• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

"free" Automation Systems"...My report

C

carlvenorden

Guest
I"m curious to know your findings on this.

I'll give you some facts first, you can think them out and give me your opinion.
MY engineer says point blank to spend $500 on an automation system....frankly I don' t have the money, and then I'm not so sure that system would work for me anyway.

I use the latest version of Window Media Player.
What I found out from it is:
1. It plays great if you just use studio produced CD's.........when you introduce homemade CD's of songs into it, it will crash.
It will especially crash if you use short ID"s, again produced onto a homegrown CD.
the measurements for lengths (and sound) don't affect the performance. Even if a short event is timed at 6 seconds and the minimum length is posted at 3 seconds, the computer will still crash.

2. I built a playlist of jazz songs and put 7 homegrown id's on it. It will play for 3 days and nights straight, but it decides it will crash at one point after that. In other words, it doesn't really work for a long period of time...or is that the best that can be expected?

3. You can't voice track on it. Not that I want to, but If I wanted to it has no such provisions.
4. The directions are choppy, and sometimes it won't show the screen you want unless you are operating on the internet (read that carefullly). this computer is kept off internet.
Would it be better in your opinion to operate it ON internet.......would it work better?

5. I have several playlists that consist of home grown cd's (well mastered) that play, pretty well the indivdual songs. However these playlists crash for no good reason, at no predictable time....Since then, I've taken the same format, used just store bought cd's and had pretty good play time with that playlist, but again after about 9 hours it tires out and crashes.

6. the computer is up to date and can take a lot more memory, so it is not the computer per se; it is either the wmp, or........the fact of using home recorded (grown) cd's as imput material.

Any ideas guys? I'm ok with spending about $50 that will continuously play music, and hey we are all cash-strapped, but I won't spend $500 on something I can not be sure of working.
Lets have a discussion on good (or your storys on not so good automation systems, computer only) so that we can learn more about them. Part 15 operators, AM and FM, who go to work for 9 hours a day need something to cover their hours when they are not home.

Who has ideas??????????
 
Carl,

This past Saturday, my wife and I went to the little community of Lanark Village, Fla., near Carrabelle, to help a friend of mine finish building his part 15 AM station. That was my first time to hear a Rangemaster on the air.
He's covering the village at only 12' high but says that's all he wanted.

He was running into automation problems. He intended to retransmit his Live365 stream, but the "Are You Still There" pop-up was kicking his signal off every hour. So I put ZaraRadio in.

I'm no computer or automation expert, but we got there at 10 in the morning and by noon, his station was running on Zara. He didn't want anything fancy, just a few IDs - 2 or 3 an hour.

I've not had time to do very deep into everything it does..but now that I'm getting ready to rebuild my
own station, I'm seriously considering using Zara myself. I already know it will fire off a "legal ID"
at the top of every hour, so I'm pretty certain it will do everything I would need.

By the way, thanks for the email last week. I found it very helpful and will be back in touch soon.

Alan
 
Zara is very similar to Raduga, which is a very stable automation system for small broadcasters. I’ve had great results from Raduga, but for most Part 15 stations, I'd think Zara would be more than adequate for your needs.

Another choice might be Rivendell from Salem Broadcasting. It is free, but requires the Linux operating system. No big deal really, and reportedly it works very well. http://www.rivendellaudio.org/
 
I switched to Zara Radio on "Geezer 1650" and like it real well. I am running a Top-of-Hour ID as well as a number of sweepers and it runs smoothly on Win XP. It is easy on the CPU and memory which is a real help if you are using an older PC for your automation. I read that it will support voice tracking but haven't tried it. You can rotate playlists and lots of other cool stuff that normally comes only with the pay software.
 
I use Station Playlist Creator, along with WinAmp as the playout engine. This runs on a 1GHz PC on Windows 2000. I run the SqrSoft Crossfader plug-in for Winamp to get tight segues.

This setup works well, and has been very stable. WinAmp is much better for this purpose than Media Player.

I plan to experiment with Zara as a replacement for WinAmp, so as to get voicetracking and the ability to run automated weather and newsfeeds.

Regards,
Don
1610AM The Copperhead
 
Carl,

I use Zararadio, it's automated with time (English) and weather, news, etc., even will work with satelite feeds.
I have it working with plugins for compression/limiter for over 3 years and hasn't skiped a note, it's great!

It's free and you can use voicetracking on it, it pops in commercials, sweepers, etc. You would have to spend $$$ to get what Zara does for free....

Radiopilot
 
Carl,
I also run ZARARADIO and it kicks ass ! Its FREE, and most of all it allows me to schedule a top of the hour id, and bottom, and psa's and the rest. You cant go wrong with this program.
 
Wow..........almost everyone agrees on Zara............and in fact for a couple years everyone did......so that does it for me.....we will try that one.
Thanks everyone!
Carl
 
To download zara, it gives you so many options to download this/that..the directions are horrible just to get to it.
My computer, totally updated won't accept it.
As with anyother thing, which is why I was asking.

I'm glad you guys all love Zara, but I found nothing interesting or worthwhile to read except kudos about it. No instructions at all.

Does it mysteriously appear on your computer after you download everything else required?.......and where is the start point?
Carl
 
carlvenorden said:
I'm glad you guys all love Zara, but I found nothing interesting or worthwhile to read except kudos about it. No instructions at all.

Does it mysteriously appear on your computer after you download everything else required?.......and where is the start point?
Carl
Click to expand...

This is the link to download the instructions ---> http://www.zararadio.com/index.php?centro=descargas2.php&file=/manuales/UserManual_en.pdf

There is even a Zara forum at http://www.zararadio.com/foro/
The "problems/bugs" section might yield some results in getting you underway.
 
I speak English, I'm from America..........this didn't work, but thanks.
 
Carl,

From the link above,

Click "English" at the top left of the screen

then click on "downloads"

then zararadio.exe

That should get you there. I managed to print out the manual in English but am not sure how I got to that point. :-[

Hope this helps,

Alan
 
I still like more control and I am willing to spend about six hours per rotation change to make it sizzle... I only change my automation with a new playlist every two to four weeks (three to four is normal)... I have "I-TUNES" and here is what I do...

I set up four new 'playlists' per rotation (let's say a month).. "A", "B", "C", "D"....
I have already checked and downloaded and paid for my new currents, extra's and image/oldies for the month.... I have already 'trimed', 'eq' and set the proper volume on them through "I-TUNES"... I play off an I-POD our current playlist, through the board (it's my backup), as I work on the on-air hardrive...

I set up each letter "A", etc. in a three hour block.. Currents (50) get divided up into two groups..Half will play in "A" & "C" and half will play in "B" & "D".... Then, I divided up my recurrents (30 or so) into the four letters...That's five to six per three hour letter block...Then the group drops, image drops and the three ID's per letter playlist are entered.. Then underwriting, station promotions and such from their stored playlists.... With trimmed intros, extros and the such, I have each letter programmed with 3.0 to 3.2 hours on the "I-TUNES" clock... It comes within minutes or seconds of 3.0 hours per letter... Then I make one more 'new playlist' that is (ie) "May '07" and mouse transfer each lettered playlist ("A" through "D") into that "May '07" playlist and wait to the top of the hour (don't forget I add olides/image to fill out each lettered unit, as well)...
I set the player to repeat and be continuous....So, near the top of the hour, the ID takes off and about 300 units (counting songs, ID's, underwriting, promos and group/listener drops) takes off... Currents get 4 plays per day (except when manipulated by me for more play)...Recurents and oldies/image get 2 plays a day.... And the overall 12 hour clock is repeated... Our format is New Rock / Alternative and our 15 to 30 age group gets what they like, plus some classic stuff and local/regional stuff... We are 58 watts at just about 39 meters and with our streaming (we get a committed digital 128kb to the tower and free internet site and 20kb stream to the public for tower space given to the wireless company), we do a decent job of being available t the audience that listens to the radio in the car and internet at home.. Pray that the Congress keeps RIAA and the other in line on streaming costs for us little guys.... By the looks of my streaming numbers, I would guess that 50 to 60 % of our listening is on the net... When we are down from the on-the-air side, I hear about it within five minutes on the studio line.. When we lose our stream, I hear about it in about two to three minutes, via the same source... Of course, we get alot of out of market listenership on the net... We are just under three years into this... Each month, we grow a little.. We did not come out 'gangbusters' at first, as we were in uncharted waters and wanted to grow and speed up, as we go....
;D ( www.wyir.com) or ( myspace.com/969wyir ).... Think the "My Space is right?"
 
Just how is voice tracking done with the Zara system?

I have it downloaded, but (I"M STUPID when it comes to computers), I'm having difficulty putting it on a cd and then putting it into the studio computer).

From what I've seen of it, I like the entire look of it, I love what everyone is saying about it.
But I'm stuck right now.
Is the voice tracking done thru the mixing board into the computer?.......I have no idea how this is accomplished without asking some friends who currently do this (and it is embarrassing to ask them too).
Carl
 
It looks like we have a "free" Linux coming........apparently nothing can beat it down or stop it. We will be testing that soon, and I'll give you a report on it. Just an update.
Carl
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom