INTRODUCTION
(The DirEttore Philosophy)

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 in the radio and dance industry for more than a couple of decades and now I collaborate occasionally making jingles 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 rotations, playlists, sequences (trailers, spotsets ...), sweepers, scheduled events (with repetition / artist separation control) 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)

Here follows a list of what I think is important for a broadcaster to be focused on, and how I've implemented it:

THREE PLAYERS
You can mix songs with up to three virtual players at the same time, and a fourth ready 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 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 point for each song, as well as three kind of fade types (fast, normal and slow). 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 (directories containing song files classified according to previously selected genres, or whatever you want), that are randomly selected at the begining of each new cycle.

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

SEQUENCE
A playlist that can have an INTRO, an OUTRO and an "in between" jingle definition. Useful for building commercial/trailer sequences.

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