This week, we had the privilege to be joined by Bill Webber, RCS Director of Scheduling Development, to chat about everything music scheduling. Bill revealed what inspired him to write music scheduling software code, some of his “underutilized” GSelector scheduling techniques and we even teased upcoming GSelector 5.0 new features!
Bill’s extensive music scheduling background started watching his Dad spin records, moving vinyl and index cards from the front to the back, case to case. After being hired to work in the music department, he started to write his own scheduling software, which lead him to a position with RCS and what would become Selector V12, followed by Selector V15 (Selector SQL) and finally to the development of GSelector’s Goal Based Scheduling.
Throughout his GSelector journey, Bill has worked with every type of programmer and has seen it all. Which is why we had to ask, “In your professional opinion, what are some GSelector scheduling techniques that are underutilized by today’s programmers?” First, we broke down Kicks and specifically the Constant Order stacking option. The idea is that programmers can give GSelector flexibility on how it schedules Disable and Slotted elements. Essentially, allowing for a slight deviation from the given kick grid pattern in order to compensate for a primary rule, like Vocalist Minimum Separation. Find out more about Constant Order by checking out the F1 Dynamic Help file working within the Goals | Categories | 1, 2 down arrow icon: Category Group Settings.
After discussing some of the benefits of GSelector’s goals and rule based scheduling, we pivoted to Fallback Attributes. These can be enabled via Setup | Station | Features | Attributes and then select the Fallback Attribute. When enabled, if the desired attribute and value, like Energy of 5, has a low score, GSelector will reference the element’s Fallback Attribute as to better score itself in that position. If you have songs that are teetering on either a 4 or a 5, you may want to enable a Fallback Attribute as to reinforce that element’s score.
Another pro tip from the creator of GSelector, Bill reviewed the Platoon feature, found under Goals | Categories | Platoon (three dots will open the Platoon window). Essentially, after multiple elements have been scheduling within a category for too long, programmers can automatically swap rested songs for overplayed songs within an active category and a hold category. This could be done per month or weekly and users can specify if they want to utilize an exact number of elements (Count) or a Count Percentage of the category.
We also reviewed Packeting, the scheduling technique to take multiple songs and rotate them as one. This could be for a live verses a studio version, an artist collection of songs, or however you want to group multiple elements. A quick shortcut to the Packet Manager, open a song, at the top right we have the Packet section and click on the three dots to open the Packet Manager. Users can also rotate packets based on Spins, a Share ratio, or by Days.
Finally, what’s an RCS Live with the Director of Scheduling Development without a little sneak peek into a brand new feature that will be released in GSelector 5.0? There’s a lot of metadata featured within the Library | Song tab and pending on your day to day workflow, you may require some fields to be prominently displayed, whereas other areas can be hidden. That’s why we introduced customizable Song Layouts. Essentially everything in the Song tab can now be outlined based on a module and scheduling attribute. Simply define a workspace and include the desired fields in your own personal layout. In addition, multiple users can also have unlimited layouts. For example, if you have a station specific layout, that may look different than your Multi Station layout. This is definitely an exciting new feature and will be available in GSelector 5.0.
Speaking of GSelector 5.0, we’re always looking for Beta users to test out the latest and greatest RCS features. If you’re interested in our Beta program, reach out to your local RCS contact. We’re also hiring! RCS is looking for a Field Service Technician to help install our products onsite. Apply for the position here. We have some great RCS Live topics on the horizon, so don’t forget to check us out on Facebook, Twitch, YouTube and Twitter every Thursday at 11am ET!