Library control of your music

Jeez it's ages since I posted anything on my blog and now this is a boring technical post but I thought it might be a) of use to some fellow DJs and b) show me up for the nerd I really am. It also might prompt someone to say - Jeez you don't need to make it complicated. Do it like this! :)

I don't know how you control your music files - not on SAM but at source - which is where a lot of problems occur if you start reallocating folders and forget to 'tell' SAM. And that's when a lot of tunes immediately fly off the queue in front of your astonished eyes. OK so I'll come to coping with that later.

First your PC source. How do you store your music files? Well, like most people I guess, I have a hierarchy of folders. And at the top of the 'pyramid' is the master folder you want to load into SAM. I've got four of those because I've got four separate SAM playlists (hoping we can cope with each DJ having more than one playlist at some point) but more of that later.

My master SAM playlists are LIVE (which is the only one readers of the website can see), COUNTRY, FOLK and SWING, simply because a) I broadcast on three channels b) I don't want to advertise songs on a particular channel which I don't want to include - and if they're there and you get asked for them, it's hard to refuse and c) ease of file management.

Clearly the more songs you have in any folder, the longer it takes to add new ones and sort them, and by the time you are up to 50,000 or so songs that could be quite testing.

So I have four SAM folders and a matching 'set' behind the scenes to reflect that on my source PC. On my PC I have SAM LIVE, SAM COUNTRY, SAM FOLK, SAM SWING and within each of those the individual artist folders applicable to each genre. Within each artist, of course, individual albums so the whole thing groups up as:-

Song -> Album-> Artist-> Genre (SAM LIVE eg)

But the first thing I do when downloading new material is to run it through MP3GAIN so that the volume settings are all correct before loading the music to the permanent files so I have a parallel set of folders for this early entry onto my PC each called 'PREGAIN' one each for each genre.

So if I am downloading 'Rollin and Tumblin' music I dump it into LIVE PREGAIN, keeping it free of the master files while I process the volume program. When all the volume settings are done I move the content of 'PREGAIN' to 'SAM LIVE' so I know that all the material in SAM LIVE is clean and processed. That also leaves PREGAIN free for the next batch of downloads and the whole thing moves pretty sweetly. And of course a parallel situation happens for country, folk and swing

Then updating SAM. If you have only downloaded a few albums and made a note of where they are in the PC hierarchy then you can load them as individual directories. If however you have loaded a lot of new artists and albums and -even more dangerous - added tunes into existing folders, then it is a good idea to take a deep breath and clear the whole of your playlist on SAM and reload it all from the master pyramid folder - even if that is 20,000 or more songs. It doesn't take that long and it's the only way to ensure that the path of each song from source to SAM is uncorrupted.

Now I'm waiting for some one to say 'Hell's teeth you've been doing all that? Why didn't you..................."

Choose your racing code

There is a post on our main station blog announcing the return of Lil Hippies 'Rock your racing' NASCAR series show for the second season and I know that's something so many of our station staff are looking forward to immensely.

Being a Briton, of course, I am more familiar with Formula One racing which, I guess, is the more established code throughout Europe, although NASCAR enjoys a tremendous following in the UK now, thanks to cable television.

There have long been debates about which is the better form of car racing but I think those kinds of comparison are a bit silly. You enjoy what you enjoy and that's that, but it might be worthwhile for American readers unfamiliar with Formula One to mention a few of the basic differences...and they are considerable.

For a start the NASCAR cars are three times as heavy as Formula One racing cars and they use pretty simple technology. The idea behind NASCAR seems to be simplicity, speed, standardisation of engine to give everyone a fair chance and excitement and, maybe for that reason, the code is sometimes looked down on by Formula One fans. Rather stupidly in my opinion.

Formula One could not be more different. It sometimes seems to be a code for the car designer to get excited about rather than the spectator with each car carrying the kind of sophisticated on board computers and state of the art technology which would do credit to a NASA space launch. The teams operate within a broad brush set of requirements but, traditionally, the very last thing they want is standardised anything. It is part of the designers art to produce in secret new aerodynamics or an engine booster which your rivals havent got, in order to steal a march on them. Consequently the accusation thrown at F1 is its not the best driver who wins the Championship but the guy with the most sophisticated car.

The area where NASCAR really scores is in spectator excitement. Whereas cars are often neck and neck and jockey to overtake, sometimes resulting in shunts, this rarely happens in Formula One. To be an F1 fan you sometimes have to have a clinical appreciation of time delays and pit lane stops etc, in order to work out who is leading. Of course , F1 'snobs' say this is sophisticated motor racing and look down on the neck and neck frenzy of NASCAR as 'stock car racing'.

But the hard cold facts of life have bitten in to Formula One organisers. They realise the sport is becoming too scientific and too lacking in moments of high excitement. So this year a few changes have been put in place. For a start, a much tighter specificiation on aerodynamics design has been put in place and a return to the use of 'slick'tyres which will guarantee better mechanical grip. There was a suggestion that all cars should use a standard engine but that created so much uproar it was thrown out. However they have limited how many engines a team can use throughout the season.

By and large the changes wont exactly emulate the neck and neck of NASCAR but they will allow more competitive overtaking than in recent years. That has been one of the main problems with the sport. It is exciting once you understand a little bit about fuel consumption and the gambles on whether to start a race with a full tank or not, depending on how many pit stops you think you can get away with, but it is certainly more statistical than NASCAR, and thus, to a lot of people, boring. But I love it and I think the changes will make Formula One more appealing for many.

Britain has the pleasure of having the World Champion Formula One driver in Lewis Hamilton who is not only the youngest ever F1 champion but also the first black guy to compete in Formula One. He is great, but only just scraped the title last year. He needed to finish 5th in the final race of the year to stop Felipe Massa of Ferrari from taking the crown. He looked as if he'd blown it until the final bend of the race, when the guy in 5th place retired with a burned out engine. It sounds lucky but for all sorts of reasons -not least because he's British - he deserved it! He was unfairly penalised for an overtaking manoeuvre in an earlier race so it was poetic justice.

Anyway the F1 season kicks off at the end of March, the first race being in Australia and I will be eagerly watching that and cheering our Lewis all the way. I suspect the seething Massa will have other ideas though.

So two codes to enjoy and between the two I reckon 2009 is going to be a great motor racing year.

Happy...Schlappy? So who's counting?

Well in my first post I mentioned the need to ensure you reload SAM after reallocating songs to folders on your computer. I should also have mentioned the need to ensure your songs are correctly labeled. I had, I thought, a good show yesterday and reached my final song which was clearly labeled "You make me so very happy' by Blood, Sweat and Tears - and I launched into a valedictory comment about my last song reflecting how I felt about the audience and the show.

And on came 'Oh Happy Day' by the Edwin Hawkins Singers which must have confused the hell out of anyone tying up the two. Oh well at least it had 'Happy' in it. It could have been worse, after all I'd said about the listeners, what if it had been Aerosmith's 'Sick as a dog' or worse?

And hey, fellow HotTrax bloggers, where are all the posts? :)



Alex

How do you plan your shows?

I think I begin with the novelist's creed - always try and have a start that grips the audience and a convincing finish. So I do try to start my Rollin' and Tumblin' show with something really lively which I hope 'catches' the audience and makes them want to stay tuned. My last song HAS to be at least 4 minutes long, as, currently there is no one to hand over to since DJ Sierra got fed up with me and lit out for the Country Channel, so I have to reactivate the bot and it does take quite a bit of time getting through the layers of sign on to reach the auto SAM....as you'll all know!! :)

I do try and finish with something memorable and, if it is an occasion, something that suits - like last week I finished with 'Forever Young' by Bob Dylan along with some other 'May you...' statements to suit the first show of the New Year.

Then, trying to fulfil the station's creed of 'yesterday's and today's smoking hits' I then simply fill in the other 43 songs LOL. Well I actually start with the 'today's' section and I look through my latest songs folder and check which Ive played the previous week and which deserve an airing this week. When Ive sorted those it leaves me with about 20 songs to fill from the 'golden oldies' files and then it's a nice easy trawl through SAM looking for appropriate songs which kind of fit the mood of the show.

I don't really rehearse what I'm going to say (I'm sure you have noticed that :) ) but sometimes if there is a natural link to a song, or something funny that links to a title, I may well write it down and hope it sounds spontaneous on Monday!!

Then ,when Ive selected my songs I select promos. I do try and get promos for all current DJs into my three hours but if there are several shows for one DJ, I try to include the shows which are closest to my own. For example I will always play DJ Texas' Monday promo because listeners only have to remember the show starts 6 hours later that evening, as opposed to her Friday promo which I reason will be forgotten by the end of the week. I don't know if that's the creed I should be following but that's what I do.

Anyway that's more or less how Rollin and Tumblin comes about. If any of you have any suggestions on how it could be improved (and please..dont be toooooo hurtful LOL) I'd be delighted to get any comments.

Well they're all at it!!

Well all my fellow DJs are doing station related blogs so I thought I'd join 'em. Well I've had a great time on HotTrax so far and none better than over Christmas and New Year when I did a couple of special shows during my Rollin and Tumblin hours plus a couple of hours rock and roll on Christmas Day...and I had a ball!! (That's a dance not a raffle, as John Cleese once famously said!)

Anyway Hot Trax is growing apace...as am I after all the booze and mince pies at Christmas and one of us has to slim down. I just know it's not going to be Hot Trax which is going from strength to strength.

Anyway I have a few New Year resolutions and I want y'all to measure me against them :-

1) Never to tease DJ-Sierra on air again (long silence ..waiting for the holy bolt of lightning)

2) Never to play the wrong promo for DJ-Ace ever again, or to keep saying 'ANOTHER awesome...etc etc'

3) Never suggest that DJ-Texas may have an accent after all

4) Never say anything nasty about Buck Cherry

5) Never forget to reload SAM when I reorganise my MP3s.....(hysterical laughter)


OK there are more but that will do for a bit. Have a great 2009