Hi. I have just registered mAirList and am using it on our new Community Radio station in Leeds. We have been granted an Ofcom licence and are already sending out test transmissions on line, before we get our AM transmitter sometime in Summer 08. As many other community stations, we are a not-for-profit organisation, staffed by volunteers. My experience in radio engineering is 30 years out of date! I was brought up on analogue, tape machines, carts and turntables and very early cd players. The culture shock of playout systems and automation is incredible and the learning curve is steep. Therefore, I have spoken with some mAirList users and the replies have been very helpful.
I have a couple of major problems. The first is that the event scheduler is fine, but when it changes from one to another, it fades out the first item in the desktop after 3 seconds. OK, that’s not too bad when the first item is a short station ident, because the second and all subsequent items play perfectly. BUT, and it’s a big but, if I play back a single file, then it too fades out after a few seconds and the rest of the duration of the file is silence.
How do I resolve this?
Next question. Are there any professional and experienced users near Leeds? I’ve looked at the map and can see a couple in Scotland, and some in the south.
Torben: please include Radio Jcom on the map. Our address is Stonegate Road, Leeds 17. (It’s the main road just in front of the Queenshills!) The map says Leeds 6, but we’re actually Leeds 17!
We’d like to find someone where we could visit for a tutorial, or maybe someone can come and train us.
The other issue is related but perhaps off topic. Does anyone have a music library we can use, with fade times, ramp times and overall times that are correct. At the moment, we have to strip our cds, insert each track into a wave editor and trim the file end to the music end, then write the timings elsewhere. Horrible job. Any ideas? Of course we are licenced to do this!
Sorry, I don’t understand the situation you describe here - so you’re using the event scheduler, and some item in the playlist is faded out when the event occurs? What does the event actually do, that is, what have you set up as the “Actions” of that event inside the event scheduler? Perhaps you can explain the steps necessary to reproduce the problem.
Regarding the map, I will add you with the next update. As I will travel to Delhi tommorrow for a business trip (university, not mAirList ;), the next update won’t be before Christmas, but you’ll be in the queue.
If you have an image file of your station logo (appr. 200x150 pixels), you can send this to torben@weibert.de and I’ll put it onto the home page.
I have done as follows:
Set up a playlist of music files and station idents.
Used these two lists to make a desktop - mld
Set an event under automation to play the desktops at various times during the week, using the “load and play playlist” action command.
I also have a programme which is complete and have saved this as a large, individual mp3 file.
i have set an event listing to “play file” at set times during the week.
I have saved the complete event list file as an mle.
What happens is: For the music programme (mld) it plays the first station ident, fades it after a few seconds, then plays the rest of the desktop with no problem.
After the music programme has finished (it’s a 4 hour block of music and idents), I want mAirList to play the big mp3 composite programme. As this is a SINGLE file, it plays for a few seconds (just in the same way as the music desktop programme) and fades. The problem is that as it is a single file, there is nothing else to play until the next timed event, playing the 4 hour music programme again.
what am I doing wrong?
on a separate topic, I would like to use a second computer in our station. We want to put mAirList on the second computer so that we can use one system for the preparation of programmes, and the other for the automated playback. I know I can download it, but what do you advise for the registration of this second copy? Do I need a new license number or can I use the same number as the first version?
Our logo is on our site www.radiojcom.com and you can press the listen live button and follow the links. Test transmissions only for a few weeks.
Can you please send me the .mld and .mle files for reference? Let’s see if I can find out what’s going wrong there. Send it to torben@weibert.de please.
Regarding the second computer for automation, this is a good concept used by many stations (including eldoradio* in Dortmund, for whom mAirList was originally designed). As a holder of a free non-commercial license, you can install and use the license file on any number of computers you like. (This is different from commercial customers who need to purchase an extra license for each additional PC.) It’s free anyway, so I don’t mind if you use the license file multiple times within your station. Just don’t give it to anyone else. If your presenters need a personal copy for practising at home etc., they can just request an individual license file on my site.
First of all, it’s worth mentioning that we’re talking about the v2.0 release here. Things might be a little different from what they are in v2.1.
“Load and play” does exactly the same thing as “load”, but executes an AutomationNext command afterwards. So the effect should be the same as if you used a “load” action instead and clicked the next/skip button right after the item or playlist has been inserted.
In mAirList 2.0, the new items are inserted at the top of the active (non-history) playlist. This is different from v2.1, where mAirList inserts them right behind the item which is currently playing, thus preserving the correct order in the history.
Andrew, if I got you right, the item or playlist is loaded and started correctly, but the first (or only) item is faded out right away. Unfortunately, I have not been able to reproduce this here.
What happens when you use “load” instead of “load and play”, as Ant suggests? Will the previous item keep playing?
Finally, it might be helpful to give v2.1 a try. Despite its development status, it’s very reliable. And the event scheduler has undergone a complete rework. Note that the .mle format has changed, you can still load the old files but you will need to set up the action types and file names again.
I’m sure you will find most of any problems can be solved here. If you need either help with the layouts etc I’m sure Cad or Charlie will be willing to help or if you like drop me a PM.
Andrew - I never received an e-mail from you after our phone call the other day, so I assumed you had that one fixed ;(
Did you have any luck with StationPlaylist in the Wiki section, and do you need any pointers with that ? Most of the info you need to configure it is displayed here: http://wiki.mairlist.com/index.php/Scheduling#StationPlaylist_Creator That shows you how to create hourly playlists that can be automatically loaded in Auto each hour (Phoenix FM’s loads at 58mins past).
If you like, I’ll send you the mAirList.ini from Phoenix FM’s studio (if I recall, my own one refused to load on your PC)… We are using one of the latest revisions of v2.1 (.40 I believe). The fade issue may be that your audio levels are low and the Auto FadeOut trigger is being activated… How “loud” are your audio tracks - if they are short and frequently fall below the FadeOut dB threshold, they’ll segue to the next item ;(
When we spoke on the phone, you mentioned you hadn’t even found/used the PFL window to set Cue Points - so I hope that’s still the case and you haven’t accidentally set a FadeOut point whilst “fiddling”
One final question - Is the duration of the audio (showing in the Playlist column), the same as the “real” length of the file - ie: because the duration column shows the point at which there is a FadeOut marker (where it’ll move onto the next item), so those times are handy to look at. If you’ve got a 1hr pre-recorded show and it’s only showing 0:03 then you know you’ve got problems!
Good morning, Charlie
Thanks a lot for your help and advice. As I am only able to work part time at the station, I am working full time in my job, I have only just gathered the information, and a few minutes ago recorded the link between 2 pre-recorded programmes. I would like to send you several files: (I will find your address on your website and leave a message for you at Phoenix.)
Firstly, the mle showing what we are trying to achieve… a mix of a 4-hour music and ident programme; a 1 hour rock music and ident programme, a 1 hour easy listening music and ident programme, and a 2-hour composite speech and music programme (Limmud Special) that simulates composite programme transmission. You will see from the mle that Friday afternoon and all day Saturday has been left blank. This is done on purpose to observe our Sabbath.
Secondly, the mld files showing the individual programme contents
Thirdly, the file I recorded a few minutes ago showing the reality of the problem. The rock show ends with music that fades, a station ident “broadcasting to the world on line…” Then silence leading up to 10 oclock when the 4-hour desktop starts. There SHOULD be a short female voice ident “This is your…” for 3 secs followed by “This is History”… then music. Listen carefully to the start. You can just hear the start of the female voice, over-run by the This is History ident. What appears to be happening is that the female ident is faded almost as soon as it starts. I actually inserted this small ident into the programme to protect the This is History ident. Before this, the This is History ident suffered the same immediate fade. It seems that the FIRST ITEM in the show is being chopped. Whilst this is a reletively small problem in the case of a multi-insert programme, it is catastrophic in the case of the Limmud composite programme, because after I say hello, the whole lot fades and leaves 2 hours of dead air. Perhaps this is a good thing!!!
I shall follow your links today, as soon as I can clear my desk of work. Roll on the holidays.
Best regards and thanks again
Andrew
[ul][li]You should save multi-item ‘complete programmes’ as MLP (playlist) not MLD (desktop) files. MLDs typically contain more data than an MLP and will usually ‘zap’ any existing Playlist contents.[/li]
[li]It sounds to me like you are falling foul of the default ‘global’ fadeout duration for any item, which is 5 seconds. I suggest you use Config. to change this to 3 seconds, which I find a better alternative.[/li]
[li]You can (and in your case probably should) change the fadeout duration for individual items in a Playlist. Note that this changes the fadeout duration for that item only in that one Playlist file and NOT ‘globally’ (see the next bullet point ;)). To do this, load the Playlist, right-click the item, click Properties, and in your case, change the fadeout duration to zero. This will prevent any fading of that item, so it will be like a cart stack and play that item to the end and THEN play the next item.[/li]
[li]For items like dry three-second jingles/idents which will always need to ‘not be faded,’ you should change the item’s fadeout time by using the PFL and/or File Tagger to set its fadeout time to zero. Save the change to a Metadata (MMD) file ideally, or into the MP3 itself if you prefer (that creates a custom mAirList ID3v2 tag within your MP3 file). Once that’s done, the item will NEVER fade when you add it to a Playlist (unless you change the fadeout time in that one Playlist and save the Playlist).[/li]
[li]For MP3 ripping from CD, I’d strongly recommend a program called dbPowerAmp from illustrate.com if I recall correctly. The basic ripping-to-MP3 version is free, to use the Silence Removal DSP needs you to register it but it’s very cheap. If you then use the latest development version of mAirList (don’t worry, it’s VERY stable!), it can automatically set Fadeout points based on level within each item. Setting Ramps will always be a manual job (believe me, I know!) and again, the dev. version allows you to set up to three Ramp points per item instead of one.[/li][/ul]
I’m in Edinburgh which is a little far to travel for a non-driver like me, but please pm me if you would like my phone number or to discuss these or any other mAirList issues offline, or even come up to my place for a mAirList demo/tutorial sesh sometime. I might also let you copy my tagged library of about 2k tunes … ;D
The Wiki is well worth a look and contains a lot of useful info., especially for new users. I wrote the bit about File Tagging so I seem to be the de facto Tagging guru around here.
(PS: Like you, I was trained in the 1970s—by the Beeb in my case—on analogue kit. Since then, as a computer techie, I’ve managed to keep up/cross-train to digital, so please feel free to ask me any how-to’s from an analogue POV if you like!)
Happy Hannukah when it comes (yes I did work out what the J in Jcom stands for, with a hint from you about Sabbath!).
