MusicMaster Blog

By Drew Bennett

Today, it’s tough to juggle everything you need to juggle at the station.  Even the music department can be something you explore to find ways of saving time.  One of those ways is to build reports and run them against a log you scheduled to make sure everything looks good before sending it on to automation.  In today’s tip, I’m going to talk about the reports you should run before sending any music log to air.

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By Jerry Butler

MusicMaster has upgraded our Support Center to give you better access to downloads, information and utilities you may need when using MusicMaster.  If you had used our previous version of our Support Center, you’ll need to register again.   I recommend registering as soon as possible, so you are ready to go when a file is needed.

Go to www.musicmaster.com and click on Support and Support Center.

Click on Register under New American & Canadian Customers to set up your login.

Type in the required information and click register.

Now that you are registered, you can access the MusicMaster Support Center 24 hours a day and download installers and utilities that you may need.  Thank you again for using MusicMaster!

By Dave Tyler

As a radio programmer for more than 30 years, I have cultivated my own programming philosophy about what works and what doesn’t. I bet you have too. While we all continue to learn, grow and change, sometimes what we need or want to get that sound in our head onto the airwaves changes as well. One of the many beautiful things about MusicMaster is its ability to change and conform and be customized to do and be what you want. In this article I want to show you how you may already have what you need at your fingertips by re-purposing fields that you don’t currently use.

I would like a field called “Mood” that I can apply rules to so I don’t have blocks of songs that are too heavy and depressing or for that matter too “Poppy” and Happy! Unfortunately I do not have a Mood field. I can look at all of my available fields and see if there is one I am not using that I can re-purpose. I can do this by going to Dataset/Library/Fields

When you do this, you will see a list of your fields. I know I want to use an “Attribute Overall” field because then I can assign the attributes I want and have a one character “Code” for each. Since I know what type of field I am looking for, I click the header for “Type” so MusicMaster will arrange them this way.

I only have two Attribute Overall fields.  I already have a Tempo field and to me Energy and Tempo are essentially the same (Again my philosophy. You may totally disagree and I am cool with that!).  I want to re-purpose this field and it is as easy as clicking on the field and entering its new name “Mood”. My Mood field will represent the feel of a song. You will note to the right of the name you can enter the abbreviation for that field as well. That is used in the event that in your layout you reduce the size of the field so the full name cannot be seen.

Now that I have my field I need to set the attributes I want for it. I do this by going to Dataset/Library/Attributes.

The Attribute Code Editor box will pop up and here is where you can add as many codes as you want. In my simple example, I have added Happy, Fun, Angry and Sad. Again you can add as many as you would like.

Once you have entered all of the codes you want, then it is time to code your songs.  Then you can add rules to keep these different codes in check.

If for any reason you need a field but you are currently using all the available fields in your database, you can always call your MusicMaster Music Scheduling Consultant any time and we will be happy to get the field(s) added to your database for you.  MusicMaster Pro 7.0 will give you the ability to add any type of field you want yourself.  Keep in touch and we’ll let you know when that version is released.

This is just one more way MusicMaster makes it easier for you to work your magic at your stations!

By Paul Ziino

I’ve been working with a new customer lately.  The programmers at these stations like to schedule in passes.  First pass they schedule all the currents, then edit and review.  Second pass they schedule their recurrents, then edit and review.  Third pass is the rest of their music, then edit and review.  And their fourth pass is of all the non-music categories.

To make this easier, we built Category Groups.  This is done via Dataset/Library/Categories, then click Groups and New.  Name the group (Pass 1), check the categories to be included in that first pass and click OK.  Create another new group (Pass 2), and so on.  No need to create a category group for the non-music categories—that one is built-in.

Now when they launch the automatic scheduler, they can use the pull-down under “Categories to Schedule” to select which pass they wish to run, and only those categories will be listed and scheduled.  They’ve found this to be a lot easier than checking and un-checking from within the list of categories there.  By the way, they also check the box “Do not advance last schedule date/hour” so that each time they go to schedule the next pass, they needn’t reset the date/hours to be scheduled.

For more ideas or help, just reach out to your friendly MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant or check out our many blog articles and training videos.

By Jesus Rodriguez

As you probably already know MusicMaster is the most customizable scheduling software in the industry. Whether it’s a particular layout design, specific additional fields, print designs, multi user personalization, you name it!

In this blog I’d like you to think out side the box and about how else you can use MusicMaster in your everyday life whether it’s for your day-to-day work or other things.

You may not know but during my down time I take part in a series of mix shows that range in a variety of formats from CHR, Country, Urban, Rock/Alternative, Latin, Classic Rock, and more. Trying to keep an inventory check of all of my music and music videos by simply searching my hard drive of over 25 years of doing this can be a nightmare especially when I need to find specific items that fit specific stations or events. Shown below you see a screen shot of some of my music inventory. I used a yes/no field that allows me to select the items I think would be good for a bar/club, live gig, etc. I took it a step further to keep track if I have the music video for the song because yup you guessed I love mixing music videos to be more interactive at my gigs. You also use an attribute field to do the same thing.

If I get a call from a venue, event, or even a station that wants me do mixes for them I can ask them a simple question. What is your vision for the mix show/event music? No matter how they respond, I can quickly filter through my library to find that specific kind of music or videos for a gig by using the sound codes for the genres, if I have remixes available, tempo, moods, etc. This is so convenient when the call comes in that a station or event wants the mix to be up-tempo, CHR, EDM remixes, with some 80’s, and top 5 urban tracks, etc. If this were a live venue scenario I can take it a step further to filter that with the items that have a video available.

Faster than I can respond to book myself I already have my filtered library to either use as a reference when searching through my hard drive for what I need or have on me just in case I go blank at the gig. The more details I put on my songs the more I can filter. As an open format DJ involved with all kinds of stations and venues, this is so much easier than spending hours or days prepping through my hard drive song by song.

You can do this in all versions of MusicMaster. Even if you’re a DJ on a budget, you can do the same thing I am with our MusicMaster PE, Personal Edition product. It’s designed for just this type of use. You can go to www.musicmaster.com and purchase a copy right now. Think outside the box and let MusicMaster schedule your DJ show or even your next dinner party!