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Small station automation

R

RadeoEngineer

I volunteer for a legendary non com and I need suggestiions for PC based automation software. I'm only familiar with the bigger sytems such as Enco, Prophet, and others. What I need is something cheap and ultimately simple. For example, I just rebuilt their control room moving them from rotary pots to linear faders and I actually had people losing sleep over the change.

What is the easiest, most simple system out there?
 
Glad you asked.My choice would be the Nexgen 101 system,just add the modules you want.Should be easy since you already have prophet experience.2nd choice would be station playlist.Simian is ok,too.
 
There is no such thing as a "simple" automation system to someone who has never used an automation system before. That is, every system can have a steep learning curve to a novice.

With that in mind, if your budget can afford an entry level commercial system, e.g. in the $1,000 to $2,000 range, I would go with such a system rather than attempt to make do with some of the "DJ" style systems that cost less, but may not have much in the way of support or a broad customer base to fall back on.

Next step is to consider how it is to be used. We use Simian, but our stations are satellite-fed and unattended. It would also be a good system for mostly automated hard-drive programming--we will be going all Christmas again this year that way, using Natural Music to schedule. Left alone, Simian works fine, but it is not that friendly a system for live-assist. Indeed, I have Wave-Cart in both systems for use in the live programming we do--predominantly sports. Nor is it a friendly system for voice tracking.

I haven't used it, but my impression is that Prophet Systems can be better customized for v/t applications.

If you are going to be live assist for most of the programming day, a touch-screen system may be more practical, albeit more expensive, instead of (mickey) mousing around all the time ;)!

Before going "on-line" with any system, it would be wise to spend some time training your key volunteer staff members, both to get them comfortable with the system and to be mentors to the more occasional users.
 
RadeoEngineer said:
I volunteer for a legendary non com and I need suggestiions for PC based automation software. I'm only familiar with the bigger sytems such as Enco, Prophet, and others. What I need is something cheap and ultimately simple. For example, I just rebuilt their control room moving them from rotary pots to linear faders and I actually had people losing sleep over the change.

What is the easiest, most simple system out there?
Click to expand...

I think what you really need to do is to step back and really analyze what the needs of the radio station are. Non-Coms are not your typical automated radio station. What may work great for commercial radio will probably be horrible for non-commercial radio.

Things to consider:

How many staffers or DJs does the station have? Is it a small staff of semi professional announcers with regular daily shifts, or is it different people every day?

How many formats does the station have? Are there regular formats at regular parts of the day, or do you have a different daily lineup each day?

How many specialty shows are there? Do the hosts of these shows rely on music from the radio station or do they mostly bring their own music with them?

Is the station staffed with a live host/operator or are you looking to operate the station unatended? And if so unattended for how long each day?

I would suggest making friends with some of the other local non-comm stations within your market and also in the surrounding markets, and see what they use, and find out if it works for them or not.

Maybe an automation system is right for your station, but then again, maybe it isn't. For a lot of Non-Coms, just due to the nature of the beast, it is best to invest in decent CD players.

Are you looking to replace carts? If that is the case there are some nice simple products out there that will suit your needs without having to invest in an entire expnsive automation system. Someone mentioned Wavecart. There is also another program called stinger which is fairly simple.

The main thing is to analyze the situation and make sure you are making an educated choice, rather than just buying a system so that you have a system. My old college station spent an obscene amount of money on a fancy schmantzy sytem that they barely use. When you look at how they use their system, they could have saved about $22,000 and used freeware like winamp or iTunes.

To Sum up, make sure you analyze the needs of your station first. Next, check out what other non-coms are using. Especially if there are stations similar to yours, because as we know, non-coms can differ a lot. Lastly you want to shop around and check out different systems. Just because a system is simple and effective for a commercial station doesn't mean its going to be good for a non-comm.

OK, let me know what you are planning to do. Good Luck!
 
Stationplaylist is the best value for the money. Great support, has scheduler, will let you voicetrack, and it is a buyout. Check out our stream and you can hear it in action, and it is under $500.00. It has all of the features of those expensive programs. It's been in operation at our facility for 3 years and with no problems.
 
Does anyone here have experience with the Arrakis Xtreme automation that leases for $100.00 per month? A station I contract for is very interested in this system and I would like to hear any pros and cons I could pass along before the owner signs on the dotted line.
 
If your idea of "cheap" = "free", then you should take a look at Zara Radio www.zararadio.com, it hasn't been updated for a while, but it's very simple to install and operate.

But if you want something that has some real features, is inexpensive and has great support, you can't really ignore StationPlaylist www.stationplaylist.com. I've had it on air for over two years and it keeps getting better with each update.
 
tv junkie 12,please re-read my post above.If Arrakis supports that like they do their consoles,RUN from it.No need to pay a hundred a month forever.The Nexgen 101 is great and has a very easy learning curve.Next choice for me is station playlist.If VT is done,the Nexgen will be the best choice,IMO.
 
BTW, Nexgen 101 is now Player 101, if you go to the www.rcsworks.com site. I think the core is only 500 bucks, with each module an additional 101 dollars . A full package to v/t will probably run 1200-1400 dollars, plus the PC.
 
I used a system called Digitaljukebox.
It was very smooth. Easy to program and operate for total automation or live assist. Support was excellent with frequent updates that added features all the time including auto updates of weather.
digitaljukebox.com
 
mbatchelor said:
BSI Simian is a very good lower end system. You can download a free trial that will work for 30 Minutes at a time at bsiusa.com.
Click to expand...

A second motion for Simian. BTW the full function demo will work for an hour.
 
I've looked at Simian but it's way overkill for this station. All they need to do is use it to play back prerecorded shows and run unattended overnights. The air staff is about 30-40 individuals that mostly bring in their own music and play back from CD's doing one or two hour shows once a week. There's always one person there during the day to do legal ID's and change the programs that are either on CD or flash cards right now. The station signs off at midnight because there's no one there, so the automation is mainly to allow them to go 24/7.

The Prophet system sounds interesting as does Station Playlist. The Arrakis is the simplest looking of all I've seen, but......
 
oldiesstation said:
tv junkie 12,please re-read my post above.If Arrakis supports that like they do their consoles,RUN from it.No need to pay a hundred a month forever.The Nexgen 101 is great and has a very easy learning curve.Next choice for me is station playlist.If VT is done,the Nexgen will be the best choice,IMO.
Click to expand...

I have some Arrakis 4 systems still in use. Arrakis supports them, but, when you have to replace a proprietary hard drive to the tune of $2000 this is not worth the replacement cost.

The Arrakis extreme is well engineered but you never own it. The $100 a month is to continue to use it. If it breaks I wonder if you pay for that or they do.

For years the Arrakis units were functional. Under the right circumstances they can still be very useful. The new interface boxes with the extreme are wonderful for setting input and output levels. Like any system there are ups and downs. Support is slow but always responds. I think support is a big issue with many of the companies.

The Digital Jukebox has been a very workable solution for us. Some do not like it but it has been very functional with no down time related to the program. Segues between non like formats such as wav, mp3, etc. Has music scheduler. Support is sometimes slow but if youa re ever off the air this takes priority.

Simian has been great as also was Wave Station before it. This will not segue from a wav to any other format media. no music scheduler. Online support has been great but have never needed the live tech support. No music scheduler.

DAD is a great system and has web support but for the money they should have much better telephone support. When you are off the air and no one will take the call and you are paying upwards of 5k a year for tech support this su stinks. We took a system offline a year ago because we kept paying big money for support and the problem was always reported as a non Enco issue. After getting something fixed (such as a supposed bad hard drive, motherboard, network card several times) and still having the problem i learned it was easy to relate the problem to something other than software.

We got the bill for coming year software support and replaced the entire system for less than the cost of a year's support. 2 on air and 3 workstations. No more support bill for crappy support. This said, everyone has support issues that are unbearable.

This said. I like the system and when it works it is much prettier on screen and has more bells and whistles than most. need some extra Enco workstations with keys? PM me. No music scheduler.

I have many companies I deal with regularly and now with the economy I have two transmitter suppliers in Illinois that can't fix anything or help with phone support. I spent all of last week trying to locate a problem with a recent model exciter. Exciter is out of service and I placed a loaner in. They want 1,000 dollars to return the unit and look at it. (Could be more). Rather than deal with lack of support at the site I brought it home. I told them i could buy a foreign unit for less than their shelf time starting balance. They said maybe support can help you.

I call and no one is available but will call me back. When they finally call back hours later I am gone. Spent the week and got 4 answers to questions from someone who doesn't even have a schematic of the unit.

The callback issue is bad from transmitter manufacturer B. Spent the same phone jail time at the site (4 hours from home) last year over a 3 month period. Transmitter was OFF and so was tech support.

If transmitter manufacturers who get upwards of 15,000 dollars for a 1 kw box or over 100,000 dollars for a 20 kw box can't find time to support their stuff, (except for Continental and Charlie Goodrich who offer incredible support), what about a software supplier who gets much less per product?

Every manufacturer places you in a que and you get the finest voice jail (except for Continental and Charlie Goodrich who offer incredible support) ever built. The support/response is now related to : 1) How well their voice jail works ; 2) How interested the employees are in getting back to you; 3) The technical qualifications of the employees; and 4) How long you can wait at the location for the call to come back. All of this has nothing to do with your problem and is before the support starts. Will the economy make this better or worse?

Since most statations have contract engineers can you spend an entire day waiting on tech support to call back?

Sometimes I have seen stations order a system and require it to be up and working before they pay the bill. Bill ends up being higher for on site support.

Find a system and work it at home before taking it to a radio station. Your knowledge of the unit is ultimately what the station will depend on.

Some systems have great value for the buck but all require more than a little computer knowledge. Placing a new unit in with someone who has limited knowledge, also uses the computer to email and IM, goes to questionable web sites, doesn't know how to rebooot, are all factors you have to consider.

Carpe Diem I think is the phrase.
 
RadeoEngineer said:
I've looked at Simian but it's way overkill for this station. All they need to do is use it to play back prerecorded shows and run unattended overnights. The air staff is about 30-40 individuals that mostly bring in their own music and play back from CD's doing one or two hour shows once a week. There's always one person there during the day to do legal ID's and change the programs that are either on CD or flash cards right now. The station signs off at midnight because there's no one there, so the automation is mainly to allow them to go 24/7.

The Prophet system sounds interesting as does Station Playlist. The Arrakis is the simplest looking of all I've seen, but......
Click to expand...
Station Playlist (www.stationplaylist.com) is fantastic for the money. About $400 for the pro version. Schedules it's own music, superb crossfading, reads the time & temperature over intros...and the email support is first rate. I'll tell you what the PD at one station has told 3 stations & all 3 bought the package : Listen to the www.superoldies1580.com stream. It's voice tracked during the day Monday through Friday. You will be amazed at how good this $400 wonder sounds. And it stays on the air...if the power fails and the UPS eventually dies, the power comes back on & less than 2 minutes later, you're back on the air. Maybe there's something better for the money, but if there is, I'm unaware of it. This station has Simian at it's FM sister...the PD likes the Station Playlist on the 250 watt AM better than the far more expensive Simian on his FM.
 
If all you want is something to run overnights and play some programs, zararadio is all you need. It's free and basically a clone of raduga. Download audiograbber to use with it, to grab the music that you wish to program. It's also free. The only downside is there is no music scheduler, but it's quite easy to build an overnight playlist.
 
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