MusicMaster Blog

By Dave Tyler

MusicMaster is a powerful and robust software, we all know that! But did you know there are many different ways of using it? I am always looking for ways to accomplish something in fewer clicks. Before you call me lazy, let me redirect by saying I am an efficiency junkie. I have been involved in the martial arts for 40 years and efficiency is paramount in successful technique. To bring this back around to music, Elvis really was a Black Belt and studied with an incredible American Kenpo master named Ed Parker who frequently used the term “Economy of Motion” to describe the process of optimal form to gain speed and power. This Economy of Motion is built into MusicMaster too!

I have said many times there are many ways to just about everything in MusicMaster, and for me at least, the “Right Click” is my secret weapon to quickly getting where I want to be in the software. Let’s take a look at what I mean.

The Info Bar

This is the place where all of our categories live and are arranged. Did you know you can right click here to pull up a variety of destinations?

This box allows you to do multiple things like see the properties of the category you clicked on or create a new category, delete a category, open the Category Editor, and edit or create Category Groups. You can also get to these locations by going to Dataset/Library/Categories. There are also options to check out Schedule Properties and the Schedule Order. The right click in my opinion is the fastest way to do this, but you can also still go to Dataset/Schedule and then choose Schedule Properties or Order too. Cool huh?

Library Maintenance Grid

Let’s open a category(s) in Library Maintenance. Right click on the header of any field and look at the array of options you have!

You have the powerful Mass Changer at your fingertips which allows you to mass change all sorts of things from adding/deleting/changing values to converting text to mixed case, etc. It is recommended that any time you choose to use the Mass Changer you make a backup of your database first in case you do not get the desired result. There is more info on the Mass changer in this blog article: https://musicmaster.com/?p=95

You can also choose the incredible Library Analysis feature here. Depending on what field you right clicked on, you will see an analysis of that field. In my example below I am looking at the Artist field and it is easy to see which artists have the most songs in the library.

Again depending on which field header you are right clicking on, you will get different information. If you clicked on your Role/Gender field you would see the percentage of Male and Female artists (as long as that field is populated) or perhaps right clicking on your Sound Code, you could see the percentage of Rock, Urban or Acoustic songs you have or any other custom codes. My colleague Brian Wheeler wrote a great blog on this topic and you can find it here: https://musicmaster.com/?p=7268.

Clock Editor

If you are building or editing a clock, a right click gives you the same options as some of the buttons above do by allowing you to Insert, Clone or Delete an element.

Rule Tree

This right click mania doesn’t stop there. Open your Rule Tree and you will find one of the most important right clicks in the program: Rule Tree Properties!

This special box allows you to bypass the rules in your All-Category folders so they won’t apply to certain categories. Why would you do this? Well you probably don’t want or need Artist Separation and Sound Code rules etc. to be performed on your non-music categories (Jingles, Imaging etc.) and if you schedule Christmas music during the season, you may want to bypass your Christmas categories because the regular rules might be too difficult to satisfy. You can then add just the rules you need in those specific category folders. Good stuff!!

Schedule Calendar

If you open your scheduling calendar and right click, you get some quick options that you may find useful.

Schedule Editor

Jump into the Schedule Editor, and if you right click on the Hour Header, you get several options including the ability to insert, delete and unschedule an element. There are also two unique options including the ability to lock the hour to prevent any further editing of that hour, or you can pick to view the format clock for that hour (You can also do this by double clicking on the hour header as well).

If you right click on an element (song, imaging, etc.) within the hour, you will see the same Insert, Delete and Unschedule options from the clock box, but here again are a couple options unique to this right click.

The first is the Scheduling Recap, which shows you the process MusicMaster went through based on your Rules, Optimum Goals, etc. to schedule each position in your log. The second is the “Audio” option which is awesome! Did you know you can listen to songs in the Schedule Editor or even Scope hours (listening to intros and segues)? This is a great way to listen to your log and see if it sounds as great as you think it does. In order for this to work you do need to set up and link your song cards to your audio, but don’t fret, here is a link to the step-by-step process to do just that: https://musicmaster.com/?p=3486.

Turnover Analysi

Let’s move to Turnover Analysis. This ridiculously powerful area of MusicMaster is chock full of great information on how your categories work, but there is more to it than just what you see. Right click anywhere in the grid and you will see all of the fields available to put in your view. Checkmark a field and it is added.

Want more information on the power of understanding Turnover Analysis? Check out this in-depth blog: https://musicmaster.com/?p=7832

These are some of the cool “Right Clicks” in MusicMaster that can help you manage your database, and control and create great Radio and TV. Just when you thought you knew it all, right?

by Brian Wheeler

I’ve had the pleasure of attending hundreds of shows in the last 35 years and with few exceptions, a live performance is my happy place. I love the energy of a crowd that is enjoying the moments created by a great live band. But live music performances are at a crossroads. Many factors are converging and something has to give.

Artists are facing greater challenges than ever before. The opportunity to make a living creating music is becoming difficult at best. Music buying is down, venues are taking bigger cuts in an effort to stay afloat, and higher costs associated with touring are driving artists off the road. COVID certainly had an impact on touring in recent years, and don’t get me started on Ticketmaster.

Some artists are certainly coming up with creative ways of combating this issue. David Lowery, front man of the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, has taken to a more practical approach to sales, marketing, and touring. Long a vocal opponent of entities such as Napster, Pandora, and Spotify, David has returned to his DIY roots, cutting out the middleman and selling his merch and music on his own. In a Facebook post in 2022, David cited a lack of ‘soft ticket’ events (corporate sponsored events), a 15 to 20 percent reduction in ticket sales, and a 40% increase in expenses when touring as the main issues faced by many bands when attempting to coordinate a tour. These days when David hits the road solo or with his band, Cracker, he’ll concentrate on high-yield/low overhead tour destinations in an attempt to break even or perhaps make a small profit on the tour. Merch sales often make the difference as to whether many artists lose money, break even, or make a profit.

David Lowery hand-packs another load of merchandise for shipping.

Tommy Stinson, formerly of The Replacements and Guns ‘n Roses, takes a similar approach. When Tommy hits the road he’ll book clubs across the United States, then coordinate intimate performances at listening rooms, garages, even fans’ living rooms in between those dates. This method minimizes travel time and costs between dates and maximizes earning potential all while generating buzz and goodwill with his modest fanbase. Before his untimely passing in 2017, Pat DiNizio of The Smithereens also toured with living room performances peppered between club dates.

Stinson plots his route

Obviously not everyone can tour living rooms and sling limited-release CDs from their homes and hope to make a living. I think it’s important to ask what CAN be done to keep the music industry viable, however. Without a vibrant music scene, the product that music-based radio stations provide suffers more and more. If an artist can’t make a living making music, they’re going to stop making music.

So what can be done? Jamie Lee Curtis recently opined that she’d like to see matinee performances, as she didn’t want to be up as late as some performances are normally scheduled. There may be a kernel of truth to this at the club level and in fact is sometimes practiced, but it also presents its own set of problems. You’ll need the venue staff there longer, which increases costs and presents scheduling issues. You’ll have to clear out the early crowd before bringing in the late crowd. Large productions will require cleanup between shows. Can you imagine having to clean up the confetti and whatever else ended up on the floor between arena shows to reset for a later performance?

The onus does not fall on the shoulders of radio entirely, but the strong connection between the music industry and the radio industry cannot be ignored. I don’t know what the solution is, but I think radio can play a role in sustaining the live music scene and music in general. It’s important that we do what we can to keep the lifeblood of so many of our stations healthy and vibrant. It’s important not only for our industry, but for our general well-being. I can’t imagine living in a world without music, and I don’t want to.

by Vicky James

It’s that time of year where we swap all of our winter fleece ‘n furs for our bright colorful florals! I typically will do a purge of things that I haven’t worn for years, pieces that are dated or things that I should’ve gotten rid of five years ago! Well ironically, this blog isn’t about old clothes, but it is about the stuff that’s sitting in your database that you’ve overlooked monthly, if not daily!

Here’s your guide to Spring Cleaning your database:

Tip 1: Cleaning Clocks

There is a way to clean up your clocks without “guessing” which clocks aren’t being used and to avoid accidentally deleting something needed!

Here’s how:

1. Click on the Clock Icon in the toolbar to open the Format Clock Maintenance

2. Click “Select” on the right

3. Select “Assigned Clocks”, then select “Assigned to Any Clock Grid”. This checks only the clocks that are being used in any assignment grid.

4. Then go back to “Select” again and click “Invert Selection”. Now only unused clocks will remain checked.

5. I suggest reviewing the checked clocks to be sure that you want to delete them.

5. After you’ve reviewed the clocks, Click delete and the unused clocks are all gone!

Rule of thumb… Anytime that you are making a mass change such as deleting clocks ALWAYS make a backup first so you can revert if needed.

And that’s how you would clean up your clocks!

Tip 2: Cleaning Keywords

It’s not uncommon for title keywords to accidentally get entered with an error or duplicate titles with different spellings. This is often found with Christmas titles, as you see pictured below.

In this example, we’re looking at the Title Keyword for “All I Want For Christmas”. Here, I’d like to have the Mariah Carey title match the other entries. Going to the Keyword Maintenance will allow us to quickly make the update.

Now, let’s navigate to finding your keywords. Click on Dataset, Library and Keywords.  Use the dropdown menu to select the keywords that you would like to check, be it your Artist Keywords, Title Keywords, Album Keywords, or any other field that utilizes a keyword. As I mentioned, in this case we will update the Title Keywords. Use Find to start typing “All I want for Christmas” and it should find both versions of the keywords shown above: “All I want for Christmas” and “All I want for Christmas is You”

Now, you can edit the keyword you want to change to match the other one. In this case, I’ve added “is You” to the end of “All I want for Christmas”. You’ll be prompted with a message that indicates there are now two identical keywords, asking “Would you like to combine these entries?” Select Yes and it will combine the two Title Keywords and update any songs that had the keyword that was changed.

Also in Keyword Maintenance, you can also use the Tools drop down menu to select “Remove Unused Keywords”. This would delete any incorrect or leftover keywords that aren’t currently assigned to any songs.

For more on Keyword Maintenance, check out this blog: https://musicmaster.com/index.php?p=7817

As a Bonus Spring Cleaning Tip… You can use Purge to declutter your databases of old deleted items that were removed from your database, like library, clocks, keywords, etc. Think of it like emptying the Recycle Bin. Purging is found under the Tools menu and if you look closely in the left corner as the resulting process completes, you’ll see how much of your database was cleaned up.

Should you have any questions please reach out to your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant.

MusicMaster Pro 8.0.10 is now available to you under Help, Check for Update. Changes are as follows: 

You can now configure a new prompt message to remind you to make a backup when closing a station. This setting is available in the Backup/Restore utility under the new Options button in the lower left corner. This message can appear every time, or only when the last backup reaches a specified number of days old.

The AutoKick rule now tests in both directions by default, but contains a property to make it look
backward only like other history rules.

Adjusted the Unique Value search dialog so it better handles the case where you manually edit the current value before clicking OK.

The unique values search function was adjusted to better handle the case where you were entering plain numeric values into a text field without any padding to make the entries equal length.

Corrected an error that would sometimes appear when deleting a packet.

You can find the full list of changes under Help, Release notes. Contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

By Jesus Rodriguez

Never let voice track recordings go to waste again! Why have your on-air personality record one short segment once and then delete it? Why not use the voice track again? Did enough people hear the voice track that was only seconds long? Why not maximize it and use it again?

There are so many more questions I can ask but you get the point. In this blog, I hope to open your mind to that idea. This was originally targeted to smaller stations where there may only be a few on air personalities or none, like some streamers or HD channels. However, this concept can be useful for any station at any level for several reasons. What if your jock loses their voice or is ill and can’t come in to work? The remote jock that voice tracks lost power or internet and can’t do the tracks? Maybe give the jock a break and truly let them enjoy their vacation not having to voice track the days they are out. I mean, does it really count as a vacation when you still must do the work from your vacation time?

The goal is to save all your voice tracks in a category or multiple categories if you prefer so that you can repurpose them the same way you do your new music or your gold records. We will create a new multiple keyword field so you can give your voice tracks and songs any number of descriptions that will allow the proper voice track to play in front of the correct songs. This will allow you to create a massive library of voice tracks overtime and the more you have, the better it will sound because your listeners will not catch on.

For the first step, let’s create the multiple keyword field. You can do this yourself if you are using MusicMaster Version 7 or greater. On the menu bar go to Dataset, Library, Fields, then at the bottom left corner, click on Add Field. Create the settings as shown in the image below.

Press OK to create the new field and OK again on the Field list window to return to the database.

If you did not do so already you can create your Voice Tracking category and add your Voice Tracks information the same way you do with songs. In case you need a reminder of those steps, I included them in the links below with short 1 minute video clips.

How to Create a New Category Video:

https://youtu.be/FZ1azvQfAow

How to Add Music/Voice Tracks to Your Library Video:

https://youtu.be/ockIX0Ue3U8

Next, you will want to add your new field to your library layout so you can begin to label each of your voice tracks accordingly. This tells MusicMaster what they are, so that in the next step, I can show you how they will match up to the perfect song each time. Double click on that new field in your library layout to open up the Keyword entry.

Below are examples of a few of my voice tracks. Each voice track will have a description designating what songs they will be allowed to play in front of.

Voice Track 1: Only be allowed to play in front of Katy Perry’s “Firework”

Voice Track 2: Can play in front of any song where I also gave that song the keyword description of Listener Phoner. This is great for songs with long intros.

Voice Track 3: This Voice Track may be good in front of any song if all the songs have the keyword of Station Info in this same field.

Voice Track 4: This recording may only play in front of any Katy Perry song because it possibly is a generic topic about the artist that works any time of the year like “Did you know Katy is a huge fan of… Here she is on XYZ-FM!”

You will repeat this process with all your voice tracks and my personal recommendation is to only give your voice tracks one description. Another recommendation is to use voice tracks that are not seasonal or contain current events like “this week this next artist got a divorce” or “this artist will perform on the Channel 8 Christmas Special” 

So how do we match the voice tracks to the songs you ask? It is a similar process to what we did with the voice tracks in the previous step. I suggest taking note of the descriptions you created for the voice tracks so you can use those same keywords in the same field we created, but for the songs themselves. It is important that the keywords be written the same so they find their match later in the process.

You will want to go through every song and add all the keywords for voicetracks that will sound great in front of the song. In this case the more the better, because more options you have, the less likely to sound repetitive with your voice tracks.

For Katy Perry “Firework”, I included the following voice track keywords we created that are all allowed to play in front of this song.

How do we do the actual matching of the correct voice track to the correct song? This is where we use Special Sets in the clock positions where your talk breaks will occur. In your clock add a Special Set element position as shown below.

You will want to make sure that your Voice Track category is bypassed from the all-category section of the rule tree by right clicking on the bold MusicMaster Rule Tree and going to Rule Tree Properties as shown below to place a check mark on that category. This will prevent any other rules in the all-category section from affecting this category, and we can place any rule we need directly in the category, which I will explain later in this blog.

Also, go to the menu Dataset, Schedule, Schedule Properties to adjust the scheduling pass order. You will want your special set to schedule last, so move it to the bottom of the list so that your music schedules first followed by the voice tracking category special set to match. This is important because without the song in the log first, the voice track category will not have anything to reference to make the proper decision of which voice track to place in front of it. I also suggest you set the depth for the voice track category to 100% so it can dig in deep enough to locate the best option, should you decide to use additional rules.

We can take this a step further in the Rule Tree for the Voice Track category and add rules for the Voice Tracking field we created for things like Keyword Separation, so we don’t get the same tracks too close to each other or sounding repetitive. We can also add more rules, such as dayparting, so the right jock voice plays during the right shift. Minimum rest, Day or Play Offset, and other rules can help with the rotations, so the tracks don’t play as frequently or in the same positions, allowing you to maximize the voice tracks for weeks, months, even years.

Now for the fun part! Call all your friends and family members that owe you favors and have them record a lot of exciting voice tracks for your station. I also hear AI voices are sounding very realistic these days at reading back scripts, so maybe it’s time to hit the record button.

What Rules are we using and where are they?

by Chris Hulsether

What if I told you, you could save time and find out what rules you are using and where they are in your Rule Tree?

Maybe you just took over a database and you have no idea what the person who had it before you were doing. You see all these available rules and you’re wondering “What are we doing?” and “Where are the rules set up in my Rule Tree?” Maybe you see a rule that you want to use, but you are not sure if has already been set up. Maybe you have a lot of categories and you don’t want to go through each category one by one to see what rules they have. Or maybe you could be getting unscheduled events in your log because of a rule you didn’t know you had, and you want to find where it’s being used so you can adjust it or get rid of it.

To help see these things easier, you can Filter your Rule Tree to identify everywhere a specific rule is being used. It’s a quick and easy way to see what rules you are using and which ones you are not.

First, go to your Rule Tree using the Dataset/Rule Tree or clicking the toolbar icon.

On the left is your Rule Tree with all the rules you are using. On the right is the list of all the available rules you can use.

To expand your rule tree folders or the available rule folders, click on the little square box with the plus sign in it.

You can also right click on the Category and select Expand or Collapse to open or close it. If you right click on the words in bold MusicMaster Rule Tree you can Expand or Collapse all the categories at once. The same can be done on Available Rule Types.

In your Rule Tree you will see the Breakable and Unbreakable folders. Unbreakable means MusicMaster will not violate the rules in that folder when you auto schedule or when the replacement window is choosing the “perfect” songs to choose from. Breakable means the rules inside the folder will attempt to be followed, but if the software cannot find another song to schedule that passes those rules, it will break the rule as a last resort.

To Filter the Rule Tree

Right click on any available rule on the right.

Once selected, the left column will show you everywhere the rule is being used. If it’s not being used, the left side will be blank.

To clear the Filter, look for the icon of the filter with an x on it.

MusicMaster is all about saving time and working as quickly as possible. Ask your Music Scheduling Consultant for assistance if needed.

By Brian Wheeler

I saw a fascinating factoid recently and I had to share this, as the vast majority of MusicMaster clients program music. I want to preface this blog with my pledge to you that I’m going to do my best to not sound like the ‘old man shaking fist at cloud’ while presenting this information to you. I do hope that the information reaches the music industry and a bit of a renaissance takes place because I feel like there’s been some stagnation in popular music today, and this graph appears to support that theory.

A handy and effective tool in a musician’s arsenal is modulation and key change. Modulations and key changes can help the artist convey emotion and feeling. There are countless examples of key changes that brighten (or darken) a soundscape or change a mood in general. A well-placed key change can have a very powerful effect that captivates or moves the audience.

But is this tool disappearing from the collective toolbox? This is the astonishing graph that compelled me to ponder that question.

There are many factors in play here, but the flatline can’t be ignored. Popular music structure has been undergoing changes for the best part of the last two decades. Instrumentation and general structure have seen a shift, and tools like Autotune and sampling have seen wider use. Even the length of a good number of popular hits has shifted to the 2-to-3 minute range we saw decades ago. Simple can be good, but are the days of complex compositions behind us?

As I went down the proverbial rabbit hole of key changes and their role in popular music over the last 60 years, I stumbled upon an astonishing nugget. There was a song I remember hearing on the radio when I was younger that boldly went into some impressive key gymnastics, although I didn’t realize it at the time. The song is “Never Gonna Let You Go” by Sergio Mendes, a song written by the popular writing team of Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann. The single hit number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 back in ’83 (Number 1 on the US AC chart), and it boasts a whopping 22 key changes! There’s an entertaining YouTube video from Rick Beato that discusses his attempt to decipher the song. I encourage you to check it out.

Obviously that’s an extreme example of key and modulation usage, but the question remains: are we seeing the demise of the unforgettable melody? What is the anatomy of a timeless hit? What is the essence of a well-crafted song? Is it the creation of thoughtful couplets? Perhaps the key change/resolution? And who will be the next great innovators? That may be an entirely different discussion. Back to the question I asked earlier: Will we see a musical renaissance? I believe we will, despite the assertion that it’s all been done. New ears will demand it.

For another Rick Beato video on this topic, check out “The Disappearance of Key Changes in Modern Music”

MusicMaster Pro 8.0.8 is now available to you under Help, Check for Update. Changes include:

There is a new option in Tools, Options, Dataset Identification that allows you to show the date/time of the latest station backup on the title bar.

You can now right click a song that is hosting a Virtual Show in Library Maintenance or the Schedule Editor and use the new Show Virtual Show Songs function to show the details of the songs contained in that Virtual Show.

A warning will now be shown when opening the Datafile Manager if the data path or file specified on the command-line is invalid. This can help you avoid the case where you might accidentally open the wrong copy of a station database from the wrong folder.

The Format Clock Editor Element Properties dialog now allows you to edit the User1 and User2 text fields that are available in the Schedule History Element Properties. These fields work just like the Transition field in the Clock Editor and Schedule Editor.

There are also several adjustments designed to improve performance and responsiveness.

You can find the full list of changes under Help, Release notes. Contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

by Vicky James

I know the thought of considering clock changes can be just exhausting when you likely have several clocks, which then makes it an even more of a tedious project!

Well, what if I told you that making a mass change to your clocks can take a matter of moments!

It can! Allow me to guide you through this quick and simple “How To” on making a mass change in your clocks.

Before beginning any changes to your database we ALWAYS recommend making a backup, which is found in the Tools tab.

Now, let’s change your clocks!

You can launch the feature using the Clock Icon on the main toolbar.

If you are already working in a single clock, you can also find the Mass Change Clock Elements icon here:

Note that if you use this method, you are given option to mass change elements just within the active clock you have open, or on all of your clocks.

But if you want to change several (but not ALL clocks) at once, instead of opening up a single clock first, you should click on the Clock icon on the main toolbar. Then, checkbox the clocks you want to edit and use the Changer button at the bottom of the panel.

Some examples of when you may want to edit multiple clocks at once is swapping in a different category, picking a new song ID for a forced element used in multiple hours, or plugging in a new format list you’ve created.

In my example, I plan to swap my Secondary 80’s category for my new Super 80s category in four of my clocks at once. I’ll set things up as in the image above, by checking the four clocks and clicking Changer.

When the Changer opens, you can see the split screen gives you options to select the Element Type that you would like to “Search For:” (on the left), and “Replace With:” (on the right).

You can change use the Changer to edit properties for a selected clock element, or you can change an existing Element Type to another Element Type.

In my example, I’ll set it up so that any Fixed position set to the Secondary 80s category is replaced with a Fixed position that calls for the category Super 80s, as below.

Another gentle reminder, make certain you have a verifiable database backup before proceeding.

When you’ve completed the task, this notification will appear indicating the Total clock changes.

Note that if you had your clocks open, you would have to save them each before closing them to apply the changes. But if your clocks were closed already, you don’t need to worry about this.

Finally, check the clock changes to be sure that this is what you were looking for, and that all of the elements you expected to change did in fact change. If they didn’t, you may have needed to tweak the Properties to find the right match.

Keep in mind, the Properties available in the “Search for” section of the Changer help you target which exactly which elements will be replaced. For example, you might have multiple Lognotes with the same text, but using the Properties, you can target those with a specific runtime, or those that do or don’t have a sweep marker.

Or, for another example, you might have many different instances of Proportional, Combo or Migrating Position elements in the same clock that each call for different categories. You can use the properties to configure which instance want the Mass Changer to look for.

A handy trick, if you select the element in the clock itself before clicking the Mass Changer button, it will open up with the properties already set to match that selected element. In the example below, you can see that my clock has several different flavors of a Proportional Element, but when I open the Mass Changer, you can see I’m only targeting the one that uses a ratio of 40% A3 and 60% 60s category (position 11) and not the other Proportional elements at positions 10 and 17.

It’s also important to remember that any clock filters you have on targeted positions will NOT be considered when looking for elements that match the “Search For” criteria. In other words, elements with the selected element type and properties will be targeted for replacement, whether one of them has a filter on it or not.

Should need any further support, you can always reach out to your dedicated Music Scheduling Consultant!

by Paul Ziino

The Results Bar in your Schedule Editor can be set up to show a variety of information about the active song in the log. Today we review the various options.

To turn on the Results Bar, click the pulldown on the right side of the wrench icon (Toggle Toolbars) then check “Results Bar.”

The first time you turn on the Results Bar it may be empty, or it may populate with a few items right away. Either way, you can customize it by right-clicking within and selecting Customize. You will be presented with a Customize Results Bar window that looks like this.

You will see available panels for any Keyword field’s Separation and Nearest Plays, Current Date and Hour Displays, Hour Rotation Map, Multi-Station Separation, Nearest Play Yesterday/Same Hour/Same Shift, Shift Hour Rotation, Shift Rotation Map, Song Segue Nearest Plays and Separation, Song Failure Alerts, as well as Song Nearest Plays/Rotation and Separation. Following is a breakdown of each and what they mean.

Current Date Display and Current Hour Display

This tells you where your cursor is, on the date and hour.

Hour Rotation, Shift Hour Rotation, and Shift Rotation

Hour Rotation shows the song plays leading up to the play where your cursor sits.

Shift Hour Rotation shows the plays of this song within the same shift and indicates what shift that is.

Shift Rotation shows the shift sequence in which the current song has played, with dashes on either side of the current play selected.

Song Segue Nearest Plays and Song Segue Separation

Both these panels tell you similar information. Note that the segues are looking at the song where the cursor resides and the song that played before it. Song Segue: Nearest Plays looks back and ahead to when these two songs last played together (in either order), and when they will play together next (in either order). Song Segue: Separation displays this same info, but as a total of Days/Hours/Minutes.

Song Fail Alert, Nearest Plays, Rotation, and Rest

Song Fail Alert will display in Red if the active song violates an unbreakable rule, yellow if the rule is breakable, or blank if no rules are violated.

Nearest Plays tells you the date and time when that song was last scheduled or scheduled next time.

Song Rotation is a mini snapshot of the last 8 days of a song’s play history.

Song Rest tells you the amount of time back and ahead of a song’s play history.

Keyword Nearest Plays and Separation

Keyword Nearest Plays will show you the last/next time a keyword is scheduled.

Keyword Separation will show you the amount of time back and ahead that keyword is scheduled.

You will have a Nearest Plays and a Separation panel available for each keyword field in your database.

Favorites?

Of course I have my favorites—the panels I like to have in my display include Current Hour, Nearest Plays in Same hour and shift, Artist Keywords Separation, Song Separation, and Song Rotation.

Try the different panels out to figure out which work best for you and your station!