What would make your life better?

[JimmyNeutron]

I was with a small group of friends that have been in the radio business for a long time. We have used a variety of automation systems, such as NexGen, Scott Studios, Raduga (yuck), and a few others. We were talking about new items in automation software that would make our lifes so much easier. The more we talked, the more I thought "I wonder what other engineers would think of" so here I am asking.

If you have software such as NexGen or Scott Studios, what features do you think would make your job (or life) simpler?

 

[kyscott]

90% of the automation problems I have ever had hasn't been a hardware issues, it's been nuts loose on the keyboards!

 

[SirRoxalot]

Better?

Corporate is already well on the way to solving most automation problems by reducing the number of jocks who work with it...

It's like the old line - "Sales wouldn't be a bad job if it wasn't for the damn customers".

 

[ChiefEngineer]

You asked. Here's the laundry list. Ideas appreciated.

#1) Remote software to fix things from home.

Using gotomypc and logmein now. Problem I have is recording vt from home EASY. I can always use adobe and then filezilla to transfer and add cuts which i dub down to auto. Do you see the steps?

Even with this this is better than doing this AT the station. A combined and SIMPLE solution would allow ALL our jocks to do this...not just the engineer.

#2) Automation combined with traffic AND excellent music software.

RCS hold music software to a higher level and no one matches it yet. Traffic (especially for non coms) is a joke as most of the underwriting is very little money. Buying a commercial package for a non com is overkill.

#3) A system that will allow network distribution.

In a non com non K Love station we can't afford sat time.

Would love to be able to record a location A then have cut with specific name routed to play at a computer in city a b or c.

Same network with different underwriting or commercials for city a b or c.

#4) Real time program distribution on a reliable network that we can afford.

IP? Okay. Want a reliable server to send from point a to b.

#5 Intelligent monitoring of remote sites.

Call after 4 hours of being off the air..."You know you're off?" Using a computer and software at site a b or c would be great if we could make sure it really worked. No way to know without the human factor now. A Dead air alarm is not sufficient. We now monitor our streams reduntantly at the source.

#6 Automation with internal stereo generator and processing for remote sites. All self contained.

Software is out there but none of the audio cards for mpx or rds have worked well enough to be used. Omnia has software based processing and a Euro stereo generator/rds encoder is also a reality. Combined package with automation?

Having said this, I know a person who has multiple fits as a result of not knowing the software being used. Agree with the keyboard factor.

I love Simian and the older Wave Station. Like Digital Jukebox. Both lack a music scheduler on par with RCS. Both lack traffic system.

DJB can record remote vt but is complicated. Almost easier to record "carts" and isnert them.

Enco. Like it too but it is way behind on remote anything.


Most stations are operated with minimal staff and ours is an all volunteer staff. Anythign we can do to make WSLM sould like WLS would be super.

 

[gunterm]

You asked. Here's the laundry list. Ideas appreciated.

#1) Remote software to fix things from home.

Using gotomypc and logmein now. Problem I have is recording vt from home EASY. I can always use adobe and then filezilla to transfer and add cuts which i dub down to auto. Do you see the steps?

Even with this this is better than doing this AT the station. A combined and SIMPLE solution would allow ALL our jocks to do this...not just the engineer.

#2) Automation combined with traffic AND excellent music software.

RCS hold music software to a higher level and no one matches it yet. Traffic (especially for non coms) is a joke as most of the underwriting is very little money. Buying a commercial package for a non com is overkill.

#3) A system that will allow network distribution.

In a non com non K Love station we can't afford sat time.

Would love to be able to record a location A then have cut with specific name routed to play at a computer in city a b or c.

Same network with different underwriting or commercials for city a b or c.

#4) Real time program distribution on a reliable network that we can afford.

IP? Okay. Want a reliable server to send from point a to b.

#5 Intelligent monitoring of remote sites.

Call after 4 hours of being off the air..."You know you're off?" Using a computer and software at site a b or c would be great if we could make sure it really worked. No way to know without the human factor now. A Dead air alarm is not sufficient. We now monitor our streams reduntantly at the source.

#6 Automation with internal stereo generator and processing for remote sites. All self contained.

Software is out there but none of the audio cards for mpx or rds have worked well enough to be used. Omnia has software based processing and a Euro stereo generator/rds encoder is also a reality. Combined package with automation?

Having said this, I know a person who has multiple fits as a result of not knowing the software being used. Agree with the keyboard factor.

I love Simian and the older Wave Station. Like Digital Jukebox. Both lack a music scheduler on par with RCS. Both lack traffic system.

DJB can record remote vt but is complicated. Almost easier to record "carts" and isnert them.

Enco. Like it too but it is way behind on remote anything.


Most stations are operated with minimal staff and ours is an all volunteer staff. Anythign we can do to make WSLM sould like WLS would be super.

Be careful what you wish for... even with a good audio card those MPX and RDS software generators have what all software has: bugs. And a bug in one of these that stops it will take you to dead air...

If you'd like some good silence control for your station check out this freebie I found on the board a few months ago: http://www.pira.cz/eng/silence.htm

A word of warning, it can crash while trying to change settings (I don't know why), but once it is running there are no problems. The main important features are the e-mails when you're off, and an e-mail if it was able to fix on its own. Since I only broadcast through the internet it only monitors the output of my Orban PC-1100. The automation software I use still has bugs (it's private and in super beta) so this helps with our "stopping" bug by kicking the automation in the butt to get it going again

Remote voicetracking: This is a feature built into the software I use as well as many others. You can either record them flat through any program you wish, or if you have a laptop with a mirror of your music library you can use the VT program for perfect live recorded breaks, then upload the voice files for later use. For voice processing (to make you "stand out" above the music when talking up a song) I like to use a Symetrix 421 mono AGC box, has great controls for voice and sounds fantastic.

 

[gunterm]

One more thing I forgot, your #3.

This might work for you guys provided the internet is fairly good. The show mentioned in my signature (Michael Groff Show) is a 192kbps mono mp3 feed. The host sends the main stream to a central server and the affiliates connect to that (tones are also sent for breaks). It has been completely stable the whole time I've used it, granted the show is a maximum of 2 hours long, but it works.

For super broadcast quality of non-live programming I'd try sending FLAC files of show segments to stations using a free file sharing service. Many of the oldies programs I get that are not hosted on their website are using file sharing services to host the big files. Me personally I won't run anything over the air unless its 320kbps or lossless. I don't require lossless mainly because the files are too big for it to be realistic and so far I can't really hear the difference.

 

[Studio1]

I would like companies to keep service information and documentation on their website for every piece of equipment they have ever made or sold.
Now, some people will jump up and say "that's impossible" or "it's not practical" - but if a company can list *most* of their products on their site, and provide PDF manuals for them, then it's not a big ask for the rest of the obsolete equipment to be listed as well. I am sure an office worker or administrative person could find a few minutes each day to scan the pages of the manual and put it up on their site.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Add to that it would be real handy if current model stuff was available without a user name and password as sometimes things break after banker's hours and contract engineers get thrown into situations where they don't have the book with them at the time. It really sucks when they change the password regularly like Audio Arts/Wheatstone does. Even if a guy plans ahead and gets the password for future issues it's no help.