MusicMaster Blog

by Paul Ziino

Looking at the Schedule Editor, have you ever wondered “Who did that?” Here is a quick and easy way to find out.

First, you need to make sure that Dataset Security is turned on under Tools/Options/Dataset Security (as well as Users and Rights). This means each user will have a unique username and password for logging into the database. Once that is done, you can see who has made changes and when within the schedule editor.

There are three fields you’ll want to add to your Schedule Editor view: Schedule:Manual, Schedule:Changed By, and Schedule:Last Change.

Now that your fields have been added to the view, you can see that Schedule:Changed By will tell us who made the last edit in the hour. Schedule:Last Change tells us when that edit was made. In the Schedule:Manual field, you will see a capital M on any position that was edited (not scheduled by the automatic scheduler).

You need to display Hour Headers via the Show/Hide Elements icon in order to see the Changed By and Last Change field information.

Here we see Tom made the last changes at 3:28pm.

In the next picture, we see that Cindy made the most recent changes to the hour.

There’s also a handy feature to see what changes were made between the time you exported your log vs. the time your log was reconciled. You can do so with the History Snapshot.

At any time in the Schedule Editor, you are able to create a snapshot of the log by clicking the camera icon to Compare current history to a saved snapshot.

The first time you click the icon in a schedule you’ll create that snapshot. You can also set MusicMaster to automatically create a snapshot upon export.

Once the snapshot is created, you can compare it to the log as it stands by clicking that camera icon in the schedule editor again. Then click Compare. Your display will allow you to Show All, Show Changed items, or Show Unchanged items. Here’s a sample of the Changed Items. Note, hours with no changes will just display hour headers in this view.

Need a hand setting any of this up? Make sure to contact your MusicMaster Support Consultant. They have the answers you seek!

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!

By Paul Ziino

The Automatic Scheduler relies on settings in Dataset/Schedule/Schedule Properties to know how far to dig into a category before leaving the position unscheduled.  This setting is listed as “depth.”  The number here can be a whole number or a percentage.  Setting it at 5 means MusicMaster will look at the first five songs in the stack to find a song to play.  Setting at 5% tells MusicMaster to look at the first five percent of the items in that category—so if you have 500 songs MusicMaster will look 25 deep to find one to play.  If no song in the available search depth works based on the rules set for that position, it is left unscheduled.

In the past, many programmers would use 100% depths to allow MusicMaster to look through every song in the category before giving up.  This meant that a lot of songs were being tested even though we know they likely violate Minimum Rest rules.  As such, this meant the auto-scheduling process would take longer than necessary.  Now in Version 7 we introduce “Virtual Search Depths.”  To use the Virtual setting, in the depth column of Schedule Properties, type the letter V or click the edit helper button.

With the virtual setting, MusicMaster calculates and adjusts the Search Depth based on how difficult it is to find a song for each element. This means that MusicMaster may not have to search as deeply for some positions, resulting in a log that schedules much more quickly while still getting the results you expect.

You can also disable a category from being auto-scheduled by using that setting or typing D in the depth column.

Virtual Search Depths is just one of many new features you’ll find in MusicMaster 7!

By Paul Ziino

You can really make your Schedule Editor look just about any way you want.  You can add and subtract fields via the Modify Editor Layout icon.

Here you can also change the font, size, colors, and grid attributes.

Click the Toggle Toolbars icon and you can turn on the Test Results panel, Instant Analysis, and more.

Once you’ve turned on the Results Bar, right-click on any panel and select Customize to see all the different items available for review.

And with other icons you can toggle the history graph on and off, as well as the Info bar.

With Show/Hide Elements you can hide different elements from view.

You can turn off lognotes, only display the unscheduled items, hide specific categories, display hour and day counters, and more!

Get it all set up just the way you want it, and you have a completely customized workspace!

And with a few clicks and drags you can rearrange the whole thing and some color adjustments, you have a whole new look!!

Customization of your Schedule Editor is just one of the ways you can make your MusicMaster yours!  Have any questions?  Contact your Music Scheduling Consultant for help.

By Marianne Burkett

Since coming on board with MusicMaster in 2005 after years of being in radio as a programmer in various places, I thought I knew a lot about scheduling music.

In the past, I’d always set my pass order from Currents first to my larger gold categories last and set the search depth to 30% or so.  Now, I’ve changed my tune.  I still schedule my currents first by the session.  A’s schedule, than B’s, C’s etc.   Then I combine the pass order for my larger categories, plus I now use 100% search depth in my larger categories.

How do you combine categories into the same pass? Go to Dataset/Schedule/Scheduling Properties, put your cursor on the category you want to combine, hold down the shift key, and drag your category up or down the list using the blue arrow.  When you let go, you’ll see the pass order combine.

It will look like this:

Heavy, Light and Medium all schedule one pass at a time.  Notice Pass four contains Recurrents, Gold1 while Pass five contains Gold2, Fill and Power 2010s.  Depending on your clocks, these categories build your hour in the order they are listed in each clock and move from the top of the hour to the end, then moving to the next hour.

Why is this a good thing?  If you have a core artist in your currents or recurrents, the likelihood of that core artist scheduling from a category at the end of the pass order is pretty bleak.  When you combine the pass order, MusicMaster schedules hour to hour with those combined categories and the core artists in your Gold categories have a far better chance of scheduling.

I also changed my search depth to 100% in the gold categories in the databases I work with.  Initially, this also made me nervous, but my minimum rest settings in the unbreakable folder never fail, so there is really nothing to be nervous about.

When I tried these methods on a few formats I work in, not only did I get far fewer unscheduled positions, I got a better log and needed to make fewer edits.

It takes less time to do the logs when you allow MusicMaster to do the heavy lifting for you.

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

Happy Scheduling!

By Drew Bennett

MusicMaster continues to listen to our users and add new features to our products. With the release of MusicMaster Pro 5.0sr13, you will now find a new feature called Fail Alerts. (más…)

By Paul Ziino

Una nueva característica en 5.0 es la canción Segue paneles. Abra el Editor del programa y active la barra de resultados haciendo clic en el icono conmutar las barras de herramientas, seleccionando la ficha barras de herramientas, y comprobación de la barra de resultados en la lista.

Ahora dentro de la barra de resultados puede con el botón derecho y personalizar su diseño. Dos nuevos paneles, canción Segue: separación y canción Segue: juega más cercano están disponible y se pueden agregar a la barra de resultados.

Una vez que haya agregado uno o ambos de los paneles a su diseño, haga clic en una canción en el Editor de programación. MusicMaster mira la canción antes de en el registro y búsqueda hacia atrás y adelante en la historia disponible para encontrar cuando el tiempo de la última/next de esas dos canciones escuchado seguida de cada una en ese orden. Esa información se mostrará en los paneles de la canción Segue.

En el ejemplo siguiente, el “Jump” es la canción seleccionada. MusicMaster está mirando en el último momento “Jump” y “Cyanide” escuchado espalda con espalda en ese orden juntos ambos hacia atrás y adelante. El panel de separación presenta la información en días horas: minutos: en este caso “Jump” escuchado después de “Cyanide” en 1 día, 4 horas y 11 minutos. El panel de juego más cercano presenta la información con la fecha y hora específicas de ese juego, el 4 de febrero a las 12:25 am. Rondando en cualquier panel presentará un globo que muestra la información completa que se encuentra en una combinación de ambos paneles.

Los paneles de la canción Segue probar cualquier elemento programado de una categoría de MusicMaster. Así que si hacemos click en “Cyanide”, MusicMaster nos dirá el tiempo pasado o siguiente que jugo al lado de “Rotación Liner”. Sin embargo, podemos decir MusicMaster ignorar elementos que son hasta 15 segundos de duración. Esto se hace en propiedades de herramientas/opciones/adicional. Bajo el encabezado del programa encontrará SegueGapTime. Se puede utilizar un valor de 0-15, que representa la duración en segundos de artículos aquí desea los paneles Segue a ignorar. Una vez ajustado, haga clic en aplicar y aceptar y ahora cuando hacemos click en “Cyanide”, MusicMaster ignorará el “forro de rotación” y en su lugar prueba contra “Sweet Sacrifice” y presentar esos datos para nosotros en los paneles de la canción Segue. Tenga en cuenta que tendrá que cerrar y volver a abrir el Editor de programación para el ajuste para sujetar.

Los paneles de la canción Segue son sólo una de muchas novedades en 5.0. Póngase en contacto con su asesor de programación de música o Compruebe hacia fuera nuestro “nuevo boletín de características 5.0” (PDF) disponible en descargas en el centro de apoyo para aprender acerca de todos ellos!

por Paul Ziino

¿Demasiada música lenta agrupar juntos en el registro? ¿Muchos artistas femeninas en una hora y no suficiente en la próxima? Hay una forma rápida de obtener un análisis visual de cualquier parte de un registro de uso de filtros de resaltar la canción.

Para configurar filtros de resaltar la canción, abra el Editor de programación para un día. Haga clic en el icono de la canción resalte filtros .  Esto abre la caja de filtros resaltar donde puede configurar hasta ocho destacados diferentes. Si tienes problemas con tus artistas de mujeres jugando demasiado cerca uno al otro, puede configurar un resaltado para mostrar exactamente donde están ubicados dentro del registro. Utilizar la primera ficha, filtro de género, contiene cualquiera de f el. Haga clic en Aceptar y agregar.

Después puede indicar si le gustaría probar esto contra Todas las Canciones, Música Sólo o No música Sólo. También puede cambiar el color del toque de luz y el jefe de la columna. Probaremos contra la Música Sólo, cambiaremos el color al rosa y el jefe al Femenino.

Haga clic en OK y el toque de luz se establece. Ahora para verlo en su Redactor del Horario, hará clic en el icono del redactor Modificar Layout  Y agregar programación: Femenino a su opinión activa.

Verá que los Toques de luz todos se ponen en una lista 1-8 a menos que el jefe se haya cambiado ya que hemos hecho para el Femenino.
Ahora que hemos añadido el Toque de luz para el Femenino en nuestra opinión, podemos poner la talla a ello en el Redactor del Horario en consecuencia.

Como notado antes, podemos establecer hasta ocho toques de luz diferentes. Vamos a establecer el otro. Esta vez usaremos el Toque de luz 2. Éste nos mostrará donde nuestras canciones más lentas se localizan. Por tanto usaremos el filtro para incluir el Sonido que contiene el B (Balada) así como el Ritmo contiene 1 (Lento) y el Ritmo contiene 3 (Med-lento). También estableceremos el filtro para “Corresponder a al menos un”. Usaremos un color azul, prueba contra la música sólo, y renombraremos el jefe para Reducir la marcha. Ahora nuestro filtro parece a este …

Ahora agregue Calendario:lento en el diseño, el tamaño del campo en consecuencia, y su editor de programación será similar a esta…

Notará que una canción puede tener toques de luz múltiples — en este caso para Femenino así como Lento.

Tenga presente, no tiene que mostrar todos sus toques de luz inmediatamente. Podría tener la disposición ahorrada del que que muestra a Mujeres en un toque de luz, Dúos en el otro y Grupos en el otro. Entonces podría tener una segunda disposición que muestra toques de luz para el ritmo y otra disposición para códigos sanos, etcétera.

Hay muchos modos que puede usar Filtros del Toque de luz de la Canción. ¡Déles un intento y ver cuánto más fácil debe conseguir una sensación para su tronco con sólo un vistazo!

by Paul Ziino

When you are in the replacement window of the schedule editor you have three display options: Show all available songs, Hide Unbreakable failures, and Show only perfect songs…these are noted by the flag icons. When in “Hide Unbreakable” or “Show only perfect” mode, by default MusicMaster will display the ten most-rested songs that meet those criteria. If more than ten are available, you’ll see the “+ More” button which will give you an additional ten songs that meet the criteria each time you click “+ More”, until all songs are displayed. But did you know you can change how many songs will be displayed to start with, and how many more will be displayed with each click of “+ More”? (más…)