Last week we went over many tips and tricks for holiday scheduling within GSelector, so for this installment of RCS Live, we decided to do the same, but on the Zetta front. Today we went over third party audio editor integration, Shows vs. Mini-Logs, and how to get the most out of your holiday / year end programming.
Starting with third party audio editor integration, did you know that Zetta can trigger another program to open so that users can record, make edits and that audio is automatically saved within Zetta? We understand that Zetta’s Multi-Track Editor is a great tool that is free and built into your Zetta system, however, if you find yourself with an additional paid license for Pro Tools, Audition or another premium audio editor, we acknowledge that you’re paying for these specific advanced features, so why not integrate the two? Remember, since those third party audio editors are installed on a specific machine, we need to integrate starting with each computer. So Configuration | Computer | External Editors. From there, you define a name and a location of the desired program. If you need to quickly find the location, simply right click on the desired program’s icon, choose Properties and note the Target destination. Copy and paste everything up to the “/Program.exe” so that Zetta can properly discover the file path. There aren’t many settings to configure, however make a note of the saving options. You can either save as you modify the file, which takes up additional resources, or work from start to finish and then save the final product into Zetta upon closing the third party audio editor. MDI refers to a third party editor’s additional floating window.
Once your third party audio editor is configured, then users have the option to Edit Media with said program. In this exercise, we added a new element, briefly saved the asset so that it’s part of the Zetta environment, then we used the Edit Media | Adobe Audition to open Audition. We recorded a new piece of audio, closed Audition to officially save it within the Metadata module, then we added metadata to the existing element. There is no right or wrong way to achieve this workflow. Users can add all the metadata first, save and then record via the third party audio editor or record first and then insert the metadata.
Next, we broke down the differences between Show and Mini-Logs. Essentially, they’re identical, except that Mini-Logs allow for time stamped assets like Spot Blocks or Hour Markers. There are many ways in which users can curate a long form piece of content and it’s really about YOUR desired workflow. You can create multiple segments within Shows and schedule them around existing Spot Blocks or use Mini-Logs and include Spot Blocks to continue the traffic log load. Both Shows and Mini-Logs allow users to voice track and those voice tracks will not expire as they’re tied to each Show or Mini-Log. When users drag them into the Log, the voice tracks are dragged in as well. Note the Mini-Log settings found under Configuration | Stations | Log Settings, including Mini-Logs maintain existing elements, Skip elements, or delete elements. If you have any questions on the most efficient method to curate and schedule your show, don’t hesitate to reach out to RCS Support or direct message us on social media.
We’re still looking for GSelector 4.9.0 and Zetta 5.20.1 Beta users! If you’re interested in getting the latest and greatest from RCS, reach out to your local RCS office and let them know you would like to become a Beta power user. Don’t forget to send us your “work from home” photos for some RCS goodies and we have more sessions on the way as we continue to broadcast live every Thursday at 11am ET. Don’t forget to follow us onwww.Facebook.com/RCSSoundSoftware and RSVP for future RCS Live sessions.