Cue points etc

I have started using Station Playlist Creator and was wondering if the cue points and segue points set using the track tool in SPC can be recognized by mAirlist?
If not as standard, is there a way round it?

Appreciate any help you can give.

You timed that pretty well!

Assuming that you can extract the info. from SPC in a sensible form (Charlie Davy is your man for that if I recall), and you have access (geddit!!!) to a copy of Excel, check out this thread:
http://forum.mairlist.com/index.php/topic,3374.0.html

The coresponding template to IMPORT from MMDs INTO Excel is here:
http://forum.mairlist.com/index.php/topic,3265.0.html

Hope that helps!

BFN
CAD

I have not got Excel, but I do use Open Office which, I believe, is compatible with Excel files.

Generally, there is no official standard for saving cue data in MP3 files. Each piece of software uses its own format, usually very much adapted to the needs of the particular playout software.

mAirList format - MMD files or the ID3v2 tag data, respectively - is pretty “open”, because it is based on XML which can be easily processed with any kind of programming language. So it’s very easy to write the mAirList end of a converter.

Although I haven’t tried, I doubt that Cad’s Excel templates will run on OpenOffice. Because they are acually VBA programs, aren’t they?

I’ve never managed to get OpenOffice to install despite two attempts (with two different versions), so I gave up on it some time ago. I don’t plan to waste any more time or effort on failing to persuade OO to install for a third time.

Whether it’s file compatible or not, OO (as I understand it) does not support Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications, so you would have to convert the code inside it from VBA to StarBasic. Feel free to do that if you wish, and while I am happy to answer questions about the VBA code and how it works, I have zero knowledge of StarBasic. From the very little StarBasic I’ve seen, you need to write three times as much StarBasic code as VBA code to achieve the exact same result, so good luck!

BFN
CAD

You should. I have never had any problems with the installation.

The tags for SPL’s TrackTool are stored at the END of the file, rather than as ID3 at the beginning - as such, I have been unable to get MP3Tag to read them (and thus create a CSV for import/export) :frowning:

Thanks for the replies, but it sounds like either I get Excel or I use the info entered in mAirlist for now.

I seem to remember that someone made a tutorial video on how to use Station Playlist and mAirlist together, and I’ve been searching on this forum without much luck. It gave details on how to get mAirlist to read playlist headers set in SPC and, I believe, also how it can insert a dummy file, and breaknotes. I think it might have been Charlie who had it on YouTube, but if anyone could point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

Indeed it was me - but it’s not actually online at present, there’s only a basic tagged vid on YouTube at present. However, the information you need is in the Wiki: http://wiki.mairlist.com/index.php/Scheduling The PNG transparency of the SPL Config screen is a bit iffy in Firefox, but shows up fine on IE should you dare run it!

The vid (in a resolution you can read) is just over 30MB, I’ll upload it somewhere if you want to watch it.

To Torben: Much against my better judgment, I did download and install OpenOffice (well, the Writer and Calc bits). At least there aren’t 101 files to find and download like there were the last time I tried (hooray!). The OO BASIC IDE is a bit like using Excel V5.0—or if you prefer, very similar to the pre-VBA IDE in MS Office about 20 years ago (Word 2.0 and Excel 5.0 era). A not-very-interesting trip back in time to a truly primitive programming environment. I’ve made a very tentative start on converting the Export template to OO, but this is purely as an experiment, so I’m not promising that I can or will ever finish it; nor that I will ever convert the Import MMD one, which is a much bigger task. I do hate the way that in Open Office, ALL paths and files (when Opening files or Saving As) have to expressed in URL form (WTF?!!), instead of the normal and usual path/file name string. This is symptomatic of the ‘back-to-front’ Internet-centric paradigm (‘a local path and file is just a “special” URL’) which I utterly despise. And I absolutely detest that ridiculous ‘what do you want to do now?’ Wizard-type screen which came up the first few times I closed an OpenOffice app. Thankfully that Nero-like stupidity seems to have stopped now (God alone knows why!).

To MikeFisher: You’re welcome to convert my VBA code to OpenOffice Basic, assuming you can find someone who is familiar with writing OpenOffice Basic (I suppose there must be one somewhere! :D). I don’t mean to be a pain, but I’ve worked man and boy with Windows (since V1.1!) and MS Office (see above) so I am used to all Office’s quirks, and I am also highly experienced in writing VBA code. I hope you will understand that I see little need or purpose in learning a different ‘Office’ product, when the MS one I already own is like a familiar, comfy pair of slippers; and does much more than I will ever need it to? If you have a friend or relative who has Excel, would you be able to copy your data from SPL into an OO spreadsheet, then save that in XLS format and use it on that Excel PC to create the MMDs? Then you could simply copy the MMDs back on to your mAirList PC. That’s the best I can suggest right now for those of you who have deliberately chosen to use OpenOffice.

To Charlie: Do SPL tags read in MP3-Tag Studio (http://www.magnusbrading.com/mp3ts/)? That’s still my favourite MP3 tag wrangler (despite its ugly GUI) simply because it shows things in MP3 tags which other tag editor programs cannot or do not. I believe that MP3TS is capable of reading tag data regardless of whether it’s at the start or end of an MP3 file. MP3TS is low-cost shareware, but non-registered versions have full functionality, so you could always download and try it. Oh, and MP3TS can also produce all sorts of list files from info. in MP3 tags ;).

BFN
CAD

Cad: I couldn’t get it to read the SPL tags, but it could interpret the AudioEnhanceDPS tags (%CATEGORY%, %OPENER% etc). I have to say, I much prefer the grid-based layout of MP3Tag :wink:

Attached is a 5sec file with some SPL tags that I put in - see if you can fare better than I!

The following fields have been set: Artist, Title, Album Artist, Album Title, Track#, Year, Genre, Mood, Rating, BPM, Tempo, Engergy, Gender, Start Date, End Date.
(values in mS)
Cue In : 500
Intro : 1500
Segue : 4800

SPL - if you didn’t already know, Cad - allows you to rename the files in a similar way to Raduga/Zara with regard to overlaps and intro time. A file with a 5ec intro and a segue point 10sec from the end would look like this: Artist - Title#5~10.mp3 (decimals can also be used for greater accuracy). If Mike’s files were arranged liked that it’d be easier to grab that info from the filename and paste them into Excel and PasteMultiply to get the mS values.


Artist - Title.mp3 (121 KB)

Charlie: is there also an APE tag in there? Looks like one, RIGHT at the end of the file, following the (apparently otherwise unreferenced?) block of ‘tag’ info from SPL.

Being able to display ‘extended’ MP3 tags (like your AudioEnhanceDPS stuff) is the reason MP3-Tag Studio is my favourite, despite its ‘idiosyncratic’ GUI! Other MP3 wranglers don’t bother looking for the more ‘obscure’ MP3 tags and thus the user never knows that they exist, even if they really DO exist in your files.

But you’re right: MP3-Tag Studio can’t read the SPL info. either, probably because it doesn’t look like an MP3 tag. I’m not sure what kind of code you would need to write to be able to reliably ‘find’ and read that info.

BFN
CAD

APE - doh! Of course, SPL tags are compatible with APEv2 so you can use MP3Tag to manipulate them :wink: (the SPL manual actually explains this!) The Intro field is INTRO which is actually the same as the DPS IDv3 name so that’s why I had some trouble viewing it as MP3Tag defaults to IDv3 then APE (if found/enabled). Make sure that MP3Tag is set to write APEv2 and it’ll duplicate your existing Intro field.

Getting your SPL data out is quite simple:

  1. Set MP3Tag to read ONLY APE tags and load your music folder
  2. Use the Export function to extract the %INTRO% field to a text file
  3. Use Cad’s wonderful MMD Import Utility to load your MMD files*
  4. Load your text file in Notepad and copy the contents to the clipboard
  5. Paste the contents into the Ramp1 column
  6. Use Cad’s MMD Export Utility to save the new MMD files - you may need to Paste Special the values here to match those of your Import Settings (ie: mS or hh:mm:ss etc)
  • To keep the files identical, I export the MP3Tag list as an M3U, load the M3U in mAirList and then run the SaveMMD part of my SetItemAttributes script so that the song MMDs I want are sortable via DateModified. I then copy those MMDs to a spare folder (this is so that if you balls it up, there’s no harm done). Then you’re ready for option 3 :wink:

I haven’t bothered with the Segue point as mAirList can auto-detect those, but it’s called SEGUE if you need it :wink:

Right-click any file in the MP3Tag grid and select “Extended Tags” and there they are - 'tis amazing what you can learn when you RTFM!

Nice one, Charlie! Another collaborative result! :smiley:

BTW, Mike: I’ve nearly finished converting the Export utility (the one what writes MMD files) to OpenOffice. Apart from correctly exporting all the time values (!), it’s all working AOK; but I need to do a bit more work to fix that.

BFN
CAD

Here’s a screengrab of my test file which I tagged with some details… To show any of these fields in the MP3Tag grid, do the following:

Name: SPL Segue (this is what appears in the column header, so it’s your choice)
Value: %SEGUE%
Field: %SEGUE%

Value+Field need to have the same field-names (use my screenshot as a guide to field-names).


spltags.png

[quote=“Cad, post:14, topic:5631”]Nice one, Charlie! Another collaborative result! :smiley:

BTW, Mike: I’ve nearly finished converting the Export utility (the one what writes MMD files) to OpenOffice. Apart from correctly exporting all the time values (!), it’s all working AOK; but I need to do a bit more work to fix that.

BFN
CAD[/quote]

Thank you, I appreciate the work you’re putting into this.

So, presumably:
[ul][li]All times, durations, etc. are expressed in mS, and are absolute (instead of ‘Raduga-style’ relative values)[/li]
[li]Intro in SPL = Ramp in mAirList[/li]
[li]Segue in SPL = FadeOut in mAirList[/li][/ul]

This is all wonderful stuff, Charlie. Should be a D-O-D-D-L-E to Export that lot from Excel or Calc to MMDs! Just remember to click the MILLISECONDS option button in the dialog when you do so.
(Oh yeah: you DID mention something about SPL and milliseconds previously! ;))

I also hope our German colleagues will also be able to make use of all this! I bet there are a LOT of mAirList users who also use StationPlaylistCreator.

BFN
CAD

To anyone wishing to try my OpenOffice BASIC version of the Excel template which exports (i.e. WRITES) MMD files [converted from the original Excel VBA version]:
http://forum.mairlist.com/index.php/topic,3396.0.html

Please post reports of any bugs, scorn, praise, etc. in that thread and not here. :slight_smile:

BFN
CAD

Somewhat off topic…

Charlie:

Charlie… as a current user of ZaraRadio 1.6.1 and maybe using 1.6.2 as soon as it’s bug fixed, I was wondering if the #(n) works in ZaraRadio1.6.1/2 and if so how, and is there documentation to support this function>

Ducking for cover… and switching back to topics related to MairList…

I haven’t tried Zara myself but their manual doesn’t mention the ‘intro’ # format, only the well-known ~ ‘fadeout/segue’ format.

Having said that, most software’s documentation is a little behind the latest versions. Chris: Why not ask the same question in Zara’s English forums? Or have you already done that? :smiley:

BFN
CAD