Playlist Generation Question

[compdude512]

P.S.: I read all about doing this in Playlist Generator Pro in the pinned topic at the top of this forum. I do not have Playlist Generator Pro.

Hi! I'm new to these forums, so if this is in the wrong place, please feel free to move this.

My question is regarding playlist generation. I use RadioBoss to generate background music/Muzak-type playlists that usually play for 8 hours at a time. This Christmas, I will be using the software to play a combination regular/Christmas music playlist with more than 2000 songs that plays using the scheduler. I would like to set the software so it plays four regular songs, then one Christmas song, then four more regular songs, then one more Christmas song--with the process repeating for as long as the playlist runs.

I have looked into using the playlist generator to do this. I see where I can select a rotation playlist. I also see where there is a "jingles" section that would allow me to input a separate playlist and play a file off that playlist after a certain number of songs. I guess what I want to know can be expressed as a few separate questions:

1. Could I split the regular songs and Christmas songs up into two playlists, set the regular songs as the rotation playlist and the Christmas songs as the jingle playlist, and achieve what I need to do that way?

2. If this method does, indeed work, when the playlist is selected each time by the scheduler, will it "re-shuffle" everything and keep my settings of four regular songs, then one Christmas song played after that? I don't want to hear the same songs in the same order every time I hear this playlist from now until Christmas. That would get very old very fast for everyone who has to hear the playlist.

3. If this method doesn't work, is there a way to achieve what I want to do using the software without doing it manually?

I have used RadioBoss for over a year now, and I am enjoying the software for the purpose I use it for. I love the auto volume leveling for different times of day, the ability to set playlists to play at different times of the day, and the equalizer. Now if I could just figure out this Christmas playlist conundrum, I'd love this software even more!

Thanks in advance!

 

[djsoft]

Hi!

You should have the playlist generator pro - it's located under "Playlist" menu. The only reason why you doesn't see this option - you have an old version. Anyway, it looks like standard playlist generator should do the thing.

1) Yes, the "Jingles" feature doesn't check that it actually inserts jingles. So feel free using it to insert music.

2) It re-shuffles everything after each track is taken.

Another thing about Playlist Generator. The "Rotation" in the Playlist Generator  is not the correct term, you should read it as "Hot rotation". The main music source for Playlist generator is the music library (set at Step 1), not Rotations.

 

[southsound]

Hiya

I use playlist generator pro every single day to schedule our music at the station, and noticed two to three points, that I would like you answer for us.

Whilst scheduling recently I played Birdy at 10:56am and then it scheduled her with a newer track of her's at 11:30am, when I had asked it to seperate the artist by 120 minutes? Why was this the case, the spelling of her name is exactly the same, is it because the tracks are in different categories?

Also is there a way of putting something on there that you have a lot of tracks featuring artists for instance Labrinth Ft Tinie Tempah, then it picked Labrinth on his own straight after, is there a way something could be done regarding this.

Third point when it makes it selection it doesnt seem to select on what I call a deep selection, of songs that havent been played for ages, plus sometimes it seems to select the songs very very quickly and havent selected a very good selection, and I have to keep re-shuffling them.

Thanks for all the support.

Roger

 

[djsoft]

It seems that "Do not repeat artist" feature has a bug, and sometimes artists are still repeated. It's not because tracks are in different categories, it's software problem. We're working on it now.

Regarding "Labrinth Ft Tinie" and "Tempah" - it's what the "Consider artists identical when their names match..." option for. It'll be explained in details in the future, and will allow to test the setting. Usually setting it to 50% will make "Tempah" not be inserted after "Labrinth Ft Tinie" as it will consider it as same artist (but as feature has bug, please wait for an updated version).

Shuffling will be improved in the next update too. It'll do 2 or 3-pass re-shuffle, which (I think) will result in better tracks selection.

Thanks for pointing out the problems.

 

[compdude512]

Thanks, djsoft!

I went ahead and ended up buying a new version since the version I was using was, indeed, a very old version. I figured out how to use Playlist Generator Pro within a few seconds to do exactly what I wanted to do. I've been using it for a week now, and it has yet to cause me any trouble! I've been trying for the longest time to, during the non-holiday rotation, set up a playlist where I can select a '50s song, then an '80s song, then a '60s song, then a '70s song. PGP will help me to do this without having to do it manually. It's going to save me so much time!

I did have a question about updates and the like, but I'll go over the forums to see if my question has already been answered before asking.

Thanks again!

EDIT: I actually did have another question. Is there a possibility that the Winamp Last.fm Scrobbler plugin will be supported in the future? It would be nice to have someplace to send those who wonder what songs have played. I constantly get questions about what songs have played, and I can't answer them because the logfile gets cleared when the system restarts every morning at 3 AM. Any help on this would be awesome!

 

[djsoft]

EDIT: I actually did have another question. Is there a possibility that the Winamp Last.fm Scrobbler plugin will be supported in the future? It would be nice to have someplace to send those who wonder what songs have played. I constantly get questions about what songs have played, and I can't answer them because the logfile gets cleared when the system restarts every morning at 3 AM. Any help on this would be awesome!

Yes, we have plans to support General Winamp plugins (gen_*.dll), whichw will make it possible to use the Last.fm plugin as well.
This should be done in one of the RadioBOSS 4.6.x updates, in this year.

Regarding Log files - they're not cleared. All logs are stored (by default) in the Reports folder, to open it: click Settings->Open Settings folder, the Window Explorer window will appear, open the "Reports" folder there - you'll see the .csv files for each day. Those files contain song names which were played and some other events.
Soon we'll build an event viewer to make it much easier to read logs.

 

[compdude512]

djsoft,

Great! I'll keep my eyes peeled for this update and will most definitely be taking full advantage of it when it is released.

I'll also be digging back into the folder you mentioned to go through the logfiles. Someone asked me a while back about a song that had played the previous day and even narrowed it down to what song played before and after the one in question. Now I can let them know!