Here’s the video I mentioned last week - it’s 38MB, the smallest I could get it without screwing with the resolution as I wanted the screen to be legible! The video capture software also recorded the sound, and there are some clicks on my voice - I may re-dub it if I can be bothered…
The tutorial takes you from a fresh install of StationPlaylist Creator, creates a couple of song categories, some jingle groups and a couple of “clock” rotations. It also explains how to add a News ID sequence (3 news idents in a row), how to output the playlist for mAirList, and the Break Note codes to add DUMMY COMMAND etc within a playlist.
This video is excellent - thanks very much for sharing. Can’t wait to go and have a proper play with StationPlaylist tonight. (Installing it, specifying a folder / subfolders with several thousand tracks and doing 24 hour playlists doesn’t really sound good, unless you want Val Doonican followed by The Streets. ;))
How would you recommend setting up the events to load those playlists each hour? Or is the idea that a presenter would run a script to do it automatically?
Thanks, Jim - I will probably get around to re-dubbing the voice at some point as CamStudio produced lots of clicks on my voice. Loading playlists is quite simple - in the Events editor, you can specify a script to run when in Auto at (for example) 56mins past every hour to load the next hour’s playlist (or jump to the hour marker if a 24hr playlist). Download the “Load Playlists” attachment from my earlier post here.#
As for many songs in 1 folder - I have made a start on tagging my ID3 Genres with my old DPS categories (DPS is capable of creating .lnk file shortcuts for each category). Using the excellent MP3Tag, I have been adding and modifying the files. I have been using the “Track” field to denote an Opener song (using a * character)… Then, I filter the Genres and export them to .txt files - pasting the contents directly into the Files List in StationPlaylist. If you save the export file as a .m3u, it can even open in mAirList That also means songs with several categories can exist - MP3Tag can be configured to only show user-definded Genres, which is really good. I’ve also found the “Convert” feature where I can specify string replacements (Abba to ABBA, for example). DPS’ only negative point is insisting on “Proper Case” names when saving files
If you need a more thorough explanation, please say so and I’ll do a point-by-point post
Jim one of Charlies scripts should handle loading playlists for you. You can also use the event scheduler. However using the format for playlists Charlie suggests in his video you will need an event for every hour for every day.
To simplify things and reduce the need to just 24 events you could change the format to hour only rather than day/date/hour and then either use the event scheduler to load consective numbered playlists daily or append an existing playlist towards the end of an hour.
24 events, I was assuming loading a playlist through the event editor and not using a script.
It does not really effect me either way as none of the formatted stations I schedule currently use mAirList for playout. However its a script for futre reference, Cheers Charlie.
There is also a flaw in only specifying an hh format and not including a date. You lose all the station playlist logs as consective number logs will be overwritten each day by station playlist creator.
I think there’s some confusion here - the Hourly Playlist loader (or jumpto) IS a script which runs in the Event Scheduler. It can also appear at the end of a playlist as a COMMAND RunScript c:\scripts\script.mls item. If you insist that an hourly playlist plays ALL items before it loads the next, then putting the script as a COMMAND item at the end of it will work - but if you need to hit a news junction or play Adverts at :58, then you’ll need to use AutomationJump (daily playlist) or “Load Next Playlist” (hourly). You could use a hybrid of the two and whilst having a global playlist loader at the top of the hour, include an AutomationJump script at :55 so that the last few items (perhaps a goodbye link and ad-break) can be played without being dropped.
It’s advisable to include at least the DD HH parameters in a playlist so that they do not overrite each other and so that presenters can “prep” forthcoming hours/days. Personally, I think ddd dd mmm - hh.m3u or Wed 30 Apr - 17.m3u to be a straightforward naming structure
Whether you use a daily or hourly playlist is up to you - Dailys are ideal if you automate all the time and have little need to edit during playout (requiring a re-load and “catch-up” of the current playlist). Hourlys are more managable, in my opinion.
Hi sorry Charlie, the confusion is mine and my reasoning a little backward.
I had assumed the event editor used an action to load a playlist rather than run a script.
You are also correct in using hourly playlists generated daily. Hourly playlists are so easy to manage, while generating them daily allows for making regular additions to the audio library.
Another help is having a good rule-set that does not create errors on playlist creation, which could mean manually editing each hour of a playlist once generated. Happily we do not suffer this, although other schedulers such as Music 1 allow the editing to be performed On the Fly rather than using a playlist editor afterwards.
The parameter format for naming playlists is as you suggest ddd dd mmm - hh, or a variation of this. The format I suggested was again not considering the use of scripts within mairList so 24 events seemed easier to load via the event/action command.
Sorry to bring up an old topic, but it would great if you could re-upload this video Charlie…we are about to purchase Creator and would love to see the workings and what not and how it gets along with mAirList!
At the moment we are using 2.2 I think? It’s a school radio and am I right in saying that I think there are no free licenses for education use for v3? Also, we use MySQL database through ‘SAM Broadcaster’ as our database at the moment.
What will your Selector interface do? Do you mean compatibility with ‘RCS Selector’ ? I’m all a bit confused!!
mAirList 3 is not free any longer even for non-profit organizations. However, I do offer a discount depending on your type of organization. If you consider upgrading, please get in touch with me.
As you might have heard, mAirList 3 includes a database backend for managing both your audio files and the hourly playlists/music logs. The Selector interface I mentioned would first export the list of files to Selector, which in turn generates a bunch of playlists, and then import these playlists (basically a list of file IDs) into the mAirList database again.
Without v3 and the database, the only option you have is managing all files in Selector and then exporting M3U files to be loaded into mAirList.
I haven’t looked into the exact process for Station Playlist Creator yet. As far as I know, it insists on scanning the music folders by itself, so there will be no need for an mAirListDB -> Creator export tool. Regarding the import process, Creator -> mAirListDB, it should be possible to parse the M3U files written by Creator.
Hi Ryan, Creator with version 2 of mAirList should suffice.
This way you can schedule hourly or daily playlists and continue loading using scripts, you just need to standardise a naming format for the playlists.
RCS Selector as you say is expensive as it is not available on buyout but leased monthly. However do enquire about an educational licence.
Can’t wait to go and have a proper play with StationPlaylist tonight. (Installing it, specifying a folder / subfolders with several thousand tracks and doing 24 hour playlists doesn’t really sound good, unless you want Val Doonican followed by The Streets. ;))
That also means songs with several categories can exist - MP3Tag can be configured to only show user-definded Genres, which is really good. I’ve also found the “Convert” feature where I can specify string replacements (Abba to ABBA, for example). DPS’ only negative point is insisting on “Proper Case” names when saving files 
