Finally signed up after some lurking and searching on this problem… I’ve been using mAirList for a few weeks (2.1.42) and wonder if this is possible?
At the moment, the station doesn’t have any output for the majority of the day. Rather than silence on the internet stream I’d like to loop some audio, trailers, etc. (At the moment I have a single file in cart player one looping).
However, I’d like to be able to do two more things;
At the start of every hour play a three minute playlist once, then
Start the “off-air” playlist on a loop again, until the next hour
Eventually, it’d be nice to be able to insert the odd recorded programme in Events, and the playlist would grow as more trailers, promos and possibly music is added.
At the moment, the first peice of audio in the three minute playlist drops into cart player 1 and loops.
I’d really appreciate any ideas on this - I’ve been playing with the configuration and can’t quite get there.
Hi Jimradio, welcome to mairList and the forums. This will probably be best solved using a script, so I’ll leave this to expert help from Torben and Cad among the many others here.
[quote=“Jimradio, post:1, topic:4636”]I’d like to be able to do two more things;
At the start of every hour play a three minute playlist once, then
Start the “off-air” playlist on a loop again, until the next hour[/quote]
Jim, firstly may I add my welcome to this forum to Tony’s!
OK, back to your request. One way to do it would be to have your ‘looping’ playlist in Cartwall Player 1 as at present, then use Events to load and play the hourly ‘unique’ playlist in the main Players.
The first item in the hourly playlist would need to have its Action On Start (in its Properties page) set to Fadeout Cartwall 1; similarly the final item would need its Action On Stop set to Start Cartwall 1 (which would then loop again). If that doesn’t quite work, you may need to add a COMMAND or two to the end of the hourly playlist to force Cartwall 1 to Loop again, but I don’t think you will need to do that.
This is all just off the top of my head, so if you need any further help/ideas then please do ask. We’re a very friendly and helpful crowd here, and we’re always happy to help, especially to newcomers to mAirList! Please don’t be shy to ask if anything isn’t totally clear, or you don’t understand anything: all of us have different talents and amounts of experience in radio.
Hope all that gives you some ideas to start with. There are probably several other ways to accomplish what you want to achieve. Please do also ask if you want any help with designing your mAirList layout: I like to think of mAirList as a ‘Lego set’ from which you can design and create YOUR ideal playout system layout; whereas almost all other playout systems force you to use what the designers THINK is what you want as a layout! That’s one of mAirList’s many Highly Desirable Features…
Many thanks for your quick replies! I’ve tried out all sorts of radio software and can’t get enough of mAirList.
That option sounds good - I’ll try that out today. The other quick option I thought of was just to duplicate the content of the hour long playlist until it made an hour, but I wonder if it’d be useful to let people drop their own trailers and interviews on the end of the playlist and just know it’ll be included in the “loop”.
A few people have been using mAirList for the cartwall for a few weeks now and have taken to it well (and have been loading in playlists and not using CDs) - but I’m still really interested in customising some of the layout. It’s great how much customisation you can do - I followed Charlie’s instructions for putting “now playing” information on a website and was amazed how painless it can be.
Many thanks again - will let you know how I get on with setting Action on Start and Action on Stop.
Hi Cad, thanks for the pointers on how to achieve this.
We are still using an earlier version (.41) so i have been unable to find an option to fade the cart player.
What we have achieved is to load the playlist and make it play at a specified time.
Load and play playlist or load and play file did not work so instead in the event scheduler we used an action/work list.
In this order.
Enable Automation
Load and play Playlist (which points to the relevant playlist)
Start Automation Playback
This was the only way we could get a playlist to start although it loads fine with the option Load Playlist and Load and Play playlist.
So we are partially there, we will keep playing and post if and when we can get the cart to fade when the playlist loads and also the reverse for the end of a playlist and resume the cartplayer in loop mode.
Hi, Further to this, if you save your audio that needs to repeat as a playlist and then with the hourly playlist:
Set the options in the properties of the last file to,
Enable automation
start automation
load and play playlist
Just to work out how to get this single item to loop, I guess there is an option somewhere but still to look.
kind regards Tony
EDIT
Last part I think;
As Cad suggested earlier:
On the first piece of audio in your playlist to load each hour, use the properties for the audio file.
This option is found by double clicking audio (or a right click/properties) as it sits in a playlist. Go to Options and click Actions on start/add and select execute command, assuming your regular repeating audio is in cart 1 enter ths into the dialog box:CARTWALL 1 FADEOUT
remember to save this action in the same screen. Before existing the properties can back to general and set the fade time 9this can be done on a per file basis). All done Click OK
So from the earlier method (except resorting to a single playlist and a cartwall in loop mode) we use the events to schedule the load and start of a playlist. The cart started as the playlist finishes. The first start of the cart can be done manually or via events or a script.
On the last piece of audio in your playlist remember in the stop actions to :
Stop Automation
Disable Automation
Execute command CARTWALL 1 START
REMEMBER TO LOAD YOUR CARTWALL IN LOOP MODE AND SAVE THE DESKTOP AS STANDARD.MLD THIS WAY THE CARTWALL SHOULD RELOAD IN THE SAME STATE. (save to the mAirlist folder).
Just put all the parts together and it works!
James feel free to PM if you need more or to talk this through, I would also be interested to know more about your project.
What do I love about mAirlist - you can always find something new in the config options!
[quote=“Jimradio, post:4, topic:4636”]I’ve tried out all sorts of radio software and can’t get enough of mAirList.[/quote]Join the club! ;D
Okay, I’ve sorted your requirement out. It might need v2.1.42 unless you have the Always Fade Out On STOP option available on an item’s Properties in v2.1.41.
What you need to do is:
[ul][li]Load your cartwall as normal and enable LOOP on (say) cart player 1.[/li]
[li]Open the cart player’s Properties dialog and make sure Always Fade Out On STOP is ticked. Also, set its Actions on Start to the following, in this order: Automation/Automation Stop/Playlist 1, Automation/Disable Automation/Playlist 1. (This latter leaves Playlist 1 in ASSIST by default.)[/li]
[li]SAVE the Cartwall as a Cart Set (MLC) file. Note that you will still have to set the LOOP manually later.[/li]
[li]Sequence your hourly break items and save the result as a playlist.[/li]
[li]At the end of the hourly break playlist, add a COMMAND of CARTWALL 1 START. Use the Artist field as a Description, for example: Restart Cartwall 1.[/li]
[li]Save the Playlist![/li]
[li]Open the event editor for the main Playlist (double-click the event time ‘box’) and create two Events. The first Event should be scheduled for ‘on the hour’ and runs the following Actions in this order: Command/CARTWALL 1 STOP, Automation/Automation Play/Playlist 1. The second Event should be timed for at least 30s and preferably a minute or two (or more!) before the ‘on the hour’ Event and runs the following Actions in this order: File/Load playlist/Playlist 1/, Automation/Enable Automation/Playlist 1. The reason for the separation is to give the playlist loading time to happen and shake out: if you don’t do it this way, the first item in the Playlist might load twice.[/li][/ul]
To run the thing, make sure the Events are enabled and scheduled, then load the Cartwall, make sure LOOP is on, and START the cart player. Then sit back and relax!
Many thanks for your replies - I really appreciate it!
I’ve just set that up on my computer here and the only thing is the last command to start cartwall player 1 doesn’t seem to start the player. I’ve added a command in Events to run at five seconds and three minutes past to start the player and it seems to work…
I’ll take take it to the studio and see what happens - this is great.
All the best - will post a more detailed reply when I get back,
Just to clarify: you need to add the Command at the end of the ‘hourly break’ playlist as follows:
[ul][li]Create or Open the ‘hourly break’ playlist in your main Playlist.[/li]
[li]Click the last item in the Playlist to highlight it. This also ensures that the Playlist has the Windows ‘focus.’[/li]
[li]In the menu, click the dropdown button beside Insert, then click Command.[/li]
[li]In the Command dialog, Properties section, Command field: type the command CARTWALL 1 START in UPPERCASE as shown here. I recommend also typing a comment/description in the Artist field to remind what the command is![/li]
[li]In the Command dialog, click OK.[/li]
[li]If the COMMAND is not the final item in the Playlist, drag it to the end of the Playlist.[/li]
[li]SAVE the Playlist![/li][/ul]
If you did everything as shown above, I can’t work out why your Cartwall Player isn’t starting? I’ve never tried typing a command in lowercase or mixed case, but I’m guessing that a) it wouldn’t work, and b) that may be the cause of your ‘no start’ problem. Note also that there is no punctuation in a command, and you do need to type one space between each element of the command.
