Music 1 Professional is the most advanced edition. It is a lease/subscription software. Payments are quarterly and our rates are lower than those of the other top schedulers.
Music 1 LE/Legacy Edition is a buy-out software.
In addition to scheduling song libraries of any size, both versions also manage and schedule all non-music items like promos, jingles, voice tracks and other audio tracks, including long-form programming. Both work smoothly with all professional digital automation systems and webcasting players.
Both editions are robust, full-featured music schedulers and user satisfaction is very high with each of them. The Pro edition has more functions and here is a list of the most significant things it does that are not available in LE.
Pro Functions That Aren’t In LE/Legacy Edition:
Traffic & Billing
Both Versions can import advertising schedules from traffic/billing software and deliver a fully merged log file to the automation/playout system. Pro has an optional, built-in Traffic/Billing module. It is the first do-it-all scheduling and content tool in broadcast radio.
Audio-Track Linking
This is a boon for totally automated stations, including internet streamers who want a lively, ever-changing feel to their programming. You can pre-record a number of intros and backsells to any of your songs. When songs with linked tracks are scheduled, each time a different intro (or backsell) can be automatically scheduled next to the song. What’s more, voice tracks can be dayparted-by-announcer. So, the ‘voice’ of the morning show will only be scheduled in mornings, tracks recorded by the mid-day voice will only be schedule in that time slot.
With LE, you can coordinate daily voice tracking with your digital broadcast system for a ‘live’ sounding format. You can also record an unlimited number of voice tracks which can be scheduled throughout the day but these cannot be automatically linked to songs.
Hybrid Scheduling
For an overview of how this advanced function works, see this video.
Theme Scheduling
There’s a slick way to do special days, special plays, special hours. You can create any number of “Selection” categories that contain songs from your regular categories, then schedule and rotate the Selection categories like all the other categories. Essentially, this lets you have songs scheduling from within two different categories. In addition, you can add a custom ‘selection’ slot to any Format clock. So, you can do automatic theme scheduling based on all sorts of criteria: songs with the same sound code, songs of selected tempos, songs of a certain length, songs from a selected hit year.
Edit Schedules In Log View
Music 1 was designed for interactive scheduling when viewing Format Clocks. You can click and drag all elements around the clocks from one position to another. In either version, you may switch to a ‘log view’ and see the units in the hour in a linear text list. In Pro, you can change the positions of the items, move them up or down in the hour when you are in log view.
Undo Functionality
As you edit schedules, update format clocks, make category changes and do just about anything within Pro, if you make a mistake or want to re-trace your steps there are 20 levels of un-do.
Click-to-Play Song Auditioning
If you have ripped your song library into your desktop computer, with Pro, you can click-and-play any of the audio files either while scheduling or while looking at a Song Card. This function does not conflict with the built-in interface for your digital automation system.
Double Shots & Triple Plays
There are now three ways to do this, from fully automatic to interactive. Pro can automatically find and schedule two-or-more in a row by the same artist.
Schedule “Open” Slots
If you want, you can schedule open slots or gaps on Format clocks with Pro. Maybe you want to drop in a 15 or 20 second “empty space” here and there to allow for announcer talk, etc. To do the same thing with LE, you must create “non-music” items of the desired length, then add them to the format clocks.
More Song Card Options and Characteristics
Version 7 allows up to 30 user-defined Sound Codes; LE allows for 8. With Pro, you can further define and control music flow with Mood, Texture and Musical Key characteristics. LE has a single Tempo characteristic for songs. Pro has three so you can code a song that has a Medium Slow intro, an over all Medium tempo and a Medium Slow close, if you wish.
Song Card Notes With both version, you can add Song Notes to every song card, then have the notes included in your music log. Pro has the expanded function of multiple notes. You could add any number of Song Notes to any song card and have them rotate, with Music 1 scheduling a different note each time the song is played. With Pro, these notes can also have beginning and end dates.
Song “Type” Separation Rules
With both versions, you can limit the number of songs with specific characteristics that can play in an hour. For example, you allow no more than 4 Slow songs in the hour and and you can prevent them from scheduling back-to-back. With Pro, you have the additional ‘spread’ function which can direct Music 1 spread the Slow songs evenly through the hour, making sure there are at least X-number of minutes between Slows. This kind of thing can be done with Sound Codes, Tempos, Genders, Mood, Texture and Key
More Song Rotation History
With LE, you can call up a Rotation Grid would shows every hour where a song has played in the previous two weeks. With Pro, this grid can be scrolled back to song placement in previous weeks/month or even years. Both versions keep data about Total Plays, Date Added, Plays-Per-Category and can print any and all kinds of song and library reports which might be needed.
Separation Of Non-Music Items
Pro has optional user-defined “Product Code” characteristics which can have their own separation rules. So, if you had two PSAs running and both were about fund-raising, you could make sure no more than one PSA about fund-raising is scheduled in an hour. These can also be day parted and have other format rules similar to those used with Song Cards.
Percentage Rotation of Non-Music Items
Say you have a “Promo” category with five different promos. With either version of M1, the promos can be day parted, so you could direct Promo A to play only in morning hours, if need be. All five promos would rotate in the morning hours. In other dayparts, only the other four non-dayparted promos would be scheduled. Pro has the added feature of “Percentage” rotations. With that, you could Tell Promo B to schedule 40% of the time, Promo C to schedule 30% of the time, and so on.
Start/End Dates for Non-Music Items
With LE, all units in a non-music category will be scheduled in daily rotation. Pro has the additional function with which you can add units to a non-music category but give each one a start and end date. They can be added to the category immediately, but will only schedule in the time-window you specify.
Auto Dig
This Pro function can improve scheduling efficiency. If your search depth is set at 3 and if all 3 songs at the top of the stack fail a rule in a scheduling slot, it can be set to automatically dig down deeper, as you wish.
Advanced Song Search
You can search for songs using many additional characteristics: including length, tempo, hit date, album title, chart position, dayparting, sound codes, machine location, library location.
Print from Song-Search
Previously, if you needed to print a list of songs, you’d go to Reports and select a category list. Pro allows any found-song-set to be printed directly from the Song Search window and the songs can be printed using any of your song report formats.