Re: Automation Systems
I'm glad you posted about the Sam Board. I have experienced with 3 automation systems and I'll tell you about my experience with the Sam System. I'll be blunt about. The SAM is pretty much a sophisticated looking airplane cockpit piece of junk. It looks like a radio laboratory at first.....and it's so hard to learn and peak and tweak the system the way you want files played, it's enough to make you run for the hills.
What the hell is Pal Script. Yes I kinda know what it is, but who has time to learn this when all you want to do is get the system prepared and programmed to operate as convenient, smoothly and quick as possible.
You'll be learning a C++ language course in this just to get this thing to operate on the very second the way you want it as far as mixing , scheduling , etc. Getting the Top of the hour ID at the top of the hour was requiring the knowledge of a CCNP to get it to work they you want . Yes it mixes, but if you want a good solid tight mix that sounds natural or if you want the files to mix exactly at 3.2 seconds or overlap the way you would like, you'll be pulling your hair out by the time you figure it out. It seems to sound an artificial mix of songs and doesn't seem to actually balance the DB of the outro into the intro as smoothly as the other systems I'll review. It even will cut out the cold intros and the configurations of the sharp curve and all the other featured goodies that this is suppose to come with in mixing, And believe me it will make anyone go back to BSR turntable and play your music manually. There's too many steps to set up a rotation, and if you want to mix your songs in any old order or one steady basic format, then it might be for you, but that will eventually have the listener detect that your predictable in programming. it has a few features that look good like the FM dial preset , but for serious programming (unless your from Bangalore) it looks like this system can do everything for you like turn the lights on or flush the toilet at the bottom of the hour in between a 60's or 70's tune, but believe me for a real unpredictable smooth mix of music where mixes sounds like someone is there live mixing, this is not for you. Too much peaking and tweaking and bullst features it ain't worth it by the time you figure it out. Another turnoff, a real butt kisser to the RIAA, if you have a song that was downloaded to playlist, it will skip the song even though it shows it scheduled to be played. The interface of rotation of songs are poor, you can see 5 or I think up to 20 songs but it doesn't tell you where in the hour of the rotating wheel the song that is played is at. You'll be senile knowing what time it is by looking at the song board.
Support is very poor. If you like answering machines all day or correspondence courses, this is for you. Support like VNC and after 30 days will get very pricy. Worst then Apple care. The phone system has improved as far as press 1 for this, and press 2 for that, but before, you would have gone through almost a 1 minute monolog of everything just to put you through the proper channels.
I know it's an American produce system, but it's not worth the headcahes.
No. 2 The OTS system. A much better system, more simplistic, everything out in front of you, good directory of finding your songs and as long as all the files are there the way you programmed it......you can flip a format in 2 seconds. It's flawless, even though it had locked up on me a few times. But not very often. I believe they fixed that problem with a link to click on to resolve that.
The playlist and category placements are good, and the mp3 conversion is kinda simple to use. Just make sure they can read the files in your directory. You can usually easily replace a song at the last minute or seconds and delete the one you don't want. The templates are basic like you would use on any microsoft software program. If you don't have any experience in templates, you'll need to study , but if you know, it 's pretty simple and basic to program your station. Customer support, is good overall, you'll have to e-mail correspond, but you'll get a logical or responsive answer within 24 hours. Don't forget , your dealing with Australia time. only big drawback....it's not compatible with sound solution, or any other third party software. It has it's own studio and processing on how to make the station sound but the processing is not sound solution. It's editing is good to keep out unwanted intros or fade out long outros in the song and loading it into the file for smooth play. I don't even want to go there with the SAM.
Next Station Playlist.....This is the best of the bunch, it's basic it's simple, all the info you need is out in front of you on what's actually happening during the hour with your playlist. It's almost like a plug n play situation. Once you program it ....you see everything. You can even program to see the upcoming playlist from :45 to the hour or the whole days worth if you want it too. It's very flexible, and very easy drag and drop on programming your rotation wheel, and liners, and categories.
All you need to know is the difference from CREATOR that designs your playlist for 1 day up to 10 years if you want to, and STUDIO which shows the hours or more programmng along with all the other rotation wheel details. Youca nupdate your whole music library or categories anytime with 2 clicks , clear and add files andit automatically updates your categories. It does a good job as far as programming songs they way you want to as far as separation from artist or relation or songs with the same title. Everyonce in awhile I will get the same artist in the same hour because I programmed that file in different categories. I'm still trying to figure a way to avoid that. Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 is an example. They had so much success, that it's hard to be within the rotating restraints of my formatic wheels. But everything is 99.5 percent smooth.
Customer service is very good. Yes it's New Zealand, but you get good response and good information correction help right away.
