MusicMaster Blog

By Paul Ziino

There are lots of ways to make your MusicMaster database your own.  Today we’re going to look at ways you can customize the Replacement Song Options.

Go to Tools/Options/Replacement Song Options.  There are nine Search Modes and each one can be tweaked to give you exactly what you’re looking for when replacing songs in the Schedule Editor.

The most common option is the Replacement Song Search (F9).  The setting for this mode dictates what results will appear in the replacement song list when you press F9 or double-click on a position in the schedule editor.  Typically the Default Category List is set to “Use category of currently scheduled song or element” which tells MusicMaster to search the same category as what is scheduled in that position.  You could set it to instead show you “All Categories” or “Entire Library” or even a “Specific Category List”.

The default category list options are the same for each mode, but can be tweaked to give a different setting for each mode.  You also have the option to have MusicMaster show the selection box and to sort matching songs by rest for each of the modes.

Direct Field Value Entry is used when you type details directly into the Schedule Editor.  You can type the song’s name directly into the Title field and when modifying the Default Category List here, you tell MusicMaster which categories to look in to find that title.  This works in other fields including Artist, Run Time, attribute fields, and more.  You can learn more about Direct Field Value Entry in this recent blog post.

Description Search Phrase (Alt-F9) allows you to look for a word or phrase that appears in either your primary or secondary field.  So if your primary and secondary fields are Title and Artist, you could press Alt-F9 on a position in the schedule editor and fill in a word or phrase for which you’d like MusicMaster to search.

Click OK or press Enter and your replacement list will show songs, based on the setting for this mode, that contain “lov” in the primary or secondary field.

Auto-Replacement Song Search (Shift-F9) schedules the most-rested perfect song.  The settings in Replacement Song Options tell MusicMaster what categories it can look through when using this function.

Current Field Query (Ctrl-Q) is used when you want to find a different song based on criteria of a certain field.  For example, click in the Sound field and press Ctrl-Q, MusicMaster will open the query box and have it populated with “Sound Contains Any of” and have the categories already checked based on your Replacement Song Options.

Current Field Value Query (Ctrl-R) works a lot like Ctrl-Q except it populates the Search Filters in the query box with the criteria that was already in place on that position.  So if you have a song scheduled with Sound codes PR in place, Ctrl-R will open the pre-filled query with “Sound Contains Any of PR”.

Find Matching Value (Ctrl-1 / Crl-2) is used when you want to match exactly what is present in a field.  For example, MusicMaster automatically scheduled a song by Phil Collins.  You think Phil is fine for that position but want a different song, so you click the artist field for the song and press Ctrl-1 to get a list of other songs by Phil Collins from the categories selected in the Replacement Song Options.

Ctrl-2 looks at the selected field from the song previous to it in the Schedule Editor.  Press Ctrl-2 on the artist field of the song after your Phil Collins song, and MusicMaster will show you songs by that artist, thus allowing you to create a two-fer on the fly.

The Replacement Song Options for Insert and Schedule Song dictate what categories will be pre-selected in the query box when you right-click in the Schedule Editor and select Insert Element/Insert and Schedule Song.

The settings for Runtime Search to Fill Hour dictate what categories will be pre-selected in the query box when you right-click in the Schedule Editor and select Schedule Song/Search for a Song to Fill the Hour.  This query box’s Search Filters will be pre-filled with the length of time the song needs to be to complete your 60 minute hour.

Here’s a little side-note regarding “Runtime Search to Fill Hour”.  You can tell MusicMaster how long your hour needs to be.  If it’s ok for your 60 minute hour to be a few seconds under or over you can go to Tools/Options/Additional Properties, then under the Schedule header you can adjust “MaxHourLen” and “MinHourLen” accordingly.  The default is 3600 seconds, but you could set the max at 3605 and the min at 3595 and get a range of +/- 5 seconds when using “Runtime Search to Fill Hour”.

If you have questions about this or any other MusicMaster topic, reach out to your Music Scheduling Consultant.  We’re here to help!