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Automation systems

I played around with Zara for quite a while. For a free piece of software, it's pretty amazing. However, it's not ready for prime-time. The sound (at least on the 3 PC's I tried) was muddy, at least compared to Winamp.

The crossfader is way too simplistic. The Sqrsoft crossfader for Winamp is far superior. Ditto the AGC.

You can't use plug-ins with version 1.6, while the older 1.4 version accepted plug-ins reluctantly.

Getting Zara to automatically load & run a new playlist each hour proved too challenging for my increasingly feeble mind.

Some of it's features, like the ability to play sat feeds and the time/temp announcements, seem to work well. The screen layout is clean and the program is pretty easy to get up and running.

If I were doing a format with primarily talk (news, sports, etc) Zara might do just fine. For a music-intensive station, it just isn't there yet.

My .02
 
Can't say I find Zara muddying up my audiio, but I have encoded all my own files, and they're "full".
Others have complained of Zara trainwrecks. I did not like song transitions until I clipped leads and tails of all files tight,
then set the fade and overlap to 1 second each. Now every cut sounds like a board-op on 3 espressos,
just like back in the day.
But I'm not asking it to do any of the complicated tricks yet.
 
Yes, I was one of those Zara train wreck complainants...until I discovered one jolly day how to fix it...and it didn't require editing anything. The system lets you put individual crossfades on whatever the file is, be it a song, sweeper, whatever. Once I stumbled on that little nugget, I then tightened everything that was loose, and loosened everything that was too tight, eliminating BOTH the stompcrunches AND the dead air. AM 1670 KAPM is now as tight as a drum, and, in terms of sound quality and production values, rivals ANY licensed AM out there!

Another thing I like about Zara is that you can set certain events to run ONLY during certain daypart hours. For example, I cut sweepers that say "You're spending your evening with AM 1670 KAPM" and that run every hour between 6 and Midnight. So EVERY daypart has its own set of sweepers to coincide with the time of day or night each sweeper airs (mornings, middays, afternoons, evenings, overnights) with the sweeper mentioning things that someone would normally be doing at that time of the day over a variety of music beds ("Yawning and stretching with AM 1670 KAPM" is heard between 5 and 8am as another example).

And ya can't beat the price... ;)
 
I see that append fade tip at startup and wondered if I'd rather do that or edit the files.
Is it selectable to leads or tails?
Since I was just beginning to load and encode, I decided to keep files tight.
It still took a good while, and the edited files are now 128k instead of my preferred 192k.
I sure as heck can hear when an "unfixed" songs runs.
Most of time, the cuts are the sweetest slip-cue reproduction imaginable.
What is the largest list anyone has run in Zara? How many hours total?
I'm running just music, drop-ins, and a top and bottom of hour interval signal from the old Chicago Tunnel Co.
In running this at home, I don't think I will be satisfied with a playlist until the several-thousands level.
I really want to try it, too, as I was given a free computer and have no other tasks or files for it to deal with,
so I plan to load up an impossibly huge and diverse format which defies naming, but which I seem to need.
At 450 files, I have encoded one third of my 1940's-1980's 45's and made the tiniest dent in my LPs, reel and cassette-only audio.
I expect the hard drive to have room for thousands.....
Has anyone run Zara up to these levels on single lists?
And if Zara uses realplayer for its audio, why do I not see Realplayer in Taskmanager?
I never was able to install plug-ins in ANY player I've had.
I use a Hammond dual-spring on the pt 15 AM at home, but would sure like to simulate it when running Zara on the laptop at work.
That's also when I'd like to be able to pull up an equalizer drop-in.

I'm glad to hear to you also strive for high-fi, Rick. Is it Rick?
 
It is indeed Rick, Tom. You're one of the brave few here whose real name is also his username.

Editing files or setting fade points...setting the points is far easier. It only takes a few keystrokes, and you're not compromising the integrity of your audio (which it sounds like you're doing by editing it). I'm assuming you know how to set the fade points, but if not, I'll gladly give you (and anyone else who reads this) a quick tutorial. I only set points on tails (I don't think you can set head points), but I've found this moot anyway because cuts always start right at the beginning of the audio.

Don't know who has the longest list on Zara, but as of my typing this, I have 11 hours and 20 minutes straight of music on my playlist (in Repeat mode for now), with a bunch MORE music in the library that's NOT in rotation at the moment, and from there, I have probably close to 50 different daypart sweepers, some of which I run as events, scheduling them at strategic points in each hour, a coupla IDs (only one of which I'm airing at the moment), and artist intros, and I'm constantly building my playlist to boot. I'm always on the lookout for CDs of artists and songs who fit the format, plus I subscribe to Napster, and just downloaded a dozen more songs to put in rotation today. I don't know just how many songs I have as I'm always adding more, usually by the day, but like I said, I have enough music on the playlist alone to run for 11 hours and 20 minutes without repetition, with more music in my library that's not in rotation, but that I add as I deem fit to keep things fresh (I'll pull a song here or there that's getting a little worn, and replace it with something similar or otherwise appropriate that either has never aired, or hasn't aired in a while). My computers are hand-me-downs, too. But the things were emptied of everything their previous owners had on them before I got them, so I (theoretically, anyway) have plenty of space.

Zara uses Windows Media Player as its engine...I have version 9.

Where audio quality is concerned, and as I said in another post, I don't have a problem at all with muddy audio. You're correct in going with 192k as that's the best quality, but I also have an excellent transmitter: an SSTran AMT 3000 with on-board processing that I also have jumpered for 6db treble boost, so my audio chain is as good as it gets (and no, Phil Bolyn is not paying me to say that) with one of Carl Van Orden's antenna/ground systems out in my backyard for neighborhood-wide signal strength. The only thing I'm missing is a nice little piece of paper from our fine frenz at ye olde Eff See See. But that's why I'm only running Part 15 power (the AMT is fixed at legal, so you can't run too much). What I wouldn't give to run at least 5 or 10 watts with an LPAM ticket!! Ohhhhhhhhh the mere thought is sheer ambrosia!!! However, I am hoping to upgrade to AM stereo in the coming months! And with everything in my library in STEREO already (provided it was RECORDED in stereo...some of my library pre-dates stereo), all I need is said transmitter, and voila!

Good luck, hope my long-winded post helped. Any more questions, ask away!

Rick
 
fwillis said:
45 hours,54 seconds .In over 2 years no crash.
Click to expand...

Oh, wow...good to know.

I usually go off the air for a few hours every Sunday night to reboot my system, let the drive cool off, etc. I try to be really good about that.

What's your format?
 
I run Zara as my playout. I use Clockwheel as my music scheduler and with some special software that a friend wrote, the main playlist is broken into four 15-to-20-minute segments per hour (made up from 7 different categories, A through G, with a different rotation in each segment ie: FABCDB, GBEADE and so on), covering the 168 hours in a week. With this, I'm able to lock my rotation to the clock. When certain timed events occur during the hour (weather forecast or PSA every fifteen minutes), it dumps the old list and loads the next playlist from the sorted directory. I currently have over 2300 selections which play continuously without a crash (knock on wood!). Every couple of weeks, I build a new master list on clockwheel, break it out it with the special software application and Zara keeps on playing without an interuption. It sounds complicated but it's not and it works really, really well.

Friend Lee
 
I'm using Zara on Musicbox 1610..my first time using it.

The playlist is around 1,450 songs and is 83 hours, 39 minutes. I've been off the air once since signing on
Sept. 16, and that was a power outage that affected the entire area.

I'm doing a couple of hours live, and Zara runs the rest of the time. Every once in a while a song will
repeat within a few minutes, but that's the only thing I've noticed.

Musicbox is a mixed variety format..so far it's doing fairly well.
 
Sam Broadcaster .....Seems to work with no probs what so ever .....If you wanna go pro ...Has all the goodies in it
 
Thanks to all for responses on Zara times. Guess I'll be OK for quite a while.
I wanted to wait to do this until it cost next to nothing, memory became cheaper, etc.

friendleee said:
I run Zara as my playout. I use Clockwheel as my music scheduler and with some special software that a friend wrote, the main playlist is broken into four 15-to-20-minute segments per hour (made up from 7 different categories, A through G, with a different rotation in each segment ie: FABCDB, GBEADE and so on), covering the 168 hours in a week. With this, I'm able to lock my rotation to the clock. When certain timed events occur during the hour (weather forecast or PSA every fifteen minutes), it dumps the old list and loads the next playlist from the sorted directory. I currently have over 2300 selections which play continuously without a crash (knock on wood!). Every couple of weeks, I build a new master list on clockwheel, break it out it with the special software application and Zara keeps on playing without an interuption. It sounds complicated but it's not and it works really, really well.

Friend Lee
Click to expand...


This feature, or something like it is very desirable for obvious reasons.
There may be something I'm doing wrong, but when Zara is running, new files imported after Zara begins running are not seen in
the search window. They can be accessed in an "upper" search window that opens on selecting all, but even then,
the running version does not see the new file available until next start. Can't complain too much, for a free product, it's great.
I guess I could just start up a second instance of Zara and click to hand off on cue. I'll see if the computer can deal with this.

I'll want figure out how to do my own version of ABCDE grading or frequency occurrances, but for now I'm feeding it data.
 
save the list and then re open it
you can also put a program in the event window
i made/have lots of tools to download news ( like FSN 3 min.)
local weather & anything special in my programing. zara will do it too
but don't tax it just let it pur along . use the best sound card! & get yourself
a back up 'puter and a mix board. simple way to have good backup & be
able to go LIVE! now you just need a mic. lol
you can put a event list in the event list too.
the voice files for time and temp are cool set up weather watcher for them to work for free you get a lot with zara . it does the required record keeping for the FCC too. & i guess if you play pay'd for tunes (copywrited) the records are there
too.

radioman sparky
Tech for a FCC licensed LPFM
and a part15 am community radio station
i use a Hamaliton Rangemaster AM1000
best way to go! 3/4 mile radius and 1.75 mile+
on the shoreline (line of sight + saltwater yeah!)
 
LibertyNT said:
I need to know...
Does Zara work with Windows 98?
Click to expand...

Yep. Works great

Clouseau
 
We use the Radiologik on our mac based Outlaw Radio, along with the cart walls. Our website has a page for Mac based software and equipment we use, just click on the apple.
For PC; Winamp with the SqrSoft cross fader for us is the most stable, even on old computers running win98, and 64mb of memory. We find the older computers are less likely to walk out of the studio or transmitter shack, the computers are clearly labeled they are running on 98. It's like an old Betamax that is still sitting on the shelf after the house has been ransacked, nobody wants an old computer!

Tune-Tracker www.tunetrackersystems.com/ the BEos based software is headed to our studios, complete with touchscreen operation and switching. Vista does not work well in the broadcast studio, and XP support is coming to an end; we were left with no other choice. We have been told it's very stable, and works well on older hardware, at about $2900 for a turnkey system, minus the touchscreen it's not cheap but may be well worth it.

The system we are getting is on top of the page here www.tunetrackersystems.com/commandcenter_packages.html
If this system proves itself, them we may do a major studio upgrade throughout.

Steve
www.outlawradio.us
 
Take a look at: http://www.otsav.com/

This is what I use on my pirate station... just up and running in Seattle... anyway OTS AV works freakin' AWESOME! It can auto-set cue points but it is much better to set them yourself. I wish I had my stations streaming site up already so you could hear the automation. It is very tight sounding and since I have set my mix points, it can sound like it beat mixes from song to song with great crossfades, you can program breaks... a little tough unless you understand a bit about programming.

I also have to say that I am running an older version of the software (version 1.15.004) as I run it on an older Dell P2 450mhz with 384mb of ram- with a decent Soundblaster soundcard- and it still kicks butt over many commercial systems that I have worked with. I have been working in commercial radio since 1981, and have been an on-air pirate since ---ah, somewhere around 1970,71, BIG BLUR NOW.

So check out OTSAV.com, they have a couple of nice options available depending on your needs. If you really plan on going BIGTIME with your efforts- get the scheduling module too. That is for the serious pirate, LPFM... a must for any commercial operation that uses OTS... AND THE GOOD PART- If you only need basic operations--- and you still want KILLER SEGUES with GREAT SOUND, you can still do it with some of their FREE and cheaper options.

ONWARD AND UPWARD friend- and GOOD LUCK!

DJ Alan
 
...COMPLETELY FORGOT TO MENTION---DUH!
If you are in the Seattle, Washinton area (around Capitol Hill, Downtown, Belltown, S.E. Queen Anne Hill area), you can tune it in at 101.9 FM and hear what OTS does... On my pirate dance music station I proudly call 'The Whore'. I have plans to get legal with this puppy, but for now the 'Skull and Crossbones' are also hoisted up the ye ol' antenna mast 'so to speak'. :)
 
"The Whore" I love it... Its original, and Its along the thought pattern of fools for radio like myself. I am currently running Standards on my part 15 fm Stardust 93.5. I guess I can always operate another station and call it the " Hoe" .... LOL thats just great !!!!!!!!!!!!! Good luck with your radio stations
 
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