Natural Music is the worst music scheduler on the market

[whit979]

Buyer beware! If you want your station to sound like crap then you'll buy this program. No support department to speak of (one person), scheduler doesn't obey user-specified unbreakable rules, glitches throughout the program. I miss the days of Selector DOS.

 

[radiopropd]

Well....I've said this before on these boards - albeit over a year ago, but in my estimaqtion, MusicMaster is the best scheduler out there. No, I don't work for them - but I've had extensive experience with them, as well as with the other schedulers out there - power gold, selecter, et. al., and MM for windows, in my humble opinion, is the only way to go.

Ed Travis

 

[rookiejames]

oops

 

[whit979]

I'd like to think that I just have it set up wrong so let me post a question. One of the most basic no-violate rules I have set up in Natural Music is the Artist Minimum Separation rule. I have it set at 1 hour 15 minutes, and again this is a no-violate rule. Yet for some unexplained reason I've got the same artists appearing within 10, 15, 20 minutes of each other. Ree-diculous. Does anybody familiar with the program know how to fix this? Natural's one-man support department is out this week. Perhaps I'd be better off with a Natural Light

 

[radiorob2.0]

I use Natural Music and have had no problems. Tech support was good and even after the contract is up they will still answer questions via email. If you need to talk to a live person after the contract, their rate is reasonable. In fact, you can sign up for another year of tech support for under $100.

As far as artist separation, it could be something very simple. It might be how much priority you place on each rule rules or even the priority it schedules categories. I use NM for a Bluegrass format and had the same issue. The fix was to make sure there was a single artist in each field. If it sees Flatt and Scruggs as a single artist it couldn't separate a Lester Flatt solo song or Lester Flatt and Nashville Grass. NM seems to respect my codes and even warns me when I tweak a log about my codes.

Good luck and please mellow with something more significant than Natty Light YMMV

 

[Sgeirk]

Prophet's old FREE music scheduler SMOKED Natural Music. That said, MusicMaster SMOKED MusicGen. That said, I really have no preference to Selector DOS or MusicMaster, I can make either do whatever I want. Six of one, half dozen of the other. I like the GUI in MusicMaster, but I also like the simplicity of DOS....whatever.

 

[stha]

I use Selector today but I've had the Natural Music DOS for a time. I can't remember very well and I'm probably influenced by my actual system, but check if the Artist mimimum separation rule is enabled for EACH music category, otherwise your system may ignore that separation when an artist have songs in more than 1 category.

 

[whit979]

Already tried that. Unfortunately the scheduler still broke the rule, even though it is set to be a No-Violate. Talked to their ONE support person who likened Natural's No-Violate rules to someone who pulls up to a red light, waits for a few seconds, then runs it if it does not change to green fast enough. Give me a break.

We are going to try Music 1 and maybe get better results out of it.

 

[whit979]

OK, finally got the Music 1 Legacy Edition and have been very impressed. The software makes great logs without a lot of hassle. The price is not as good as Natural, but for the price you get a more solid program and immediate tech support. Good people too.

 

[JohnAllan]

I'd like to think that I just have it set up wrong so let me post a question. One of the most basic no-violate rules I have set up in Natural Music is the Artist Minimum Separation rule. I have it set at 1 hour 15 minutes, and again this is a no-violate rule. Yet for some unexplained reason I've got the same artists appearing within 10, 15, 20 minutes of each other. Ree-diculous. Does anybody familiar with the program know how to fix this? Natural's one-man support department is out this week. Perhaps I'd be better off with a Natural Light

I had that problem when I first set up NM, and it turned out to be subtle spelling problems. For instance, Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Tom Petty NM sees those as three different bands. You also have to watch out for mispellings like John Conley or John Conlee. Another thing to do is set up a "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers" as a "two artist" thing. In other words, I set up Tom Petty as artist 1, and The Heartbreakers as artist 2. Why? Because you will run into back up groups that have their own hits. This will eliminate the unbroken rule. Another thing I do is use the 2nd artist for main people in groups that also have a solo career. I.E. the Jackson Five as the main artist, Michael Jackson as artist 2. That way, it won't schedule a Jackson Five next to Michael. NM is not a bad program, you just have to stay on top of it.

 

[BuzzRadio]

To whitfm: Are you still having these problems, and if so - would you be willing to send me your database to look at ?

 

[whit979]

Buzz, thanks for offering to take a look at our database, but we have been using Music 1 LE since September. We got our money back on Natural Light. Now, as far as Music 1 goes: It rocks. I would highly encourage any small market station to plunk down the $1250 one time for Music 1 LE because you will never want anything else. We were able to implement all the rules we had previously used in Selector, and--because Music 1 does interactive scheduling--the rules are only violated when you want to violate them. Thanks for your help anyway!