Category, subcategory, genre - WHAT?

[bazclack]

On a non production machine I am trying v2 and wonder how other RDJ users set up their cats? Anyone care to share? I have an idea of what I want but I wonder if I am making too much work for myself?

[He-j]

What would you like to achieve by setting up the categories differently?

First of all what's the musicformat at your station. Is it just popmusic or do you play other genres as well. From which decades do you play music (80's, 90's ,00's etc.). Also what kind of music does your audience like to listen to. That depends mostly on the average age of the population. So if the average age is between 40 and 50 these people grown up with 80's and 90's music, but they would also like some music from the seventies and music from now (like Adele). If you like to reach younger generations as well you can play some popular songs as well but don't overdo.

In my musicdatabase I have about 12.000 tracks. Some 70% - 80% is useful for broadcasting. The rest can be used for special occacions (like Christmas or e.g. 2 hours of Dance music at Fridaynight).

Looking at the attachments the most important Category for me is the Sub Category.
First I decided if a track is High, Middle or Low (High means it is very nice to listen to - Middle means the music is OK - Low means not for common broadcasting e.g. Christmas songs or music for special occacions).

Next the decades. When a song is from 1985, the decade is 1980-1989.

The last part is a combination of OMAN.
O = Ochtend (Morning in English)
M = Middag (Afternoon in English)
A = Avond (Evening in English
N = Nacht (Night in English)
With this combination of letters I decide which part of the day the song can be played - this is how I decide the music MOOD of the day:
OMAN = every part of the day
OAN = Morning, Evening and Night
MAN = Afternoon, Evening and Night

All together I have about 50 Sub Categories.

With these Sub Categories I can build a lot of different Rotations. If I want by the hour. For instance in the morning between 6 and 9 PM I can choose some more tracks from the Sub Categories OAN. These tracks are a little bit smoother. Between 9 and 12 I can play more tracks from the categories OMAN (these are more up tempo).

In the end I have also the possibility to use Genre as well. So if I want to be certain that at least one reggae track is played I can select Reggae in the Rotation.

It took me about 3 months to categorisize all the tracks this way. I'm now testing different rotations and so far it works great. The Rotation Rules work great as well. Looking at my history (using MYSQL for that) I can see the variety I wanted.

I keep my database up to date with MP3TAG and always use MP3GAIN before I import tracks into RadioDJ.

Hopefully this might help you.

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[Chip Douglas Mosley]

Wow He-j! That's some rotation you've set up! 

Mine is simpler but pretty effective. I run an oldies station that plays the music from the 50s through the 90s, concentrating primarily on the 60s and 70s. I have over 4,000 titles in active rotation.

My rotations are set up as:
1950's
1960-1963 (basically pre-Beatles because the music of that period sounds similar to the stuff from the late 50s)
1964-1969
1970s
1980s
1990s

I have a few subcateories set up for my convenience:
Cold - Songs with intros less than :06 seconds
INTRO - Songs with intros longer than :06 seconds
Uptempo - Songs that air at the top and bottom of the hour and after spot sets (regardless of intro length)

My sweepers are set up to be less than :06 seconds, so they will run over the intros in that category. I also have some promos that are set up to talk over the first :06 seconds of songs.

I use jingles, sweepers (over song intros) and a cateogry called "bumpers" which are short station promos that run between songs. I also use time announce (both cold and over intros) and TTS to do some song intros.

It sounds like some Top 40 stations from the late 60s and 70s. I worked with automated radio back when stations played reel-to-reel tapes and I set my rotations up similar to the way Drake-Chenault or Century 21 Programming format clocks were set up.

I use the Auto DJ feature of RDJ to generate the playlist and I do some special programs, too.

I still have a lot to work out as far as music rotation is concerned, but I've been at it for a little over a year and it gives me something to play around with. This is my retirement project after 40 years of working for other people's radio stations. 

Listen to the station at jukebox927.radiostream321.com and you'll get an idea how it works. I do weather reports because the station stream originates from a Part 15 low-power FM station that covers my apartment complex (about 2 blocks). People who live here are primarily older and appreciate both the music and the weather service.

[bazclack]

Thank you both. Really comprehensive posts.

[ghm72]

I've had my files sorted out into these categories for a while now.

1950s/1960s Oldies
1970s (70s)
1970's (Disco)
1980's New Wave/Punk
1980s Pop/charts
1990s
Soul & Motown

Just over 12,000 tracks in my database and at least half of those are available to a rotations

A lot stored that I only play occasionally in other hidden categories.

[Polar]

@he-j : I like the OMAN approach. But does this mean that you have multiple copies of a track if you want it to be in more then one sub-category? That is something I want to avoid. But the default editable fields in a track apparently can not be used for storing OMAN. still looking for a solution. Any suggestions?

[He-j]

When you have decided if a track is a OMAN, MAN, OAN you can create rotations.

See the attachments how I have done it.

So in every rotation you see i.e. H-1980-1989-OMAN. This means that a track from this subcategory can be played in the morning, afternoon or evening. I never know when. The only thing I know that the same track never will be played within 3600 minutes, because that's the way I have set rotation rules (Options - tab Auto DJ > section Rotation Rules).

I have no multiple copies of a track.

I have chosen to use rotations to play tracks. When I look in the history I get the variety of tracks I want.
Don't forget to vary with the Selection Type in the rotations. So use Random, Least Times Played and Recently Played.

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[andrei1412]

Hi,

This is how i organise my station (CHR)

A. Current Power               a current song that is very familiar & popular (and now at its peak)   2018 / 2019
B. Current Up                       a current song that is becoming more familiar & popular   2018 / 2019
C. Current Down               a current song that is familiar, but becoming less popular   2018 / 2019
D. Current New                       a new release with potential to become more familiar & popular   2018 / 2019
      
E1. Recurrent Power               a recent song that is very familiar & popular, but a bit older     2017 / 2019
E2. Recurrent Secondary        a song that is pretty familiar & popular, but a older   2015 / 2019
      
G1. Gold Recent       2009 / 2014
G2. Gold Classic      XXXX / 2009

[DJ Sharky]

I do this:

If you think of a large record collection arranged on 3 shelves... top shelf records are the ones that were big hits and most often played. Middle shelf is for good songs that are popular but not real hits. Finally bottom shelf would be the stuff rarely played or the songs may be less played and unknown.

Now I also sort by relative speed: Fast (high energy and tempo), Medium (not slow but not fast either) finally Slow (ballads and slow - low energy songs).

Now knowing everything above I my music categories like this:

Music    -->   80s Top Fast   --> Genre   This means (80s song - Top Shelf - Fast)
Music    -->   80s Mid Fast   --> Genre
Music    -->   80s Bot Fast   --> Genre
Music    -->   80s Top Med   --> Genre
Music    -->   80s Mid Med   --> Genre
Music    -->   80s Bot Med   --> Genre
Music    -->   80s Top Slo   --> Genre
Music    -->   80s Mid Slo   --> Genre
Music    -->   80s Bot Slo   --> Genre

This allows for 9 categories per decade PLUS the genre makes this a very accurate and effective.

[PresidentOfACPJ]

On a non production machine I am trying v2 and wonder how other RDJ users set up their cats? Anyone care to share? I have an idea of what I want but I wonder if I am making too much work for myself?

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[traja47]

radioDJ v2.0.4.3 for a physical MW in AM university radio station having 50 remote DJs.

Will probably create Categories and Sub Categories to suit our needs and store MariaDB and music files on a central location.

Presume that Categories and Sub Categories information resides on MariaDB.
Is it correct?

Any precautions, hints, etc. should I be aware before importing thousand of files?

thanks in advance for any help.