Well i seem to have already asked the question in the title…does it support any? Is it work in progress?
Thanks.
What do you mean by “does it support scheduling software”?
mAirList can load playlists in M3U format generated by third-party software. Ask Charlie about it, he’s our scheduling guru. And also read here: http://wiki.mairlist.com/index.php/Scheduling
Ah right, i never realised it did work with scheduling software.
I’ll take a read through the wiki.
Thanks Torben!
“scheduling guru” - I’ll have to add that to my forum sig 
Ryan - I can help with 2 scheduling packages + mAirList: Natural Music and StationPlaylist Creator. The latter being the cheaper option (£50 for the standard version)… As Torben says, if you look at that Wiki link, you’ll find a walkthrough with screenshots for getting a playlist formatted for mAirList.
The demo of Creator at http://www.stationplaylist.com will give you a 30-day trial of the full software. The “full” version supports un-limited song/jingle groups and allows Traffic Logs to be merged. I have got by with the standard version (limited to 12 song categories and 24 jingle groups) since 2004. You would only need the Traffic merging facility if you were programming a commerical station. Creator can read a folder of songs (or jingles) so you could organise your folder structure like this:
C:\MUSIC\A LIST
C:\MUSIC\B LIST
C:\MUSIC\RECURRENTS
etc
The only problem with this arrangment is that you would have to be very careful about moving files between folders as a scheduled playlist may not be able to load a song due to it being moved into another folder. You can also create a song category and then manually pick files to add (which gets around the missing song problem)… Songs can be added via Genre, too - so if you bulk-tag all your TOP40 songs in a folder containing many other songs, you can easily add them without searching manually. You can schedule very simple playlists with either NM or SPL Creator - including Break Notes (mAirList DUMMY items) that remind the DJ to do something like “READ WEATHER” or whatever, automation break markers (to halt playback), and Command actions that run a script (to open the line input) or tell another playlist to start/stop etc.
There are numerous threads here that detail my tales of woe regarding scheduling various features within mAirList (some simple, others not so) - but ask away and I’ll try to help.
I’ll also help with scheduling queries, used most schedulers but use station playlist creator daily (hopefully will be adopted across Gcap soon).
boggle< Wow! It would one be heck of a feather in SPC’s cap (and a big kick in the face for RCS and Natural Music) if Gcap do adopt it!
To Charlie: So … if one downloads SPC and lets it ‘run out,’ one can still save playlists etc., albeit with a more limited number of categories as you say? That’s VERY interesting to know. I had assumed the SPC guys would switch off the Save button at timeout, like most trial software does. Sounds like it’s time to finally bite the bullet and download the trial version of SPC! 
BFN
CAD
boggle< Wow! It would one be heck of a feather in SPC’s cap (and a big kick in the face for RCS and Natural Music) if Gcap do adopt it![/quote]
Still living in hope, it was several months ago that a senior manager started to push this for its ease of use and considerable savings.
If only! The demo is fully functional for 30 days, then expires (uninstalling, removing the folder and re-installing will get around that if you want more time to play)…
When you purchase, you have the option to purchase it on 3 tiers: Lite, Standard and Pro. The “lite” version is very restrictive, hence the price tag of only £20. £50 or £110 for the other 2 versions. Compare the versions about 1/3 way down this page: [b]http://www.stationplaylist.com/creator.html[/b] You can easily updgrade your reg code to a better version later on if you need more features.
Just out of interest,
Does anybody know of any scheduling software that is a free download that can be used simply for creating empty playlists.
On a similar subject, and it should really be in feature request, but, on some software i was using recently, when you open/load the program it gives you an option to create a playlist. this basically works as a link to the playlsit file wherever it is saved. just a nice easy option.
What do you think?
Thanks
I have just realised it is in the feature request section, before anybody notices the error!!
Creating empty playlists ? Clicking the “New” button will create an empty playlist A very basic stipped-down copy of mAirList can be used in an office/production studio if you have a shared/mapped drive to the studio’s music drive. There is a program called Tobasco’s Amazing Clock Wheel, but I don’t know if it’ll work for you:
No, not a blank playlist.
What i mean is you create generic hour layouts for progs. e.g. breakfast, mid-morning etc.
Then, you can load your playlist via a window and add music and other audi to it.
I guess one option is that it could an extra tab in the browser, but will it read the m3u format of a playlist.
The other question is can we make it autosave on a playlist? Therefore, if a running order is loaded, music added and closed, it automatically does it rather than having to click to save a playlist?
Lackster, the link Charlie posted does create playlists from ‘generic’ hours! A clockwheel is a ‘generic hour,’ it just looks like a pie chart. If you visit that site (yet ANOTHER wonderful link, Charlie: cheers!), you will immediately understand.
I’m off there now to download the Tobasco [sic] program.
I lost interest in SPC when I discovered that it writes to the tags in your MP3 files. Probably not an issue for most people, but I really don’t feel like I want to un-read-only all my MP3 music files; nor have SPC scribble in my music files’ tags. :o Probably not an issue for anyone else. 
BFN
CAD
great. will give it a shot.
Thanks for your continued speedy responses
Hi Cad & Lackster, not sure if the bug has been fixed in Tobasco Amazing Clockwheel.
If not, it will fail to run from the desktop shortcut that it creates itself. Simply delete the shortcut and make a new one from a right click etc.
There is another free scheduler just cannot remember its name (Charlie any ideas?), I’ll dig around through my hard drives which may take some time.
Here though is a great source of links:
http://www.the-radio-site.com
Kind regards tony
Just having a fiddle around with StationPlaylist Creator and i must admit it is really nice and fairly easy to use considering i’ve only been using it for about an hour and never used a scheduler before!
Charlie, will you be updating the Wiki scheduling page soon? It would be very helpful!
One thing i can’t find to do in Creator, is to line up News beds automatically on the hour. The only thing that can obviosuly be done is to categorise the beds and what not into a News spot, which cna then be put ont eh rotation. But it constantly changes the beds obviously e.g bed_01, then the next hour it may start with bed_02. Is there a way to tell Creator to always put these files, in this order at the TOTH. This could also come in handy for a TOTH ident. The only way i can think of it, is to have a spot for each separate news bed, which is just silly!
Thanks.
Cad: SPL only writes to your ID3’s if you tell it to. There is a config option to tell it not to should you so desire (to desire or not to desire, that is the option). As for the Clock Wheel - I’ve never used it, just have it as one of my links, glad you found it useful!
Ryan: To explicitly define an audio item to play (ie: the same file at the same point in a Rotation), put it into it’s own Spot Group - then place that spot group in the Rotation and the point you wish it to play. You can have a News Ident Spot Group with your News In, Bed and Out jingles but as you’ve found, they’ll need to be alphanumeric in their naming - and that Spot Group must not be in “random” mode You can set a Spot Group to select one item after the other, a random track or all files in that group.
As for timed tracks - Creator only allows Timed Spots when using StationPlaylist Studio - You’d have to use the “Fixed Time” item properties feature in mAirList to force a file to play at a given time (or use a script).
However, if Torben were to introduce something like #mAirList TIME 18:59:50 JUMP TO NEWS INTRO then we could add that as a Break Note in Creator and mAirList could read that as a Fixed Time Dummy item
Hope that helps…
(taking advantage of un-secured wi-fi)
Now I’m intrigued: where does SPC store its data if it isn’t in the MP3? My understanding—and please correct me if I’m wrong—is that SPC doesn’t use any databases? So presumably if you tell it not to scirbble in the MP3s, all that good stuff like most recent play time/date, etc., etc. go into the bit bucket along with all related functionality (like not repeating an artist in 8 hours, say): right or wrong?
It uses an intriguing concept of working from humungous M3Us. For example, you make an M3U of all your ‘Current Hits’ for example, another of all your ‘Number Ones,’ etc. It then uses those lists as the categories in your clockwheel (or hourly log, if you prefer that terminology!) and basically shuffles each list, then picks items from top-down, respecting any ‘no dupes’ settings you put in. Like SPC, it makes a final M3U. It also moves top item to bottom in each ‘category’ playlist as it does its generation thing. If you have software like MediaMonkey, making the initial ‘category’ M3Us wouldn’t be such a pain.
I reckon #mAirList FIXEDTIME 18:59:50 JUMP TO NEWS INTRO would be better, because you could then also have (at the mAirList end):
[ul][li]#mAirList SOFTFIXEDTIME 18:40:00 AD SPOT GROUP[/li]
[li]#mAirList TIME 18:12:00 STATION PROMOS SPOT GROUP[/li][/ul]
… which If I recall, are all the possible types of time settings one can make in mAirList (fixed, ‘soft’ fixed, and, er … ‘flexible/do your best’).
Naughty, naughty! :o
BFN
CAD
It works a charm Charlie! Thanks for the help. Your knowledge is enlightening!
Cad: SPL uses it’s own data files - AFAIK, the ID3 tagging is mainly to intergrate it within the “Studio” playout software - Perhaps Tony can confirm this as it’s been a couple of years since I last used that program (although I have a licence for it, so can play around if need be).
Ryan: You’re welcome… Once you’ve got the basic config sorted, it’s all plain sailing!
PS: I’ve just recorded an audio/visual Creator-mAirList tutorial, once I’m back on the home connection, I’ll upload it. Just have to see about the compression format so that the Creator window isn’t all degraded