Can You Forget What You Know?

That's not a trick question. If you've been in this business for any length of time and have worked with any other music scheduler you have learned some things you know to be absolute 'truths'.

You know, for example, that you must have lots and lots of characteristics to 'define' the songs. Tempo and Gender aren't enough. Songs need to have Texture and Intensity and Mood and Timbre. You know that category 'levels' are necessary and you have to have special 'policies' for just about everything. You know that clocks require lots of formatting rules. You know that you need a lot of clocks because even a simple syndicated four hour countdown show requires four separate clocks. 
 

You know that getting an acceptable music log is going to require over an hour of editing time each day, making corrections and fixing things the scheduling software did wrong.
 

Now you come here and see a music scheduler that is strange to your eyes. It does not look anything at all like the scheduler you've been using. It actually looks rather sparse. We tell you many of the characteristics you've used on your song cards in the past aren't important. We tell you Levels were just another 'patch' needed to fix a design problem that our scheduler doesn't have and you can do what you were doing with Levels in M1 in a more straight forward manner. We tell you a single clock can be used for all four hours of the syndication show. And we tell you this software will deliver to you perfect song rotations and music schedules and will only require a quarter-hour of work for each log.
 

You 'know' this can't be true! But, please remember this: people in the 1800s 'knew' that man could not fly. So, for a while, please try to forget what you know about music scheduling software and look at this tool with 'fresh' eyes.

We looked at 'first generation' schedulers and saw they had some problems that were inherent in their design. The primary problem was what we came to call their retro-active log editing system.
 

The first-generation schedulers are designed to schedule the entire day, filling in every slot. Of necessity, they have to schedule some songs that violate one or more of your formatting rules. Or, you can direct the software to leave those slots empty. After the software has done its work, you then dig into the new schedule, find all the problems and fix them. It's called 'editing the log', but in reality what you are doing is fixing what the scheduler did wrong.
 

When you really consider it, scheduling and editing in this manner has never been very efficient. Think about all the time you spend each day editing tomorrow's music log, fixing things the scheduling software did wrong! According to a poll published in Radio & Records, people who use one of the other brand-name schedulers spend 93 minutes with it every day.
 

Since a computer really can't "think" and has no artistic feeling, any radio music director will naturally have to spend some time each day editing the music log. Audience pleasing music flow requires a human touch. So, it got down to the simple question of when to do the editing. After the software had done its work or during the scheduling run. We chose the latter. That simple spark of an idea made all the difference.
 

How Music 1 Works
Music 1 is an "interactive" scheduler. It is designed to work with you, to let you make any needed log edits during the scheduling run. You don't have to give it so many rules as with old style schedulers. You need only install the most basic ones like restrictions for Artist separation, dayparting, tempo and gender flow, etc. You aren't trying to teach the software to think like you do and make decisions itself. Instead, you simply direct it to find the music flow and formatting problems. As M1 schedules, whenever it spots one, it stops and displays it. You make the decisions about what to do in each instance. Music 1 never schedules anything in violation of any of your formatting rules.

This is the most EFFICIENT way to schedule music.

Music 1 users average 16 minutes a day scheduling a new music log. The first music scheduling software was created almost 30 years ago and after decades of 'upgrades and enhancements' they still burn up almost 25% of the music director's 40-hour work week . The old axiom is: It is better to fix a problem during a process than to have to correct problems afterward. That is the Music 1 way. Get it right on the first pass so you won't have to fix it later.

It is a more ACCURATE way to schedule, too.

Music 1 delivers the most reliable and consistent song rotations. It will never 'over-play' some songs and 'under-play others', which a systemic problem in every other scheduler. With Music 1, the song rotations you plan are the song rotations you get on every title in every category!

Yes, it is a scary idea for some, to 'forget what you know'. But facts are facts. This software does a much better job and requires far less time to do it in. And unlike first-generation schedulers which take weeks to learn and months to master, the basics of M1 can be learned in less than an hour. You can have it humming like a BMW very quickly. You only have to put your old scheduler-think on hold and look at it with fresh eyes.