MixTime

INTRODUCTION
(The DirEttore Philosophy)

My name is Ettore, I'm an Italian with a couple of decades of IT and radio industry background and when I first thought of building my own radio automation software package, I wasn't expecting too much from it ... except all of the features I was interested in and never able to find in free (or low cost) programs.

I worked (and still work) in the radio and dance industry for more than a couple of decades and now I collaborate occasionally making jingles, radio formats and stuff like that, so I know what's behind the scenes quite well: the constant fight against dead air and ... the budget.

DirEttore, has been developed with the one click away concept in mind, to allow last minute changes without dead air. Moreover it does not rely on a database to store cuepoints; this information is saved within the file name in order to move/share a song archive effortlessly. To be honest, this last feature is implemented in a couple of other radio automation software packages but, in my opinion, not completely.

DirEttore - radio automation software (Italian translation of the English word "Director"), handles (depending on the version) rotations, playlists, sequences (trailers, spotsets ...), sweepers / voice-tracks, scheduled events (with repetition / artist separation control), commecials and automated time announcements. It can set start, intro and mix points as well as fade types for each song and can also log played tracks. All in an intuitive interface.

KEY FEATURES
(The concept implementation)

Let’s now focus on the key features that the application can provide. This brief glossary should help you to understand how the automation process has been implemented.

THREE PLAYERS
You can mix songs with up to three virtual players at the same time, and a fourth is also available to fire the next song (ready and on cue).

CUE START
Every NEXT song is set on cue at its start point, while the previous song is being played in order to avoid delayed starts. In this way songs will always start immediately.

CUE POINTS
You can set START, INTRO and MIX points for each song, as well as four kinds of fade-type (fast, normal slow and CUT). DO NOT FADE can also be set together with the starting mode by means of the cue points editor.

ROTATION
A sequence of Rotation Elements (with Jingles, Time Announcements and Sweepers) that are randomly selected at the beginning of each new cycle.

ROTATION ELEMENT
A chosen directory containing song files classified according to previously selected genres, tempo, age or whatever is desired.

PLAYLIST
A playlist is basically a predefined and set sequence of songs, jingles, commercials, Time Announcements and Sweepers that can repeat itself.

SEQUENCE
A single rotation element inserted a specified number of times that can have an INTRO, an OUTRO and an in between rotation elements jingle definition (SEPARATOR). This is useful for building commercial / trailer, sequences and so on.

TIME ANNOUNCEMENT
A "real time" time announcer with the voice of your speaker. Following a few simple rules you can build your own time announcement to be mixed seamlessly with your music program.

SWEEPER

A vocal or musical jingle automatically timed to end at the exact INTRO point of the next song, usually set at the beginning of the lyrics.

VOICE-TRACK

As the sweeper is a vocal or musical jingle automatically timed to end at the exact INTRO point of the next song but starting from the currently playing song.