MusicMaster Blog

Which Library Field Type is Right for You?

By Jesus Rodriguez

In PRO 7, we introduced a way for you the user to be able to create more fields for your library by going to Dataset, Library, Fields on your Menu Bar.

Here is where you can add a field by clicking on the Add Field Button:

You can give your field a name, abbreviation, tag, length, rules or no rules and Field Type under Data Type.

However, the big question I usually get from a client is “Which field type do I select and what do each of these do?” Well, we have a field type for every occasion. The purpose of this blog is to give you a brief example of each of your Field Type options.

1. Attribute Combo – Great for coding for items like tempo beginning, middle, and end of a song where the song starts Fast but the middle of the song is slow then picks up to a medium or up-tempo guitar rift of energy at the end.
2. Attribute In/Out – While like the previous description this can be used for the opening and ending of a song. For example, if a song opens up-tempo but ends slow or sad with an A cappella.
3. Attribute Multiple – This version is great for sound coding because you can select multiple attributes for any one song. For example, a song may be pop but it’s also rock, and rap because of a featured artist. This allows you to have one song to have a very detailed list of codes so that MusicMaster knows it’s a R- Rock, P-Pop because it crossed over to the pop world and am R-Rap because there may be a hip hop artist doing a verse as a featured on the track. This field type will then allow you to control this track with your rules from playing too close to other rock, pop, or rap songs.
4. Attribute Overall – Unlike my previous examples this field gets straight to the point and only allows you to assign one code to the song when using this field. For example, this song is Slow, that’s if there is no concern by you about how it is in the middle or end only one overall description for its tempo.
5. Date – Exactly what you think. This field for placing a date on the song. This might be a release date or something similar about the song.
6. Keyword Multiple – This version of this field allows you to place more than one artist name into the artist keyword field but can also be used for other things like when using special sets and you need a keyword field. There are more blogs on special sets on our site.
7. Keyword Single – If you only plan to use one artist name as your separation then this one is for you but if you deal with many artists in your format featured on other songs at the very least may I suggest the previous keyword multiple field type.
8. Length – Great any duration needs. Keep in mind we have a built-in Runtime field.
9. Memo – A good one for any type of internal notes for yourself about the song or item. Pronunciations, birthdays, internal reminders, song lyrics, etc.
10. Numeric Currency – If you need to assign a dollar amount to your item this field is for that purpose possibly for items like promos. You can then include this dollar amount with your affidavit for this item. Feel free to search our site for how to create affidavits.
11. Numeric Fixed – Year is a good example for this field or any set of whole numbers.
12. Numeric Float – This field is great for items like music test scores that may not be a whole number like 88.7 or this song received a call out of 7.8
13. Text – One of our most used fields for meta data entry like cart numbers, artist name, title, album, record label, ISRC codes, etc.
14. Yes/No – This is highly used for items that can only be one of two things. For Example, Core or Non-Core, English or Spanish, Pass or Failed music test.

You might have noticed the fields in my screen capture above that had a Type of Internal. These are fields specifically created to manage the MusicMaster database. As such, you cannot create any new Internal fields.

For the fields you can create, there are certainly more possibilities for what you can do with these fields other than the examples I’ve shared. Be creative and think about what you’d like to control and then pick the best field for that purpose. If you can dream it I am sure one of these field types can do it.

Please feel free to contact your MusicMaster support representative with the result you have in mind so we may suggest the proper field to use should an example in this blog not completely answer your needs.

Configuring the Format Clock Display

By Laurie Knapp

Just like in other areas of the program, you can configure how the clock editor screen looks in MusicMaster. This article will show you some available customizations and explain what each display column means.

First, the Show/Hide Pie View icon gives you the retro pie chart view, along with panels with information on category and element usage. Also in this panel is the Migrating Positions and FlexRules Analysis wizard, new in Version 8. (Read more about that feature here: https://musicmaster.com/?p=8220)

As you can see, you can split the screen to display both views.

To change the colors of the pie chart to be more meaningful to you, go to Tools > Options > Display Colors. As an example, I will change my Stopsets to be a bright red color.

If you’d like to add category and element information to the pie slices, go to the Clock section of Additional Properties and add the number 1 in the Pie-Clocks-Labels field.

Back in the Clock Editor, you can click the wrench icon to set Clock Editor Options.

You can filter what types of elements are displayed in your clock while you are editing. For example, you may choose to hide Lognotes when editing your music elements.

You can also determine which columns you see in your clock editor.

Some of these columns, shown under the Properties header, contain icon markers that represent element properties. You can double click the icons to edit the related properties. You can also hover over the icons to get a balloon tip.

For example, when you add a stopset that is a sweep marker, you’ll see a red stop sign with an S inside.

If you chose to lock the element, or hide it from export, reconciliation or printing, you’ll see a lock icon.

If you set a fill song for timing, you’ll see a clock icon.

You’ll see a filter icon when an element has an element filter or a session filter. An element filter calls for a song that meets criteria you set in the element properties. (Watch a walk through on setting up Clock Filters here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D76hqFv8nzc)

A session filter calls for a song that meets criteria you set later in the AutoScheduler, so you can use different criteria each time you schedule. (Read more about Session Filters here: https://musicmaster.com/?p=6702)

Other columns include the Element Type, or an Element Icon which represents the type.

The Quick Entry column gives you a place to quickly add and configure new clock elements using simple letter codes. You can look up the codes in Help, or by hovering over the element type in the InfoBar. (Learn more about Quick Entry here: https://musicmaster.com/?p=7440)

You can also check on the Element Counter, which allows you to see a secondary count of all elements that match the type you select in the box below. For example, you could use this to see at a glance how many music elements you have in your clock.

If you don’t see all of these options, make sure you’re on the latest version of MusicMaster. You can go to Help, Check for Update.

Should you have any questions or need assistance, reach out to your Music Scheduling Consultant.

HELP! (I Need Somebody)

By Dave Tyler

MusicMaster is a big powerful program. Robust is a good word for it. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know every nook and cranny of the program. I don’t either!!! The MusicMaster Help section, much like the program is, well, robust! If you’ve ever gone to a Help section in some software programs there is little to it and “Help” is certainly not offered. Let’s dig in and take a look at OUR Help section and what we offer.

When we first click Help we can choose from Contents, Index or Search. Each of these basically take you to the screen below. This is taking you to our full-on Help section but allows you to approach it in different ways. You can also see that no matter which you pick there are tabs for the others available as well. Contents lets you begin to open each section as it is laid out with your icons, Library, Clocks, Rule Tree, Scheduling, Analysis, History, Tools etc. Using it this way you can browse specific areas to find the information you need. Index gives you an alphabetical breakdown of popular features in MusicMaster Pro while Search allows you to type in specific words to find something that relates to that topic. If you have more than one word, put it in quotes to assist in looking for a match. I often get asked if there is a user manual for MusicMaster Pro and the answer is “YES”! Our Help section is the manual as it goes over each section of the software often with step-by-step setup and explanations. I know many Help sections for software offer very little but ours is detailed and complete! This is a huge and perhaps unused resource by many folks.

Another selection on the Help section is the Welcome Page. You may have already set this to open when launching MusicMaster already. If not, you can also find it here. Note that you will see recent station (Databases) that you’ve opened. In the bottom left corner there are three options on how you can manage when you see the Welcome Page. The Welcome page has LOTS of great info including our most recent blog articles plus special announcements too!

By clicking on the next option, MusicMaster Support, your web browser will open and you will be taken to the MusicMaster website where all of the options from phone numbers to opening a ticket to logging in to the Support Portal are available.

Next let’s take a look at the System Information option. This utility allows your Music Scheduling Consultant to determine if your operating system can run MusicMaster. It is likely you will only use this option upon initial installation of the software. Should it be needed, you will be able to Copy the information to the Clipboard and then paste it in an e-mail to your Music Scheduling Consultant.

User Registration is our next option in Help. When clicking here it may take a moment to populate with your information. If you needed to update your license you can do it here and you can also Renew your license. This process normally happens automatically but if ever you need to manually renew you can do it here. At the bottom there is a Tools button. You can test you connection. You can also copy this information to a clipboard or even Delete your License. Let’s discuss what this means. If you are using our new keyless licensing then your license is granted a certain number of “Installs”. If you have two licensed installs and load MusicMaster onto a new machine and enter your code it will tell you that you are out of license installs. If you need an additional install just contact your dedicated Music Scheduling Consultant. However if you are going to stop using MusicMaster on a machine because you are moving to a new machine you would want to delete the license from the old machine and then you can use the code on the new install and you are good to go!

Check for Update is our next selection. Clicking here will tell you what version you are clicking on. By clicking on “Next” it will let you know if there are any available updates to the software ready for you. On a side note you can always log in to our website, MusicMaster.com, and download the latest version from there as well.

When you choose our next selection “Release Notes” you will get a Notepad file that includes all of the changes, adjustments and fixes for each release within the version of MusicMaster Pro you are using.

When you select “View License” you will see the agreement that you agreed to when you installed MusicMaster on the computer.

Our final selection is “About MusicMaster”. There is a lot going on here when you open this:

There are some options like the Release Notes, License and System Info buttons that will give you the same information mentioned above under those areas. The Options and Temp folders are there mostly for your IT dept or if your Music Scheduling Consultant requests information from these. The two main players in this area are “App Folder” which will take you to the folder where the MusicMaster Program is installed. This is the folder that would also hold any “ini” files for deeper functions within MusicMaster. The most commonly used button here is the “Data Folder”. Clicking here takes you directly the folder where your actual MusicMaster database is located. If ever you need to send your database or backup to someone (i.e., Radio Consultant, Operations Manager or MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant) but you’re not sure where it lives, this is the spot. The Data Folder is also where you will house any definition files for functions like manual Reconciliation or Traffic Imports.

As you can see the Help Section in MusicMaster is an awesome and robust resource from information on licensing, step-by-step setup information and our Support Page for contact and downloads. Just about any question you may have about the MusicMaster program can be found here. As always, your dedicated support person is always available to help too!

You can go to Help, Check for Updates to get MusicMaster PRO 8.0.6.  Among the highlights:

The History Browser now has an option on the Categories tab to determine the Category Type.  You can select either Song Category or Scheduled Category.  Song Category is the category the songs are currently in or the category that the songs were in when they were scheduled during the specified time period. If you set this to Scheduled Category, songs that played during the time period in any of the selected categories will be included no matter where that song currently is located.  The Scheduled Category can also be included as part of the display when using the Individual Plays option.

New query operators are available when searching Multiple Keyword and Song fields.  With Multiple Keyword fields, you can use “Primary Keyword Does Not Equal” and “Primary Keyword Does Not Contain”. With Song and Keyword fields, you can use “Trivia Does Not Contain”.

The Hour, Sweep and Record Target rules have been adjusted to make the gauge bigger, especially helpful when the values it has to display are large numbers.

Please contact your Music Scheduling Consultant if you have any questions or need assistance installing this version.

Library Query Filters in Version 8.0
by Paul Ziino

We’ve introduced some new library query filters in version 8.0 that may come in handy for you. Here’s what you can expect.

In Date fields like Add Date, Edit Date, or Move Date there are new queries for

• Matches Current Date
• Within Current Week
• Within Current Month
• Matches Last Scheduled Date
• Within Last Scheduled Week
• Within Last Scheduled Month
• Within Last X Days
• Within Next X Days
• Within Last X Scheduled Days
• Within Next X Scheduled Days

For example, you could do a query for songs with an Add Date within the last X number of days or within the current month. Or you could look for songs that were moved into their current category within the last X number of days.

In multiple keyword fields like Artist Keywords there are new queries to include

• Primary Keyword Equals
• Primary Keyword Contains
• Primary Keyword Does Not Equal
• Primary Keyword Does Not Contain
• Count Equals
• Count Does Not Equal
• Count Greater Than
• Count Greater Than or Equal To
• Count Less Than
• Count Less Than or Equal To
• Trivia Text Does Not Contain

So you can query Artist Keywords and ask for only songs where the keyword in question is the first (primary) keyword in the field. Or you could request a list of songs for artists where their keyword appears at least X number of times.

And if you use the Trivia system in MusicMaster we can query in that field more easily now with the following options.

• Trivia Text Does Not Contain
• Trivia Start Date Equals
• Trivia Start Date Does Not Equal
• Trivia Start Date Greater Than
• Trivia Start Date Greater Than or Equal To
• Trivia Start Date Less Than
• Trivia Start Date Less Than or Equal To
• Trivia Kill Date Equals
• Trivia Kill Date Does Not Equal
• Trivia Kill Date Greater Than
• Trivia Kill Date Greater Than or Equal To
• Trivia Kill Date Less Than
• Trivia Kill Date Less Than or Equal To

Which can help you find trivia that is current, outdated, or has yet to go into effect.

Did you know you can create saved queries and then designate one of them as your favorite in the library? When you’re in the query window, click Save As to create a new saved query in the library.

Now that you have your query saved, in Library Maintenance click the binoculars icon with the little heart next to it—that’s where you can pick your favorite query. And by the way, if you don’t want a favorite query, you can select No Favorite Query.

There are lots of great new features in version 8.0, available now for MusicMaster Pro subscribers. Have questions? Reach out to your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant.

Using Schedule Ready Check: Hour Timing, Airplay Contracts and more!

By Laurie Knapp

MusicMaster has several tools you can employ after the Scheduling process to ensure your logs meet your standards and are good to go. One you may be familiar with is Check the Log, which makes sure you aren’t sending out a log with any remaining unwanted rule violations. You can learn more about here (https://musicmaster.com/?p=8115).

Another tool, called Schedule Ready Check, will help you see if other important criteria have been met. For example, you can check for missing audio or loose traffic spots, ensure your Airplay Contracts are being met, and that your hours and days are timing out as you expect.

If you don’t already see the Ready Check button in your Schedule Calendar operations toolbar, you can add it. Right click the toolbar and select Customize.

Then, find Ready Check in the left-hand list of Operation Buttons and use the > arrow or drag it into the list on the right. You can place it anywhere in the list you’d like.

You can also right click on any day in your Schedule Calendar and select Perform Ready Check from the context menu.

When you launch Ready Check, you can see the various options available in the window below.

First, you’ll select a time period for the logs you wish to examine. By default, it will pick the day that was highlighted on the calendar when you opened Ready Check.

Then, use the check boxes to select the various criteria you want to look at. Let’s look at each in turn.

The first two options are helpful if you are looking to control hour or day timing. Your format clocks will predict the length of your hours based on average runtimes, but when songs are actually scheduled, you may find your hours are over or under time.

This can add up over time and cause time creep, so that things you’ve programmed to happen at certain times of day (like a top of hour news bulletin) may be off the mark. Of course, your automation system may be set up to correct for this by dropping or squeezing songs as needed. However, some users would prefer to take control in MusicMaster first, so they have a better idea of what’s happening with their log before it goes to air. That’s where Hour Timing comes in.

This can be done by adding a Time Marker element to the end of your format clock and specifying that you’d like it to fall within some window of time. In this example, I’m telling MusicMaster to try and keep this marker within 58:30 to 61:30, or a 90 second window on either side of the 60-minute mark. This gives me some wiggle room that I’m okay with.

Next, to make sure this actually happens, I need to apply the Clock Hour Timing rule. This is found in the Format Clock Rules folder. I’ll add it as an Unbreakable Rule in my All Categories folder and then Save changes to my rule tree.

Now, when MusicMaster is scheduling, it will lean towards songs that help satisfy the length of my hour, picking shorter or longer songs if needed. If the hour ends up too short, I’ll see rule violations as a warning. If the hour time is met or exceeded, MusicMaster may leave some remaining positions unscheduled.

Furthermore, when I’m editing the log, I’ll see a rule violation if I try to swap in a song that throws my hour timing off. If I filter the Replacement Songs (F9) window to display only perfect songs, or songs that don’t violate my Unbreakable Rules, I can be assured that all the choices will fit in time.

Just as with any other rule, some users might prefer to have very strict hour timing settings, while others may allow a little more wiggle room so that the natural rotation of their songs aren’t inadvertently skewed, with some songs being favored or overlooked. You can keep an eye on your spins using History Analysis and adjust as needed.

Looking back at Ready Check, I can use the first two options to make sure my hour timing is happening as expected.

I’ve set my first check to make sure that my hours are between -1:30 and +1:30 of an exact hour.

Since some hours may be more accurate than others, I want to make sure the whole day is coming out okay by using the second option. Here, I’ve asked MusicMaster to check whether each day is coming within 15 minutes under or over the 24-hour mark. You can select any values which are acceptable to you.

Moving on, the third option will warn me if there are any Unscheduled elements left in the log I might have missed. I have the option to “Ignore if the hour time is satisfied”. As mentioned above, you might expect MusicMaster to leave some elements unscheduled if you’ve already met your hour time. If you haven’t already deleted them from the log, you can tell Ready Check to ignore them.

The fourth option checks for missing audio files, or files that are not found in the path you specified in your Audio Filename field. You also have the option to ignore Non-Music, since you might not be concerned if a piece of imaging is missing and doesn’t play.

The fifth option checks for Loose Spots. This has to do with your Traffic Merge. When you run Traffic Merge, it will insert spots into the buckets of time you’ve specified as Traffic elements in your clock. Generally, this should happen as expected, because you’ve coordinated with your traffic software and accounted for appropriate start and end times in MusicMaster.

However, if a mistake happens and MusicMaster can’t fit a spot into the available buckets of time, that spot will be unscheduled and considered “loose”. MusicMaster keeps track of these loose spots, and when you run Ready Check, it will tell you if a spot from your Traffic Merge did not actually appear in your scheduled log.

Finally, Ready Check is used to ensure your Airplay Contracts are being met. Airplay Contracts are used if you need to control when and how often a certain song or promo should play. For example, maybe during the month leading up to the 4^th of July, you need a certain concert promo to air at least three times every weekday within 5pm-10pm. That’s a lot to keep track of!

Fortunately, you can double check yourself by setting up Airplay Contracts.

In the library, right click on a song and select Airplay Contracts from the context menu. If the item already has a contract, it will be listed here and you can Edit it. You can also create one by selecting New.

In the settings, you can set the contract Start and End Date, or when this contract will be in effect.

Next, you’ll set the Daily Requirements, like the minimum plays you need in a certain time-period. You also have the option to select days of the week where you want this contract to be applied. What you’re essentially saying is that you want to be sure the Daily Requirements are met within this hour window and these days, and outside of them, you don’t really care what happens. Here’s my example for the Fourth of July promo described earlier.

It’s important to point out that Airplay Contracts are not a rule. They don’t actually force the song to play when and how you’ve specified. You’ll have to set that up yourself using your clocks and dayparting. Likewise, a song will not stop airing just because the Airplay Contract period ended. Instead, you’ll need to remove the song from active rotation yourself, or use an automated tool like AutoMove to transfer it to a holding category on a certain date.

Instead, Airplay Contracts work hand-in-hand with Ready Check to warn you if you haven’t met the criteria you intended to during that contract period. If so, you’ll see a warning in Ready Check that you’ve violated your Airplay Contract, with details on what was overlooked.

Now that I’ve checked all the criteria I want to test in Ready Check, I hit Begin to start the process. In a moment, the results appear in the right-side panel.

The results show that despite the best efforts of Hour Timing, there were two hours that were under timing and one that was over. However, my day is still timing out within 15 minutes of 24 hours, so no problems there.

I also accidentally left two positions unscheduled in the 6pm hour, have one audio file that’s missing, and neglected to play one of the two required Fourth of July promos during the specified time slot.

Armed with this information, I can make any changes I need to satisfy my standards. But just as with many things in MusicMaster, this will be up to my individual preferences and needs.

Contact your Music Scheduling Consultant if you have any questions.

Assignment Grid Patterns

By Jesus Rodriguez

I often get calls from clients who want to get creative with their clock assignment grids, whether for competitive purposes or having different clocks with different categories every hour. The challenge at times before MusicMaster PRO Version 8 was implementing the clocks in the grid quickly when not positioned in hours next to each other. You may recall in our previous versions that you can still drag your mouse across the grid to select multiple hours and then type the clock code to see those hours assigned with the clock. What if you wanted to do the same quick task, but your clock needs to be across the grid in multiple hours that are not next to each other?

We have some great new shortcuts built right into the Assignment Grid. Let’s start with the first fantastic solution to select multiple hours anywhere on the clock. Press down on your Control button on your keyboard, then use your mouse to click on any hour square, even rows, and columns.

We also added a new tab in the assignment grid to help you quickly select any pattern you prefer based on your broadcast week, specified hours, shifts, match current hour, and the ability to invert your current selection.

With the Select Days option, you can select the hours of the week based on odd days, even days, and even both possibilities with and without the weekends included.

We can even make patterns based on hours. You can quickly select all your odd and even hours.

As they say, AND THERE’S MORE!!! We get crazy and quickly select your odd and even hours in a diagonal pattern.

Next, select your format clock to implement it into any of your desired patterns.

One common thing I see by many of our users is clocks specific to a daypart shift. You may have particular clocks for mornings, afternoons, nights, etc. Now you can implement them right away by selecting the shift pattern option.

You can also select a group of hours and apply any patterns only to that selection.

Did you decide to create a new clock to replace another used randomly throughout the week? Did you know that as of version 8, you can now select that clock no matter which hour it is on the grid and replace it in a couple of clicks with your new clock? Now you can! Simply select Match Current Hour from the pattern options.

This option will select all the same clocks on your grid to then select and replace them with your new clock.

This option will replace your old clock on the grid with another.

Whether you are the type of scheduler that enjoys different clocks every hour, you do not have the same clock at the same hour every day, or you are super competitive to prevent anyone across the street from figuring you out, this new feature will be a significant time-saver and workflow enhancement.

We hope you enjoy this new addition to MusicMaster PRO Version 8.0!

Contact your Music Scheduling Consultant with any questions.

Auto Platoon for Classical Stations

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

If you were tempted to stop reading just because the title of this article mentioned “classical”, I encourage you to read on. Even though the examples are tailored to that format, any format can take advantage of Auto Platoon to play rested music in their format.

With so much music to choose from, classical programmers have the dilemma of how to program all of it. Honestly, you really can’t, at least not well. The question is how to take advantage of all the amazing music in your library while still maintaining appropriate turnovers for your categories. One answer is Auto Platoon. Auto Platoon lets you move pieces in and out of rotation to keep the category fresh while maintaining your category size.

We’ll start with some basic premises:

You have categories that have a general size and clocks that call for these categories in a way that you have the category turning over in a time frame you want. What that time frame is, is not important. Whether the category turns over in 30 days or 90 days, is up to you. The point is that the turnover is what you want.

There is far more music you could be playing but to do so would slow the rotation of your categories down too much.

With these things in mind, here are two different examples of how you might use Auto Platoon to take advantage of all that music.

You have all this music in your Hold categories that you do not play regularly. When you review the Hold categories, there are pieces there you’d like to play but prefer not to sacrifice the turnover of your active categories.

Create a new category for this music. When you open Schedule, Auto- Platoon, pick the original category and then this new category. Set the Move By to Category Plays so you know the piece will play in the category that many times before being available to move. We’ll skip Filters in this example. The Schedule can be what you’d like. There are many choices available. Finally pick the number of pieces you want to move. You might pick 10 pieces.

The result is that 10 pieces are moved out of the category and 10 moved in. The number of total pieces remains the same so you retain the turnover of the category. The specific pieces change a little at a time. That means you are giving pieces a little rest and playing something else.

Click on the Analyze button to get details. The information about how long it will take a piece to go out and come back is important to understanding how long the piece will rest.

Keep making adjustments to the Schedule or number of pieces until you get the amount of desired rest.

One of my favorite examples of this is to use the Filter option in Auto Platoon.

Vivaldi wrote about 500 concertos. Does every one need to be in active rotation? For the sake of argument, let’s say you have recordings of 100 of these concertos. At any given time, you could have 10 in active rotation and 90 resting. Using the Auto Platoon Filter option, you can specify that you want to move pieces that match the criteria of Composer equals Vivaldi and Title contains Concerto. You might move one or two a week. You’ll continue to have the same saturation of Vivaldi concertos in your active library, 10, but at any given time, the specific 10 will change. That means your core will understand you are playing more of his canon while your likers will simply enjoy another Vivaldi Concerto. Win. Win.

You might do this for several composers to continually refresh which specific titles are playing.

Once you have your Auto Platoon settings in place, the action will be performed when you automatically schedule your log.

One more caution: If you add or subtract music from either Auto Platoon category, revisit the settings to make sure they are still working as you’d like.

If you program a format other than classical, you now know why I wanted you to read on. You also have music in your library that just missed the tested cut or maybe you have older work that still fits the format. You can use Auto Platoon to move these songs in and out of rotation the same way to give you audience the “Oh, wow, I haven’t heard that song in a long time” experience.

Should you need any assistance in setting this up, contact your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant.

MusicMaster 8.0.5 is now available in Help, Check for Updates.

With this release the internal web browser has been updated from Internet Explorer to Microsoft Edge. Previously you might have encountered websites that no longer worked with Internet Explorer. With Microsoft Edge, the latest publishing standards are met making pages display better. There are added benefits including improved rendering performance, the ability to save user credentials for the Music Store (better cookie handling) and the ability to redirect the default download folder for Store audio file downloads.

We’ve updated the Chart Editor to better handle songs that re-enter the chart. Previously if a song was removed then added again, fields were cleared. Now as long as the Peak Position is more than zero, the song will be treated as re-entering the chart. This means fields like Debut Date and various Peak fields will not change unless the re-entry is higher than the current values.

Due to the possible installation of Microsoft Edge, the installation file will check to see if your system needs this installed. If it does, an additional messaging screen will appear to indicate this. Please note that if this needs to be installed, the process will take significantly longer than you might be used to. Once this is installed, subsequent installations will be back to a normal length.

Recombinant Scheduling for Priority Categories

By Laurie Knapp

With every major version release, we aim to introduce an innovative Scheduling method that works under the hood to give better results. In Version 8, there is a new mode called Recombinant Scheduling. It appears as an option in the Search Depth window (Schedule Properties).

This is a special function that was designed for fast rotation priority categories (search depth of 1) and for stations that struggle to separate multiple songs by the same contributing artists that are in high rotation.

This situation creates difficulties in passing artist separation rules because the songs in your priority categories can only play in the schedule order defined for their category. By the nature of how songs and categories rotate at different speeds against each other, sometimes you end up with artist conflicts and rule violations or Unscheduled Positions that you have to fill and juggle manually.

Recombinant Scheduling allows MusicMaster to juggle these songs around for you within the positions available for that category in the same hour to find the best combination that violates the fewest rules. This not only saves you time trying to make those changes manually, but is more likely to find the least rule violating pattern.

It’s important to note that while the Scheduler is of course looking backwards across hours to find artist conflicts, the shuffling itself only happens within the hour. That way, Hour Rotation for those songs are not impacted, as they will still play within the intended hour, just in a different position or quarter hour.

To use Recombinant Scheduling mode on a category, go to Dataset > Schedule > Schedule Properties and select it as an option from the Search Depth drop down. Note that if you want to use Recombinant Scheduling in some dayparts and not others, you can use the Levels feature. This allows you to assign a certain selection of search depth settings to a specific daypart, stored as a Level.

Recombinant Scheduling and Rules

Your rule settings are up to you, and either Breakable or Unbreakable rules will still work in conjunction with Recombinant Scheduling. As always, you can adjust your rule settings until you get the results you desire and use MusicMaster’s various analysis tools to look at the recommended separation values for each category.

Your choices also depend on what you’re looking to accomplish. Previously, you may have excluded your priority categories from any kind of rules because you wanted to play those songs in order and let everything else schedule around them.

When you have multiple priority categories, or artists appearing on multiple records within your priority categories, you may need to have rules to keep those artists from playing too closely together. Depending on your preferences, you can choose to use either Unbreakable or Breakable rules.

If you use Unbreakable rules, Recombinant Scheduling will do its best to shuffle the songs around within the hour so there are no artist conflicts that violate the rules. But if this is impossible given your separation settings, it will relax the Unbreakable rules just enough to make something work. This is how you might act when manually editing the log. If you find your rule settings are too restrictive, you might also consider relaxing them.

If you use Breakable rules, Recombinant Scheduling will also do its best to shuffle songs around the hour in such a way that all your breakable rules are met. As you’d expect, though, it will break the rules if it must. The good news is, because of Recombinant Scheduling’s unique shuffling ability, the Scheduler will have more options to pass your breakable rules and you’ll end up with far less rule violations than had you just plotted all your songs in schedule order.

Example Use

Let’s walk through an example of how Recombinant Scheduling helps schedule two priority categories with overlapping artists (Categories A and B). Here are the rule settings I chose:

I’ve chosen to set Unbreakable rules on both those categories. I want my primary artists to be separated by 35 minutes. However, it’s less important to me that there be a large separation between contributing artists. To avoid them playing back-to-back, I’ve just added a 6-minute separation to the All Keywords field, which contains all my primary and contributing artists.

You can see the result of Recombinant Scheduling in the following log. Here, the original schedule order is marked for illustration purposes using the numbers in the Q column, as well as within the song title.

(To create your own schedule order field like this, you can add a text field in Dataset > Library > Fields. Then sort your category by schedule order by right-clicking on the upper left corner of the grid, or referencing Schedule > Schedule Order. You can then fill in numbers in order from top to bottom.)

Categories H and C are priority categories that only play once an hour, so I didn’t need to use Recombinant Scheduling with them. Instead, they were scheduled in order during the first Scheduling Pass. I then scheduled A and B around them using the Recombinant Scheduling mode.

In the image below, you can see that the blue highlighted songs by DJ Khaled would have been in conflict if they’d scheduled in order at 1:44am and 2:11am (less than 35 min apart). So, MusicMaster instead swapped the third song in the stack (“MASK OFF”) up to that second position at 2:11am, and saved Song 2 (“Shining”) for the next position where it had no conflict.

For another example, we can see how Recombinant Scheduling improved the separation between my secondary artists.

As you can see, the changes need not be dramatic. For the most part, MusicMaster will schedule your songs in their original order, and only make the swaps necessary to resolve conflicts so you don’t have to worry about them.

If you’re scheduling a current or tight rotating format, we encourage you to give Recombinant Scheduling a try. You may also want to try out different rule settings and check out the results to see what works best for you.

If you have any questions, talk to your MusicMaster Scheduling Consultant.