Follow

SAM Broadcaster / SAM DJ - Organizing and Scheduling Music

The way you organize and schedule your music can really make your station stand out. There’s an ‘80s mix, and then there’s your ‘80s mix. Here, we’ll cover the technical aspects of creating your mix.

First, we recommend reading the following Help Documents:

Before You Start

You need to decide what your station is all about, and how often you plan to play certain tracks, artists, jingles, and promos. For a little inspiration, visit Spacial’s Forum and ask other broadcasters how they made those kinds of decisions when they got started.

Organize your Music

Start by creating categories in SAM Broadcaster or SAM DJ that make sense to you. We recommend category names that point to a common attribute, like “Top 40,” “Trance,” or “Ambient.”

Format Your Station

Now you have to decide how you’re going to arrange your music.

For the sake of example, let’s set up a Top 40 station. The idea is to play the latest hits more frequently than older music:

80s Hits

Top 40

90s Hits

Station ID

Top 40

00s Hits

Top 40

Oldies

Station ID

To do this, set up your schedule’s logic as follows (read the “clockwheel rotation” Help Document for more information):

80s Hits [Least Recently Played Artist]

Top 40 [Weighted]

90s Hits [Least Recently Played Artist]

Station ID [Random, NoRules]

Top 40 [Weighted]

00s Hits [Least Recently Played Artist]

Top40 [Random]

Oldies [Least Recently Played Artist]

Station ID [Random, NoRules]

In this example, Top 40 songs are “Weighted,” which means they’re prioritized over other tracks so they’re played more frequently. This kind of logic will evenly distribute your Top 40 tunes.

You’ll also note that we marked that last Top 40 track as “Random” to avoid having tracks play in the same order each time (this sort of thing comes up with “Weighted” rotations).

We marked songs from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and ‘00s as “Least Recently Played Artists” to ensure a good musical balance.

We used “Random” logic for station identification because we only have a few files in this category. In addition, when there are only a few items in any given category, it’s important to disable separation rules. If you don’t, SAM Broadcaster or SAM DJ will not select Station IDs because it won’t be able to find any that don’t break separation rules.

This is part of the “clockwheel rotation” process. You can create many clockwheels and save them to file. Use the Event Scheduler to create a new clockwheel for different parts of the day or week.

Was this article helpful?
1 out of 1 found this helpful
Have more questions? Submit a request

Comments