Did you know that not only can you integrate your Mediabase, Media Monitors or third party research scores, but you can also assign scheduling attributes based on your research? Then, you can take those same research attributes and create goals or rules to incorporate into your Priority Lists. It’s just another example of how GSelector can build you a better music log. For this week’s RCS Live, we discussed how to create your research columns, integrate with Mediabase and Media Monitors, inputting manual research, and adjusting your columns to include the research attributes into your display.

Let’s first setup and configure our research columns and attributes: Setup | Research. This tab is broken down with Columns, Attributes, Settings, Groups and Import tabs. Working linear, we first have to create a research column. These columns will be available to display throughout GSelector, but more importantly, this is where we link integrated research within the software. Make a note of the Minimum and Maximum Scores. These are simply values so that GSelector knows a range for the research scores. Some users keep this very specific, whereas others pick a generic wide range. Users can also right click on these columns to change the display color. The Attributes tab allows programmers to define the research attributes that are part of a research column. For example, for a MScore Male, which is a research score that comes from Media Monitors, we can isolate what is a high testing score, a neutral or a negative testing score. Remember, you can define scheduling techniques based on these attributes like, “Don’t play two MScore Male: Negatives back to back.” Or a “Minimum Separation of 2 hours for MScore Male: Negatives.”

The Settings and Groups tabs pertain to how the research columns and attributes are displayed in GSelector. Essentially, the Settings tab defines how long GSelector will save research scores and most users prefer to display both attribute and column appearances. The Groups tab, just like the Browse Format, allows users to define a research column and then assign it to a station. Once part of a research group member, when you go to a song’s properties, you can see the research column displayed in the Research Groups tab. Since research is a global setting, users have to assign research to the desired station. Finally, we have the Import tab that allows users to manually import their own research from either a comma or tab delimiter file. If you have questions on how to properly configure your own research files, don’t hesitate to reach out to RCS Support!

Now that we’ve properly setup our research columns, we can move to the Interface tab, specifically the Mediabase, Media Monitors, Critical Mass Media, and Test All Media tabs. These are all RCS research products that can be purchased to offer next level research and scheduling. If you ever wondered why there’s a Mediabase and Media Monitors license within the licensing window, that allows you to access these tabs, however, you still need a corresponding account with each company. First, you would link your account with your Mediabase of Media Monitors username and password, which then allows you to grab the latest research via Get Scores. Using the value “10” as an example research score, the Map Scores to Research Columns is where we import that “10” into GSelector. But where does “10” go? That’s why we created the GSelector Research Column first. In this video, we used the Mediabase How AC This Week scores and imported it into the column Mediabase Hot AC.

Once we get the scores, you’ll see them populate below. Just because we got the scores, doesn’t mean we’ve imported them just yet. You’ll have to link the song to the research first and then save your work to formally ingest the research. This is a single “set and forget” configuration. Most users dedicate a couple minutes during their first research ingestion to make sure everything is correctly matching. There are Matched and Unmatched elements. Simply put, what metadata you have in your database may or may not reflect the legal metadata of the song. The classic example is {Don’t} Fear the Reaper. Is that song saved in your database as “(Don’t) Fear the Reaper” or “Don’t Fear the Reaper” or even “(Dont) Fear the Reaper?” Remember, we’re matching on the legal song name. Use the three dots to the right of the element to open the Advanced Search window to properly define that research relationship. If you ever have an issue, like mismatching a song, there are options to break that relationship and assign a new research relationship.

If you have a third party research, like a call out or consultant’s scores, programmers can also manually insert research into individual elements. Open up the desired song (Library | Song | Research Groups, located at the bottom right) and then click the green plus icon. This will open an option to choose the date for the research, attaching it to the corresponding available research column as defined by the research groups. And yes, all values will respect the Minimum and Maximum values as defined by the research columns. If you save a value outside the scope of the defined range, GSelector will simply ignore the research. There’s also the SongTrack tab that will visually graph the research, so that programmers can forecast any research trends. Finally, notice the Interface References tab, this is where GSelector saves that research relationship.

Now that we’ve imported our research, those same research attributes are now available for scheduling throughout GSelector. Go to Goals | Balance | Attributes to adjust Research Attribute settings, include Spread Goal Research Attribute in the Priority Lists or even further customize it via the Rotation Rules Window. There’s no right or wrong way to control a research attribute schedule, it’s all based on your music philosophy.

Don’t forget, now that we’ve created a research attribute and importing research scores, if you want to see the information displayed throughout GSelector, right click on the desired column header, Modify Columns, then add your desired research attribute. Since these research attributes are global attributes, make a point to understand the exact wording of your research column and attribute. For example, we’ve seen some users create MScore_Male for their Hot AC and another programmer had already created MScore Male for their Top 40. Note the missing underscore “_.” Of course, multiple stations can import research scores from the same research, just make sure that you’re displaying the correct column or attribute.

Looking for more ways to watch our weekly RCS Lives? You can now stream us on multiple platforms including Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook and you can still comment or ask your questions live via any interface of your choosing! Reminder to take and double check your backups and Data Exchanges and we’re always looking for Zetta 5.21.1 Beta users. Plus, we just released GSelector 4.9.0 and if you want to review all of the new features, check out our RCS Live here. If you’re interested in becoming a Beta user or upgrading, don’t hesitate to reach out to your local RCS Support department or Sales Representative. As always, we’ll see you next Thursday at 11am ET for another RCS Live!

At the Pro Audio Radio Tech Summit, President and CEO of RCS, Philippe Generali, was a panelist speaker at the “Building The Virtual Air Chain” Radio track. Throughout the 30 minute segment, various panelist speakers spoke about how radio is currently adopting new technologies and practices from the IT industry and what exactly a “virtual air chain” means for radio.

During his segment, Generali discussed how RCS is focusing on product features that can be usable today and the importance of accessibility in today’s radio industry. RCS’s Zetta Disaster Recovery Workflow & RCS2GO Initiatives that are completely cloud based are a great way for radio stations to be prepared for the unexpected.

“When disaster strikes at a physical radio station, viruses can often replicate quickly and cause various problems that aren’t so easy to fix” said Generali. “With the option of using an emergency backup system that saves automatically, RCS lets you go straight to a voice track and stay on the air in any situation.”

With RCS2GO products, software is now accessible from anywhere- including a mobile phone or a tablet. “Zetta2GO has been a life saver during the pandemic – letting you add songs and control your automation system from wherever you are” continued Generali. “It also has been great for working from home purposes – with station managers being able to record voice tracks straight from their living room.”

When asked about the future of radio virtualization: “It’s an enterprise-wide transformation” said Generali. “Once broadcasters rethink their enterprise, there is no limit. It’s a shift that has started and will be a profound transformation of how radio is operated in the near future.”

Engineers familiar with Zetta’s extensive feature-set all agree that Zetta’s Hot Spare, or Zetta Hot Sparing, is an efficient redundancy that allows users to customize how they can automatically or manually switch from a primary source to a secondary source. However, we’re not moving machines like a traditional radio automation setup, instead Zetta focuses on pivoting the Play Devices, or Stream Groups, from one destination to another. In this video, we break down what Zetta Hot Spare is, how to configure it and then we offer some tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your Zetta Hot Spare.

Here at RCS, we joke that it would take longer for us to describe Hot Sparing than it would to set it up. Now that we know that Zetta Hot Sparing is the process of moving play devices and not computers, let’s take a look at exactly what happens when we activate a Hot Spare. If you recall, Zetta is built upon the concept that we start with a blank slate and begin to add on pieces or features available in the Zetta environment to your station’s requirements. Doesn’t matter if you’re analog or Audio over IP, AoIP, a user would define these play devices that are grouped together to be assigned to a module. If you’re looking for a review on how to setup Zetta Play Devices, check out our previous Zetta Back to Basics video here. You can define the Play Devices via Configuration | Computers | Play Devices, then assign them via Configuration | Stream Groups (Formally Play Containers) and finally attach them to station’s modules Configuration | Stations | Playback. These are all pre-defined configurations and don’t feel like you need to constantly be adjusting these play devices, it’s a “set it and forget” during the initial Zetta installation. Of course, if you do ever decide to move play devices, it’s an easy switch if you follow these settings.

Once we have these play devices established, you’ll notice there are options for Sequencer Hot Spare play device(s). So we’re creating two audio playouts, one default and one for the Hot Spare. These play devices can be anywhere on the board or studio, especially if you have Axia or Wheatstone’s AoIP. For example, one of our clients has two Stream Groups on their on-air studio control room board. Let’s call pots 1, 2, and 3 the default Stream Groups and 7, 8 and 9 as the Sequencer Hot Spare Stream Groups. This way, when the user needs to activate a Hot Spare, they can arm the Hot Spare to preview the audio out of pots 7, 8, and 9, change the air route, and then activate the Hot Spare, potting up and on the 7, 8 and 9 faders. When we’re ready to return to the default Stream Groups, they would change the air route and activate the default Stream Groups, potting up and on channels 1, 2, and 3, turning off pots 7, 8, and 9. Why would we want to activate a Hot Spare? It could be for a number of reasons, both mission critical or simply maintenance. Users can run Windows Updates, update audio drivers or virus software, or perhaps a server or studio goes down, Zetta can easily switch to another play device and instantly, you’re back up and running.

Let’s breakdown how to properly configure your Hot Spare by going to Configuration | Hot Spare. Here is where you’ll find each computer that is part of the Zetta environment, as well as the Stream Groups, already preconfigured, available for Hot Sparing. Starting with the Audio Hot Sparing section, here is where you’ll define what modules utilize which Stream Groups. Note some of the Arm settings, then a further section that handles Live Metadata (Now Playing Export) and GPIO Hot Sparing. We didn’t spend too much time talking about these two because most sites have a dedicated machine to handle the Live Metadata and GPIO Zetta Services, so that if a main sequencer machine does go down, Zetta will maintain these two services, while moving the play devices because we need proper board access to control the on-air product. Think of Live Metadata and GPIOs as automatic behind the scenes vs. Play Devices that require manual user interaction.

To the right of the Hot Spare window, we have Assigned Stations. These are the stations that can utilize the Audio Hot Sparing featured on the left. Most studio configurations will have a sequencer server in the rack room, with each on-air control room as the Hot Spare machine. Think of it as a 1:1 ratio for the Hot Spare profile with an on-air control room. In that example, there would only be one Assigned Station. Or, some users will define their Production Studio as the Hot Spare for all stations in the Zetta environment. In a 5 station cluster, you may see 6 different Hot Spares, one for each station and then the Production Room that has all 5 of the Assigned Stations. There’s no right or wrong way to configure your Hot Spare.

Once a Hot Spare(s) is configured, we can look at the Hot Spare Manager (Tools | Hot Spare Manager) to actually implement the Hot Spare. You’ll see the stations on the left hand side, single click and the Hot Spare configuration will appear on the right hand side. Note that if a station has multiple Hot Spares, then users can select their desired Hot Spare. There are three steps in activating a Hot Spare. First, you’ll want to Arm the Hot Spare so that users can preview the audio, knowing that it’s playing out correctly within the board. Second, don’t forget that we need to address the on-air route. If channels 1, 2, and 3 are sent to air while we’re moving to pots 7, 8, and 9, we need to define / make sure that 7, 8, and 9 are also being sent to the air feed. Finally, we Activate the Hot Spare. To review: Arm, change air route, and Activate.

Now that we know how to manually activate a Hot Spare, let’s discuss how to automatically switch over to a Hot Spare. If we go to the Macros window (Configuration | Macros), we have the option to utilize an Execute Command to Activate the Hot Spare and then adjust the air route. You might notice that we skipped the Arm step and that’s because if we’re automatically switching over, there really isn’t a need to preview the audio before we switch over. In fact, many users will keep their Hot Spare armed at all times, so they can always make sure the Hot Spare is ready to go. After automatically activating the Hot Spare via a Macro, we simply create a second Macro that re-activates the default stream groups. There’s no concept of deactivating because we’re really only activating the Hot Spares we care about. Of course, once users have Macros created, we can insert those Macros into Hot Keys to play out on Zetta2GO or insert them into the Clock structure for automatic Hot Sparing.

Are you a News / Talk format and want to know how to get the most out of your Zetta system? We’ll be hosting a News / Talk RCS Live session on 4/15/21 at 11am ET with Brian Willard, head of RCS’ Field Technician Services, and Jeff Zigler, Senior Sales Engineer. On 4/8/21, Asst. GSelector Product Manager John Bonou will join us to discuss some advanced scheduling techniques. As always, we’re still looking for Beta users for Zetta 5.21.1 and don’t forget to catch RCS Live every Thursday on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook.

You’ve been hearing a lot about our Beta users raving about GSelector’s new Flex Clocks, but did you know there are more enhancements in GSelector 4.9.0 that will help improve your everyday workflows? Now that GSelector 4.9.0 is officially released, in this video we’ll breakdown some of the new features and review a couple significant enhancements from previous GSelector versions.

Let’s start with Flex Clocks, which are essentially granular clocks broken down by the hour or the minute. Users can essentially schedule a 1-minute clock or up to a single 24-hour clock. Flex Clocks are a setting that can be enabled or disabled via Setup | Station | Features | Advanced | Time Granularity of Clock Assignment: Hour or Minutes. Once enabled, users can begin to work within the Clocks | Assignment | Grid tab. Make a note of the new Change View, bullet outline icon, that allows you to adjust the granularity from 60 minutes to a minute. Working within the Clocks | Assignment | Grids window, treat this as an updated Clock Grid with the same behavior and keystrokes as before, only with the added ability to drag individual clock’s time and expanded duration control or display. A couple behaviors to note, GSelector will not allow the user to leave the Clock Grid window with a portion of the day/hour left unassigned. And don’t worry, there’s a notification that will pop up letting you know that you have to fix the grid. Next, understand that GSelector will do exactly what you want it to do! For example, if there’s a 45-minute clock that is scheduled to span over 4 hours, then GSelector will schedule those 45 minutes and that’s it for the next four hours. Just be aware of the duration of your individual clocks over the desired duration across multiple hour ranges. In addition, GSelector cannot carry clocks over into another day. Simply put, once we finish a day, GSelector will treat the next day as an entirely new entity.

Next, we covered a feature that was introduced in GSelector 4.8.1: Local Blocks. Think of Local Blocks as similar to Spot Blocks, with start and end triggers, however, instead of commercial traffic, we’re scheduling music and imaging. The concept is that when we utilize GSelector’s S3, Schedule Subscription Service, we need a form of scheduling that the local clocks can override the S3 music positions. A user would create the Local Block, include all of the desired elements inside of it, and then schedule the Local Block within the clock structure. This could be a generic “news, traffic, weather” grouping or a “Top 5 at 5” that requires five music positions outside of the S3 schedule. For that example, a user could define five Browse List “Top 5 at 5” positions, schedule it for the top of the hour at 5pm, and then GSelector will bring in the S3 music log for those positions outside of the Local Block. Don’t forget, like Spot Blocks, one line is a “start,” GSelector will play everything within and then the last position will be an “end.”

Also new to GSelector 4.9.0, we introduced multiple Association Reports, specifically many international reports that had been missing previously. Of course, don’t forget, GSelector can export BMI or ASCAP reporting from the Interface | Export | Schedule or a Sound Exchange Report from Interface | Association | Choose your Country and corresponding report. Nothing to change other than the date range and the destination path.

If you recall in past GSelector RCS Live videos, we discussed the concept of Jobs. Jobs allow the user to define an automatic process that can include an email success or failure. Step One was to introduce Jobs and step two included expanding job tasks. Make a note of the new Housekeeping Job, as well as the Licensing Job found under Tools | Licensing | Top right, define an email and desired configuration. Otherwise, the remaining jobs can be found under Tools | Configuration | Jobs.

Of course users can have unlimited values defined under specific GSelector attributes, like Station Content, which can include unlimited scheduling values. However, GSelector previously only had 10 User Defined Fields. Now, we’ve expanded that to include 99+ User Defined Fields. We also expanded on how users interpret those custom User Defined Fields. There’s a checkbox for True or False, Text, Date or Number and each additional User Defined Field would need to be identified first via Tools | Global Settings | User Defined and then that User Defined Field would be available for further editing via the Song cart: Library | Song | Additional. And yes, there are ways to incorporate these custom User Defined Fields into the scheduling process.

Finally, we discussed some of the expanded attributes that users can match on within Related Links. A refresher, Related Links are specific pieces of imaging that are tied to a relationship as defined within the Song and Link. Fly In Links (Linker | Related Links | Fly In Links) are in addition to the default clock position, so that if GSelector identifies a better, more specific imaging element, then GSelector can fly in that piece of imaging, and/or removing the previously scheduled generic piece of imaging. Users can also schedule these Related Links in the Clocks with either a Leading or Trailing Link with an option for a generic fallback imaging category if a more specific relationship is not found or violates an Unbreakable Rule (Linker | Related Links | Clock). In previous versions of GSelector, there were only a handful of Linker attributes to match on, now, we include many more attributes, specifically all of those new 99+ custom User Defined Fields, allowing for more efficient music / imaging scheduling relationships.

If you want to be on the ground floor of the latest and greatest RCS products, become a Beta user! You’ll get your own RCS Beta User contact and you get to be the first to try any and all new features. If you’re interested, we’re currently looking for Zetta 5.21.1 Beta users and simply reach out to your RCS contact for more information. Also, don’t forget to make sure you’re taking a Data Exchange backup, as well as double checking your backup path is working correctly. We’ll be live once again next Thursday at 11am ET for RCS Live. Check us out on Twitch, YouTube and follow us on Facebook. If there’s a topic you want covered, don’t hesitate to reach out or comment on one of our previous RCS Lives!

As we continue to broadcast live every Thursday at 11am ET, as part of our RCS Live series, we decided to pivot the conversation to talk about taking a traditional Zetta site setup and expanding it to encompass more advanced, sometimes remote, configurations. If you envision your hardware environment as a foundation and then building pieces upon one another, administrators can start to not only introduce remote workflows, but connect sites to share audio, metadata, and more, which makes your team more efficient.

Let’s first start with a Zetta UI refresher. Zetta connects to a Zetta File Server and with Zetta’s detached playout, users can easily shut down Zetta without going off the air. That’s because the Zetta services are running in the background. And with Zetta’s robust audio engine and workflows, programmers can automatically auto load an MP3, AAC or WAV file, define a Marks Analysis (set the Trim In, Trim Out and/or Segue Point), save as a default audio format, perform a non-destructive stretch and squeeze, and also implement station specific normalization. When you think of the multiple users with different interpretations of daily workflows, this process can set a consistency and on-air uniformity. When you incorporate Zetta2GO, we can continue those same workflows, but from outside the studio.

At its core, most Zetta sites include a Zetta File Server with an on-air machine. As we start to add multiple stations or users, we incorporate Sequencer machines to offload machine resources, usually in the rack room, and additional on-air or production rooms. Don’t forget that each Zetta File Server also acts as a Zetta2GO services host. As we start to include multiple traditional radio station setups, we can discuss the possibility of how to connect multiple sites or markets. Zetta is equipped with Site Replication, a “we” activity, and/or Z-Cast, “you” need this, to connect multiple sites. If you’re looking for more information on when you should implement Site Replication or Z-Cast, check out our past video. If you’re looking for next level programming, many programmers utilize Zetta Splits, which can be viewed here.

Now that we have multiple sites with traditional setups, connected via Site Replication or Z-Cast, programmers can identify broader administrative programming techniques. For example, creating a GSelector S3, Schedule Subscription Service, environment. Essentially, one master music log for an unlimited number of affiliates. Think of this as focusing your music scheduling champion to do music logs so that smaller programmers don’t have to do redundant tasks, allowing them to work on other more important projects like podcasting or live remotes. The key here is that affiliates can maintain local clock structure, imaging and commercials. Programmers can also setup Format Centers, so that Format Captains can upload audio and metadata, Z-Cast that audio to local sites, so that every asset is properly ingested. If you have markets with two Zetta File Servers geographically close together, but doesn’t warrant two staffs, then the Format Center can Z-Cast to Market A and then Market A can Site Rep to Market B, helping to share local audio, like commercials. Hopefully, you can start to understand how we begin with that traditional Zetta foundation and we add pieces of the puzzle to better suit your desired workflow.

Now that discussed the “hybrid” part, let’s introduce more remote workflows with Zetta Cloud Based Disaster Recovery. Most notably, utilizing Zetta Cloud Disaster Recovery’s, or Zetta Cloud DR’s, voice tracking. Users can log into Zetta Cloud DR, which doesn’t require a need for a VPN, they can record over an Empty Voice Track and that recording will land back in Zetta.

There are no right or wrong configurations, only hardware requirements and budget restrictions. If you have any questions on what you’re looking to achieve, don’t hesitate to reach out to your RCS Sales Representative, Support or another RCS contact and we will be more than happy to outline what works best for your station.

Zetta 5.20.1 has been released, which means that we’re now looking for Zetta 5.21.1 Beta users! If you want a full breakdown of 5.20.1 new features, check out our video here. More RCS Lives are on the way as we continue to broadcast live on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook. Future topics include Zetta for News / Talk stations, Hot Sparing and more. For a full schedule and more details, follow us on Facebook and we’ll see you next Thursday at 11am ET for RCS Live.