this playing so much, we aren’t that kind of format!”, rather than giving a verbal response, I show the user the facts. You can do the same.

I hear it all the time, “My station needs to be 50/50, 60/40, 70/30, etc.” If you ever question whether your station’s mood, tempo, amount of songs by an artist, sound codes, or just about anything is off (where you hear more of one over the others), there is a feature that will be helpful to you.

Right-click on any field and click on Library Analysis. You will get a window similar to this one below giving you the numbers for those items currently in your library view.

In the above example, I had a client that has a bilingual station that had to be 60/40 with Spanish as the dominant sound, and they felt that they weren’t getting that anymore. Well, I was able to break it to them that their library was closer to 50/50. For CHR stations that no longer hear so much pop, I might show them that actually, they’re more of an urban station because of the sudden influx of Drake, Rihanna, Post Malone, Kendrick Lamar, and others crossing over. The Hip Hop stations are more R&B because their tempo analysis shows that their hip-hop artists went soft with their new music. You can imagine how this could happen to just about any station format over time or after a music test. Either the charts are having you shift towards a different genre, or your listeners at your test just told you they prefer to listen to a different style than what you thought.

Now that you know how to run Library Analysis, you can also confirm what you get in the Schedule Editor as well. Everyone has their ideal percentage of how many types of songs should be in every hour so they can hit that 50/50, 60/40, 70/30, etc. The Schedule Analysis feature allows you to monitor this while you are in the Editor.

Check out this Schedule Analysis Blog by my colleague Paul Ziino called “Analyze Your Schedule”.

I hope this becomes an eye-opening experience that helps get your station back on course to the format you claim to be with your listeners. It does not mean that you have to remove any songs to find that balance, because I am sure you may still want to play those hits. You can tweak your rules to help prevent those specific types of songs from playing to close to each other making you sound like your competition or a different format altogether.

If you need any assistance with this please contact your MusicMaster support representative today.

By Paul Ziino

You’ve been working hard.  You’re thinking about your radio station all the time.  You’re at dinner with friends, and you’re silently chewing on ideas for some new clocks.  Instead of singing in the shower, you’re thinking about getting your imaging and music to sing together.  At the movies, you’re not paying attention to the plot, instead you’re thinking about the pay raise you’ll get when your improved ratings come out after you implement all the changes you have in mind.

But there’s a problem.  How do you get all those changes in place without screwing up what’s already on the air?  The solution is to clone your database.  This way you can make all those changes you’re thinking about, try them out off the air, and when you have it just right, switch to the clone!

It’s really very easy to clone your database in MusicMaster Pro.  If you’re already in your data, go to File and Close Dataset.  Now click File/Open Dataset, select the database you want to make a duplicate of and click “Clone.”  You’ll be allowed to give the clone a new name at this point—maybe something like “Clone of Wxyz.”

When it’s all done, you have an exact duplicate of your database.  That means the export design is still there, and your definition files will still work.  Your library and clocks are all the same.  Your layouts are just as you’re accustomed.  Even your username and password are the same.

Now, get to work!

By Jerry Butler

Are you wondering why a certain song scheduled that you don’t think it should have at that time?  Quite often, the song was placed manually by someone and not automatically scheduled by MusicMaster.  If you would like to see what items were manually placed in your log, MusicMaster makes it easy to see that information.

While in the log editor, click on modify editor layout.  (Pencil and Paper Icon)

Scroll down and select Schedule: Manual field and move it over to selected fields and click OK.

I’ve put the Schedule: Manual field 2^nd for this demonstration, so it’s easy to see which songs have been manually scheduled.  The “M” signifies a manually placed element.

This is just one more way MusicMaster provides useful information to you while you are editing.  Contact your Music Scheduling Consultant for more information and other tips to speed up your editing.

By Marianne Burkett

So, you have a 5’oclock Free Ride feature and you want specific rules to fit the hour.

You want no slow songs, no buzz killer songs, right?  Just music that will pick up the spirits of those stuck in the car, in rush hour traffic.

With MusicMaster, if there’s a will there’s a way.

Let’s go to the Rule Tree and set up some custom rules for your 5pm clock(s)!

Go to: Dataset/Rule Tree or just click on the Lightning Bolt Icon.  At the top right-hand side of the Rule Tree in Available Rule Types is the folder “Special Rule Tree Items”.  Inside that folder is “Rule Group”.

Pull the Rule Group over to the Unbreakable All Categories folder.  The Rule Group properties will open up once you’ve dropped it in the folder.

You only have a few clocks assigned to your 5pm hour so this will be quick.

First fill out the “Description” field and give your rule group a name, then move over to “Group Mode” and select “Test Rules as if they’re not in a group”. (When you use the recap report, you’ll be able to see what rules in the rule group are failing or having difficulty if you chose this option.)

Next, go to the “Clock Restrictions” section and list the clocks you want to adhere to your specific set of rules for the specialty show.  Be sure to separate the specific clock codes with a comma!

Click okay and your Rule Group is ready to fill up with specific rules for the show.

Drag and drop your rules over the title of the Rule Group and you should see the lightning bolt next to the rule, indent a bit.  If the lightning bolt isn’t indented, it’s not yet in the rule group.  If that’s the case, drag it over the name of the Rule Group and it should tuck in for you.

Save your Rule Tree and you are done!   How easy was that?

The beauty of this is if your specialty show ever moves to a different time, the rules will just follow the clocks to the new time.

If you have any questions, please contact MusicMaster Support.

By Brian Wheeler

Collaborations. It’s all the rage in music these days. Artist A with Artist B featuring Artist C and Artist D with a cameo by Artist X. Sometimes your artist fields are a who’s who of a particular genre of music. Sometimes you’ll span multiple genres with a single song! But how do you keep them all straight when it comes to scheduling? And does it matter?

Yes, most times keeping all your artists separated and governed DOES matter. It’s why the Artist Keyword field and the associated rules are so important and so commonly used. MusicMaster provides as many keywords as you’d need to fulfill even the most challenging of collaborations. Couple that with specific artist keyword separation settings for each artist and you can have complete control over the flow of your station.

But can you have too much of a good thing? Some programmers say YES. It’s possible you don’t really care that Wiz Khalifa has a cameo on a particular recording. His role in the song may be so insignificant that you don’t wish to separate this song from other Wiz tunes. Simply leave the artist keyword off the collaboration. His name can still appear in the artist name field so your jocks are aware of the contribution, but MusicMaster won’t meddle in your rotations on his behalf.

The same goes for other formats, too. As a programmer, you might not care that a Foo Fighters song plays in close proximity to a Nirvana song. Yes, Dave Grohl was in Nirvana. But you don’t care if Nirvana plays near the Foos, and neither do your listeners. So why govern it, then? Keep the Foo/Grohl keyword off the Nirvana songs and vice versa. Just because you CAN govern it, doesn’t mean you HAVE to!

By Dave Tyler

One of the greatest parts of being a Music Scheduling Consultant for MusicMaster is that I get to work on a daily basis with many of the top programmers in the world. It is an honor to be able to help them. As a 34-year radio vet, I love sharing and learning from them too!
Recently I was speaking with a terrific CHR Programmer who had an interesting question. He said “I have my Artist Keyword Separation set to 1:05. We are a hits/current driven format so a lot of the songs we play have “Featured” artists that are named on the song but do not necessarily play a big role in the song. By listing them as a Secondary Artist on the artist keyword this means that one of the featured artist’s songs will also be restricted from playing for 1:05. Is there a better way to control this or do I just have to decide if I list them on the keywords?”.

What an awesome question! You can see in my example below I have a Brad Paisley song that features Allison Krauss. Although in this particular song Allison plays a substantial role we can use it as an example. For demonstration purposes let’s say she only does background harmonies but is featured in the video and listed on the CD. As you can see in my Library Maintenance view in the Artist Keyword field they are both listed and therefore (per my rule settings which you can also see below) once this song plays BOTH artists will have to sit on the bench for one hour and five minutes.

While it makes complete sense for Brad to have to wait the allotted time it may or may not (depending on your programming philosophy) make sense to have Allison have to wait that long. As mentioned before the programmer I was talking to programmed a CHR station so he faced this constantly in his Currents, Recurrents and even Golds. What can we do?

MusicMaster provides several ways to control artist separation from rules to custom settings on a per artist level. However, let’s go deeper and do something cool. By going to Dataset/Library/Fields I can open my Database Field Editor and sort by “Type” and see if there are any Keyword fields that I am not using. In my case I had a Keyword field for “Theme” that I was not using. I can, within the editor, just type in a new name for this field. I will call this “Secondary Keys”.

I can add this field to my Library Maintenance layout and now I have an option when entering artists. If the song is literally a duet or the featured artists play a big and obvious role in the song, then I will add them as a secondary artist on the regular Artist Keyword field and the full separation will apply to them. If I deduce that they play a very minor role overall in the song then I can list them instead in my “Secondary Keys” field and then apply a shorter time restriction on those keywords.

In my example above my “Secondary Keys” only have to separate by 20 minutes. This keeps this artist from playing back-to-back with a song they are the lead on but also allows it to play a lot sooner than it would otherwise. It is a unique way to use MusicMaster to get even more control over your sound.

For the record (pun intended) I can already hear some of you saying “Great idea Dave BUT I do not have a Keyword field that I am not using so what now????” No problem any of the MusicMaster Music Scheduling Consultants on our Support Team can add the fields you need to your database.

No matter what you format is, if you have a primary and secondary artists, consider this method to assist in your scheduling.
As always if you have any questions just give us a ring. We are always happy to help.

Coming next time, another perspective on this topic.

By Jesus Rodriguez

Have you heard about our Genius Days yet? If you haven’t you need to visit our site to find out when we’ll be in your region hosting one. You can visit our Genius Day page to find out where we’ll be next as it is continuously updated.

So what is a Genius Day? It is a full day of learning about MusicMaster where we go over the entire software from the Scheduler, Library, Rules, and everything in between. I have the pleasure of hosting some of these as the instructor, and I love the Oh Wow moments we get from the clients.

It is a great day to learn and even network with other MusicMaster clients. Come on let’s face it our industry is known to be a cutthroat business. Why not sharpen up your skills and network with other programmers as well. Even I get to learn from our clients with new ways that they are using MusicMaster and so can you. The open dialogue among a room of so many passionate people like you will help you see things in a way you may not have before.

I am a Genius Days alum. I went to one years ago after being promoted to Assistant Music Director. I decided to invest in myself and go to a Genius Day hosted by Joe Knapp because I wanted to get to know more about what I was going to be doing. It was the best investment I ever made in my career. I went from scheduling my shift to scheduling a top five show. That led me to take the entire station from the high twenty rankings in our market to top 10. I was then asked to implement what I learned on our sister stations where I was able to direct music logs for eight stations; six in top 10 markets taking a few to top five in their markets and a couple to number one.

Who would of thought I would of ended up here hosting these around the country. The student has become the… Well, I am not quite a master but we will do our best to make you a MusicMaster Genius. If your employer doesn’t have a budget to get you to a Genius Day, do it for yourself and I promise that you too will get as much as others have already done. There is no charge for the actual Genius Day session so finding one close to you might mean little, if any, cost to you. You’ll come away with tips to make you a better MusicMaster user and we even provide a free lunch! Check out this video of what these MusicMaster Genius’ got out of the session.