Contents

Developed by Jay Lichtenauer
© 2007-2012 MacinMind Software
Radiologik DJ Manual
Program Icon
Radio Automation and Live Assist Player


Overview

This release of the DJ component of Radiologik can be used as a live assist for radio or podcast creation or for most DJing needs that don't require the club mixing style. It can also be used as the automation player along with Radiologik Scheduler. The DJ portion of Radiologik will always be available as standalone from the scheduler.

Latest version of Radiologik is available here:
http://macinmind.com/Radiologik/Download

Online video overview and tutorials:
http://radiologik.com

Questions, bug reports, and feature suggestions can be emailed to jay@macinmind.com

Requirements

- Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
- Quicktime 7.1 or higher
- Display of 1024x768 or higher
- 466 MHz G4 or better. 800 MHz or better recommended

Design Philosophy

Radiologik DJ is meant to be an equally good live DJ and automation player (with the use of Radiologik Scheduler). Why not? I'd personally love to walk into an automation program and just sit down and run it myself for a while and walk out when I feel like it.

The interface is designed to give precedence to the most important things for radio, in particular large display of remaining time and colored warnings when time is running out. Time calculation is given a lot of importance and so it is calculated for starts and stops of songs into the future through the Program queue. For instance, adjusting the pitch actually adjusts the displayed length of the song and how it affects everything after it instead of just running the seconds faster. You could therefore accurately run your next five songs at a particular pitch to meet the news at the top of the hour perfectly by watching the resulting end times in the queue. You can sort the library by song length or talk time to find a good match for your time constraints. Even multiple selections are added-up to display the total time of the selection.

Holding down the mouse on a menu or moving the window around does not freeze time display for the players as it does in some other more expensive DJing programs. Operations throughout the program are often done in independent threads and given specific time priorities to ensure the best performance overall. For instance, logging has very low priority and audio playing has top priority. With the exception of Radiologik being unregistered, modal dialogs are used sparingly to ensure you don't have a dialog window, and especially not a dialog with no way out but to wait, getting in the way of operating. Importing the entire iTunes Library is optimized for speed without intefering with playout.

The default resolution for time is 1/10th seconds. Any higher resolution is unreadable while playing and practically imperceptible for radio timing.

 Radiologik will be developed for Mac-only particularly because the need is greater on the Mac for a variety of tools like this but also so that I'm not wasting time trying to reproduce features on another platform and risking a lower common denominator of abilities. The Mac is the best platform for audio and although there are plenty of tools for audio creation, it seems that the area of professional radio production software (or really any radio production software) is sparse on the Mac while there are dozens of pretty feature robust radio playout solutions on windows... but they are Windows.

What Radiologik is not
Radiologik does not cater to the club mix DJ. The DJ itself does not examine songs to figure how to overlap them, however the scheduler (free in basic mode) has Track Prep to automatically do this and results from this are much better than programs that attempt to do it on the fly. Audio should be prepped for automatic for the best results or unprepped audio can be played manually by your own trigger. Radiologik is not meant to look like a real-world device like a CD player because that design can be constraining and doesn't always lead to the best interface for the task. But we retain distinct players because we use multiple audio outputs and it can be important to keep it straight which playout is to which output on the board. Radiologik does not include suport for audio units or VST effects, nor does it do streaming. This can already be done very well with products such as Niceast and Audio Hijack Pro. Radiologik does not do any particular mixer functions. However support is given for mouse wheel faders of all players and 4 distinct stereo audio outputs are supported if you want to run each player to a board input. MIDI control surfaces are also supported and those that have motorized faders are not only supported but also entertaining for cats.
Bringing Audio into Radiologik DJ

Radiologik DJ accepts mp3, AAC normal and protected, Apple Lossless, aiff, and wav sound files. There are three track lists which I'll cover more thoroughly below: Program Queue, Spot, and Library. Program Queue and Spot are used for playing, Library is used for finding and previewing.

Dragging
Tracks can be dragged-in from the Finder or iTunes. When dragging-in multiple tracks, iTunes and the Finder don't usually send the tracks in the same order as displayed in iTunes or the Finder. But if you're dragging tracks into the Library list, it won't matter.

iTunes Library import button
One of the fastest ways to get music into the Library is to use the "iTunes Library" button. If you'd like to restrict which tracks you import, use a search term to the left of the button and press return or hit the "iTunes Library" button. It will search for tracks matching that field in the Genre, Artist, Album, Name, and Comment. So you could simply bring in a single Genre by typing that in the field to the left of the iTunes Library button and pressing the button. Every time you do this you add to what's in the Library instead of replacing it. The Library is maintained between launches.

iTunes Playlists
Every list allows you to import an iTunes playlist. The list of iTunes playlists is created when Radiologik DJ is launched and can be updated to reflect changes in actual iTunes playlists by selecting Refresh Playlist Menus from the File menu.

Radiologik Scheduler
Used for full automation, the scheduler will select tracks from iTunes playlists by a script and Radiologik DJ will import a scheduled list of tracks right after the scheduler creates it.

Radiologik DJ Program and Spot List files
Once you have tracks in with the above 4 methods, you can save Save, Add, and Load the first two lists from the File menu.

Add to top folder
Placing audio files in the "Add to top" folder in the ~/Music/Radioloigk folder will have DJ move the file to the "Added to top" folder and place the track at the top of the queue as next to play. This might be useful for remotely adding important new tracks for play as soon as possible.

If an outro is at the top of queue, it will add the track after the outro.
The 3 Track Lists

3 Track Lists

1. Program [1 & 2] is a queue of songs that play in the 1st and 2nd players, automatically alternating between the two. You can drag re-order the tracks. Tracks play in order from top to bottom. The times calculated throughout the list take into account overlap timing and pitch shifting. You can select multiple tracks to move or delete using the shift or command (Apple) keys.

2. Spot [3] operates more like a cart machine where the selected audio file is the one cued. You can drag re-order the tracks to match the line numbers 1-9 and then use the 1-9 numeric keys to select them while on any tab.

3. Library is an internal database library which you can use to quickly find songs, preview them, and copy them to either the Program or Spot lists. You can select multiple tracks delete or program using the shift or command (Apple) keys. For Mac OS X 10.4 and up the Search field is a live search and probably faster than iTunes' search.

All 3 lists are maintained between quitting and launching Radiologik DJ.

Radiologik DJ will update play count and last played date in iTunes of played tracks if in the Log is checked in the Preferences for the audio output you use when playing the tracks. This makes smart playlists useful for later selecting tracks based on how recently played, etc. in iTunes Smart Playlists.
The Palette

The Palette is on the tab just right of the Library tab. It allows a bit more free form playing of short sounds such as sound effects, jingles, zingers or any short audio. Drag any audio file from the Finder or from iTunes over a button to load it to that button. There are 9 sets and 20 buttons per set. You can rename the sets by clicking on the name of the set after selecting it.

The Palette

Pressing the button once plays it. The button will darken and then lighten from left to right to show the progress. You can also stop the file by pressing the button again and it will lighten from top to bottom at the rate of the fade set by the fade and finish slider.

Buttons support Finder label colors. Buttons can be triggered by number keys or they can be set to use a MIDI surface (right click to assign). There is a master volume slider at the bottom.

Prepping Audio Files

Track Prep in Radiologik Scheduler (ideal)
Use the Track Prep feature of Radiologik Scheduler to prep all the tracks you select in iTunes for a very professional radio segue sound for most songs and other tracks. This feature is included as part of the free features of Radiologik Scheduler Basic. For more on this, see the documentation on Scheduler in its help menu or on the web here.
Track Prep in Radiologik Scheduler

Edit the actual audio files (alternative)
  1. Use your favorite audio editor. (I like Amadeus and Fission)
  2. Normalize. You can also use iVolume to set the loudness levels which might be easier than doing normalization of all of your tracks. See below.
  3. Remove any silence from the beginning
  4. Cold endings should leave silence nearly equal to the overlap time. I would use 1.5 seconds of silence for 1.8 overlap.
  5. Slow fade songs should have the fades accelerated by removing a portion of the ending and fading more quickly from a given point. I like about 3-4 seconds of linear fade from a point where the song has already begun to fade.

Use Radiologik's Track Properties (manual or touch-up from Track Prep)
If you cannot open the track in an audio editor such as above because it is perhaps an iTunes protected song, you can set the start, stop, fade-in and fade-out values by selecting the track anywhere in Radiologik and selecting Track Properties from the Edit menu or clicking the Properties button in the bottom right of the window. This information is saved in the file's resource fork so the information will move from Mac to Mac along with the file. The resource fork will be lost if the file is moved to a non-Mac volume.

When the overlap is set to default, the overlap in the preferences is used. You can also set an overlap from 0 to 10 seconds just for this track. The Time Announce feature from the scheduler makes use of this by setting the overlap to 0 so that no matter what the overlap is in the preferences, the time announce will play completely and meet the next track correctly.
Track Properties

Set the Ramp
The Ramp is the time in the beginning of the track when an announcer can speak. For live DJ'ing it is an aid which is displayed as a countdown timer. For automation, the scheduler uses this time to aid it in determining how to fit automatic voice tracking. You can set the Ramp by pressing the Ramp button on any player. Like the track properties above, this information is saved in the file's resource fork so the information will move from Mac to Mac along with the file. The resource fork will be lost if the file is moved to a non-Mac volume.

Endnote & BPM
The Endnote field can be used to store 4 characters which will then be displayed in the upper portion of the player. The Endnote is the clue to the DJ as to how the track will end. You pick what you like such as "COLD" for a cold ending or FADE for a song that fades down for the end. Here the endnote "COLD" is shown as it is displayed at the bottom left of a player. BPM is also read from the tags of the audio files and displayed here.

End Note and BPM
The Player Displays

With Auto OFF, Radiologik is made sure to be the front application at the 20 second from finish mark of a file. It changes the time box file position to yellow at 20 seconds

20 Seconds

At 15 seconds from finish it changes the file position indicator of the file to blinking red and then solid red at 5 seconds from finish.

15 Seconds

You can adjust the current time position of any audio file by dragging or clicking in the time box of any player. The position is changed when you let go of the mouse button.

Player Time
The Player Controls

The first Button "Cue" resets the player to the beginning of the track and cues it. The Second button plays or pauses the player. The third button "Fade" operates as a fade and finish. In Auto, the next track will start at the overlap time determined in the Preferences. The last button "Ramp" sets the time the announcer can talk into a track and is set to the current track position and recorded in the resource fork. See Set the Ramp above.

Player Controls

Each player has output toggle buttons to determine which sound output to use for the player. The button audio outputs and names can be set in the preferences. This way you can direct each output to a particular mixer channel on a mixer board and control the fades directly there if you want. Use the Audio I/O tab in the preferences to setup your audio outputs. You can pick the different channel pairs from multiple channel devices on devices such as the M-Audio Firewire 410, the MOTU Ultralight, or most any USB or Firewire multichannel audio interface. You can set up to 4 discrete output pairs, 3 which are switchable on the main window for the 3 main players and palette player and one dedicated to off air for the library player and track properties window playback.

Output Selection Toggle

Volume can be adjusted manually a few ways. Although you can obviously move the volume slider, you can also use the mouse wheel when over any player. Mousing over any player and using the mouse wheel adjusts the volume for all players if for instance you want to duck all audio to speak. You can also adjust the volume per player by clicking anywhere in the colored portion of the player (green, blue, red). The player will get a blue highlight around it to indicate you are controlling the volume for that player alone with the mouse wheel. Click on the player again to remove the highlight.

Player Display

You can also control volume, pitch, and all of the Functions in the Function menu using a MIDI controller. For instance, the Behringer BCF2000 has motorized sliding faders and works very well. Radiologik works with MIDI controllers in both directions.

Single key shortcuts can be viewed from the Keyboard Reference window and can be set in the preferences.

Keyboard Shortcut Reference

In addition, all of these shortcuts are also available from the Functions menu. You can use the Keyboard item in System Preferences to set key shortcuts for any of these menus such as the F5 key to start program.

When pressing the key to program a track from the Library or Spot list, hold down the Shift Key to place it at the top of the queue.

Holding down the control key while starting a player will temporarily reverse the fade finish other player option in the preferences.
Auto ON & OFF

Auto plays the next song in queue overlapping by the amount specified in the preferences. By default this is 2.2 seconds. You need to prep your audio to work with the overlaps for auto to sound best. In manual you start each song yourself. With both Auto ON or OFF, you can fire the next song yourself when you want. There is an option in the Preferences to fade the previous song when starting a song which works in both modes.

Auto On

Auto ON resets volume and pitch for each player when a new file is loaded.
Auto OFF leaves player volume and pitch alone for each player as set

Auto ON, cued songs are blue
Auto OFF, cued songs are red
Voiceovers & Ducking

Voiceovers allow you to introduce a track such as by using a voice track over the beginning of a song. The scheduler will make use of this for voice tracking a fully-automated station.

In the program list there is a checkbox in the very right corner named VO. Just to the right of that is the player indicator which shows which player this track will be played in.

Voiceover Checkbox

When this box is checked, the track is loaded into player 3 alongside the next track in the program.

A voiceover introduces the next track and will use the ramp of the next track to determine if and how to voiceover the actual track this way:
  1. If the ramp is 0, then there's no overlap.
  2. If the ramp is less time than the intro, then the intro starts first and overlaps only as much as the ramp so you get a perfect finish of the intro at the end of the ramp at the post.
  3. If the ramp is longer than the intro, then the intro and the song start at the same time and intro ends and the song fades up before the end of the ramp (the post).
When the track in player 1 or 2 that is cued will overlap the song it is introducing it sets the introduced track's ducking volume which you can determine in the preferences. If overlapping, when player 3 finishes, player 1 or 2 fades-up by the time value also set in the Preferences.


Manually Ducking
You can duck the 3 main players by using the Duck button or the shortcut key for it which is by default the 'M' key. Pressing it again turns off the duck. This ducking does not duck the library player, the track properties player, or any of the palette players.

Manually Ducking

Music Beds

If you place a track after a voiceover with the last characters -bed at the end of the artist, title, or album tag or use the Endnote bed in the track properties, that track will be a music bed and play at ducked volume until a few seconds at then end when it will fade up and end or fade up and fade down.

If the music bed track is longer than the voiceover, it will be adjusted to fit the voiceover.

If the music bed track is shorter than the voiceover, it will start partway into the voiceover so that it ends just a few seconds after the voicever.

Line In

Line In simply take an audio device input and routes it to an audio device output. Use the Audio tab of the preferences to set which devices are used. Note: The audio device in and out must be a match for sample rate and bit depth, e.g. 44KHz 16-bit. You can find these settings in /Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup.

Line In Button

Line In can be turned on using the button or keyboard shortcut (L is default) or by a MIDI control surface. It can also be turned on using a Track Action. That Track Action can be assigned to a specific interrupt time by DJ or set by Scheduler.

Coloring Track Items

Use Finder Color Labels on your files and Radiologik will use that color for those items in your Program Queue and Spot list.

Color Label
Program Track Actions

Track actions are only for items in the program queue. Double-click the track in the program list or select it and click the Actions button. Radiologik Scheduler makes use of all of these actions.

You can use actions to set the schedule interrupt time for a track in the program. The track will play at the specified time regardless of everything else. If nothing is playing, it will start the track and if in Auto, it will continue to play subsequent tracks. If something is already playing in queue, it will fade that track and start playing the track with the interrupt time. If the program queue runs out before the interrupt time, the track will not be played until the scheduled time.

Program Track Attributes

You can also set the Station ID flag to tell the Station ID button that the station has ID'd for the hour when this track is played.

The Line in can be turned on and off as a track action

Each program track can be set to change the preference set. The actual preference set is not changed until that track begins playing and is applied to it and all following tracks without affecting preceding tracks such as a fading track that might still be playing.

And each program track can also be set to run an AppleScript from the ~/Music/Radiologik/Scripts/ folder.
Saving Programs

You can save programs from the file menu. This will save either your whole queue or if you have a selection, you can choose t save just the selected tracks as a program which you then load later. In the save dialog you are also given the choice to save as a program file or as a portable program bundle. If you choose a program file, you are essentially saving a list that references the audio files along with any setting you made to track actions. If you choose to save as a portable program bundle, all of your audio files are collected into the file. This allows you to save a program and take it to another Mac with Radiologik DJ without worrying whether the files are on that Mac.
Triple-segue

The third player is automatically assigned a track when Auto is ON and the combined overlaps won't get us to play the next track in time. In other words, it is done when a track is shorter than the 2 overlaps and a 3rd player is needed to play a triple-segue. An extra 1 second safety is given in the decision to use the 3rd player to account for cue loading times to make sure tracks are played at the right time.

Triple Segue

In this case players 2 and 3 are cued and you'll see the player assignment something like this:

Player Assignment
   Preferences

You can open preferences from the Radiologik menu.

Preference Sets
All settings in preferences can be kept in different sets which you can name. These different preferences are stored in separate files in the Finder which you can rename or delete. This can be useful if for instance you would like a different overlap setting for each format on your station which the scheduler can then change at the appropriate time, or if different DJs like different keyboard settings.

General
Here you can set the various timings. The effect of these settings are various and described elsewhere in this document.

Auto on at startup puts Radiologik mode on regardless of whether it was on when it was last quit. Restore playing at startup puts Radiologik back to playing exactly what was playing in program when it was last quit.

Automatically check for updates checks for new versions of Radiologik DJ no more than once a day.

Register played tracks with iTunes when logging the player output will increment the play count and update the last played date in iTunes if log is turned on for the outut used on the Audio I/O preference tab. It does so by doing a quick search on matching genre, artist, and track name for songs with ID3 data and just for track name for other files.

Preferences-General

Audio I/O
Here you can set the devices and names for the audio outputs that are selectable above each player as well as choose a Library player output.

Log and Publish Nicecast can be toggled per output. Log will log to the Log tab and to

    ~/Library/Logs/Radiologik/Play Logs/.

In order to register the songs played with iTunes, you'll need Log on for that output. Publish for Nicecast will write to

    ~/Library/Application Support/Nicecast/Now Playing.txt

for Nicecast to read. Publish needs to be on for the track to show in the top of the Radiologik window and for iChat if selected on the General tab.

Preferences - Audio IO

The next three tabs allow you to set keyboard shortcuts, MIDI controllers, and interface appearance.


Publishing

You can publish to iChat, Growl, and RDS. What is published shows in the top of the Radiologik DJ window.

Top of Player Publishing

When nothing is playing you can set that text to be your station name and you can have it be different for different programs by setting different text for different preference sets.

RDS is designed to work with RDS encoders that support either serial or TCP connections such as those from Audemat but it should work with most RDS hardware. You will need to consult the RDS manual for the correct syntax for commands.
Publishing Preferences
Adjusting Loudness with iVolume

iVolume is basically an enhanced loudness equalizer similar to iTunes Sound Check but much better. Radiologik can use these gain values stored in any file that contains tags such as .mp3 and m4a files. It allows you to adjust on a per-song basis or by entire album. You can tell Radiologik DJ to use these values by checking the "Use iVolume/iTunes Sound Check loudness adjustment" on the Audio tab of the preferences.
Publishing Exceptions

If you have artists, titles, genres or tracks marked with keywords in the comments that you don't want published to Nicecast and to iChat such as internal production audio, you can add them to Exclude list on the Publishing Exceptions window found in the Window menu. If you would like to exclude all but those that match the keywords in a list, then leave the Exclude list blank and add the list of the only keywords you want to match for inclusion on the Include tab list. If you use both Exlcude and Include and both are matched, the it is include wins and the track metadata is published.

Publishing Exceptions
Other Interface Parts

The TOTH area is Top of the Hour and displays time in relation to the top of the hour.

Top of the Hour ID Button
AppleScripting

Radiologik is scriptable for the following:

QueueiTunesPlaylist v : Loads the passed iTunes playlist into the program queue.
    QueueiTunesPlaylist text : The playlist name to load in the program queue

AutoOn v : Sets Auto on or off
    AutoOn boolean : true is on and false is off

StartProgram v : Starts next track in program queue
    StartProgram [boolean] : Fade Finish other player

LineInOn v : Turns Line In on or off
    LineInOn boolean : true is on and false is off

Duck v : Turns Duck on or off
    Duck boolean : true is on and false is off

PressPaletteButton v : Plays or stops the indicated Palette Button
    PressPaletteButton integer : the player (0-19)

SendSerialCommand v : For sending single serial commands. Use 'ls /dev/tty.*' in the terminal to get a list of serial devices. Use the name that follows tty. for your serial device name
    SendSerialCommand text : serial device name\\command text (Use <a> for artist and <t> for title in command text)

SendTCPCommand v : For sending single commands to a telnet-style connection
    SendTCPCommand text : IP address:port number\\Command Text (Use <a> for artist and <t> for title in command text)

MuteMain3 v : sets the mute of the main 3 players
    MuteMain3 boolean : true is mute and false is mute off

FadeFinish v : Fades and finishes players
    FadeFinish integer : the player (1, 2 or 3) or nothing to fade either or both

DJ Events AppleScripts
These scripts are executed for certain conditions or events. You can edit these Applescripts located in ~/Music/Radiologik/Scripts/ These scripts contain some examples which you can uncomment by removing the leading "--" from each line.

This one fires when DJ is launched:
 DJEvent-DJLaunched Example starts Nicecast broadcast

These act on failures:
 DJEvent-NothingPlaying-AutoIsOff (fires after 2 seconds) Example turns auto back on
 DJEvent-NothingPlaying-NothingInQueue (fires after 4 seconds) Example loads a program file
 DJEvent-NothingPlaying-InterruptInFuture (fires after 6 seconds) Example starts playing iTunes playlist
 DJEvent-ProgramQueueEmptyIn30Seconds Example loads iTunes playlist
 DJEvent-PlayingSilenceFor8Seconds Example runs StartProgram true
 DJEvent-PlayingSilenceFor20Seconds Example runs StartProgram true

This one fires every time a track is logged:
 DJEvent-TrackLogged Example stops iTunes

This one fires everytime the item after "Now:" at the top of the window changes
 DJEvent-NowPlayingChanged Example uploads a web file to a web server


The Station ID button is intended as a reminder for on-the-air stations to ID near the top of the hour. It blinks between 5 before and 5 after the hour until it is pressed or the key (default i) is pressed. It is also ticked by the Station ID Track Attribute when that track plays.
Recording & Internet Broadcasting

Rogue Amoeba's Nicecast allows you to broadcast your station to the internet via streaming mp3.

Nicecast

Nicecast will capture the audio from Radiologik. To use the microphone, try Nicecast's voiceover plugin.

Rogue Amoeba also sells Audio Hijack Pro which you can use to live record a show you do in Radiologik to later publish as a podcast. Both Audio HiJack Pro and Nicecast allow you to apply audio effects and processing to audio playing in Radiologik DJ.
Web Publishing

Radiologik outputs a small variety of web tables as small html files to ~/Music/Radiologik/Web/. This is not an instant publishing solution but this will give you some tools you need to present upcoming artists, upcoming tracks, recently played and currently playing track in an existing website design. These files are intended to be included by using methods such as server side includes or php includes.

The tables use CSS and a sample rldj.css file is created in the Web folder when Radiolgik DJ is run. You can open this and change the styles for a different look or you can use these definitions to include in your website's CSS file or copy this CSS file to your website and have it load using the link tag.

The files that are output:
currentlyplaying-1.html
currentlyplaying-3.html
last10.html
last20.html
next5.html
next10.html
upcomingartists.html

currentlyplaying files give 1 line and 3 line variations. There are just number of items variations on last and next tracks. To comply with the DMCA in the US, next files can't be used but the upcoming artists file can be. upcomingartists.html shows 3 upcoming artists in random order out of the next 10 found if there are at least 5 publishable tracks in queue

Custom Publishing
In addition, you can create your own custom publishing templates and Radiogik DJ will read these, replace the tags with values and save the file to the ~/Music/Radiologik/Web/ folder with the same file name. To do this, create your template file in ~/Music/Radiologik/Web/Templates/. Use these tags in your plain text file:
<artist>
<title>
<album>
<comment>
<genre>
<ISRC>
<publisher>
<duration>, in total seconds taking start and end trims into consideration
<starttime>, the time the track started in SQL date and time YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
<pref>, this one is the name of your preference set so you can make this correspond to your programming
<queueremaining>, displays the remaining queue time in [H:]MM:SS
<queueendtime>, displays the ending time for the queue in H:MM:SS [AM/PM/24Hr]

Tips
Accurate Clocks
If you need your Mac to be exactly on time. See Apple's support article on Network Time clients lose synchronization

iTunes Updates
In order to avoid problems, don't let iTunes do automatic checks for updates. It leaves a dialog up that prevents Radiologik from communicating with iTunes. This option is at the bottom of the iTunes preferences window on the General pane.

AppleScripts
Maintenance and search and replace AppleScripts for iTunes are available at Doug's Applescripts for iTunes

ID3 tag issues
When working with mp3 tags, Radiologik makes a considerable effort to read all ID3 tag versions from 1.0 to 2.4. If you find certain information missing still, try selecting the affected tracks in iTunes and select Convert ID3 Tags... from the contextual menu to convert them to v2.4.



Advanced Options

DJ on on one Mac, Scheduler, iTunes and off-air DJ on the other Mac
To accomplish this, use the next 4 advanced options topics

1. Network mounted iTunes library
Keeping your audio files on the same computer as Radiologik will give the best and most reliable performance. However, in some cases you may use a network connected volume for your iTunes library where the iTunes library is maintained by a computer that has a different relative path to the files than what the Radiologik computer sees.

First, use aliases to your normal iTunes folder location. For instance, make an alias of the iTunes folder in Music from the network volume to your own ~/Music/iTunes/ or just alias iTunes Music Library.xml from the network volume to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml. The file name iTunes Library.xml is also seen by Radiologik.

If you are doing a split of DJ and Scheduler onto two different Macs, you'll want to alias the Radiologik folder as well but for efficiency of local files, it's best to do it th other direction. On the Scheduler Mac, mount the user's folder and make an alias of that Radiologik folder in that Music folder to the same relative location on the local Scheduler Mac.

To have Radiologik get the path corrected, open the preferences to the Advanced pane. Look for the item LibraryPathReplace
The value is in the form of: [searchterm][space][replace term]

For example, to get
file://localhost/Users/admin/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/Bizet/Carmen.mp3

to properly be
file://localhost/Volumes/admin/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/Bizet/Carmen.mp3

use the following value:
/Users/admin /Volumes/admin

Now you can successfully import your iTunes library into Radiologik DJ's library using the "iTunes Library" button.

2. Remote iTunes
As a related need to playing tracks from a remote iTunes is marking those tracks as played on the remote Mac's iTunes particularly if that information is important to Scheduler running on that same remote iTunes Mac. We can do this with Remote Apple Events.

1. Open System Preferences, click Sharing, then turn on Remote Apple Events. Set access as you see fit.

2. Open the preferences to the Advanced pane. Find the item RemoteiTunesMac and set it so it has the information for your remote Mac in the format like this:
[username]:[password]@[computerIPname]
eg. admin:pass123@LibraryMacMini.local

Radiologik DJ on one Mac should now marks songs as played in iTunes on the remote Mac.

3. Run a second copy of DJ on the remote scheduling Mac
We can use this same preference to indicate that we should use an alternate to ~/Music/Radiologik/ for a second copy of DJ to run while the main folder is shared between two Macs.

On the scheduling Mac, open the preferences to the Advanced pane and find the item RemoteiTunesMac and set it so it has the information for your remote Mac in the format like this:
self

Radiologik DJ on this comptuer will now use the folder ~/Library/Radiologik Local/ and that will then eliminate the potential for conflicts with two copies of Radiologik DJ accessing the same folder.


4. Preparing Scheduler preferences for DJ on separate Mac
To prevent Scheduler from attempting to launch DJ on the same Mac as Scheduler is running, in the preferences for Scheduler, turn off the option "Make sure DJ is always running". That will prevent Scheduler from attempting to launch DJ anytime it finds it is not running.

Also, normally Scheduler wants to make sure DJ is running before scheduling to check the queue. To prevent Scheduler from launching DJ locally when scheduling, on the Scheduler Mac, quit Radiologik Scheduler, open the file ~/Library/Preferences/Radiologik/Radiologik Scheduler Preferences in TextEdit. Find the line
RemoteDJ=false
and change it to

RemoteDJ=true
Then run Radiologik Scheduler again.

Disable Auto Menu Refreshing
You may need to disable auto refresh of menus for condtions where several hundred playlists in iTunes are hurting DJ performance when changing applications.

Open the preferences to the Advanced pane and find the item AutoRefreshMenus and check the box to your preference.

Using Nicecast's track information location for Radiologik only
By default, Radiologik saves the artist and track information to ~/Library/Application Support/Nicecast/NowPlaying.txt. With this method, regardless of which source is used, Radiologik overrides what any other source might provide for this information. To make Radiologik only publish this information to Nicecast when Radiologik is the source, you'll need to first make sure you have version 1.9.7 of Nicecast and then change the option.

Open the preferences to the Advanced pane and find the item NicecastTrackTitlesOverrideand check the box to your preference.

on location is ~/Library/Application Support/Nicecast/NowPlaying.txt (default)
off location is ~/Documents/Radiologik/NowPlaying.txt

Manually Save Track Properties
Setting this advanced option to true allows Tracks to hold Track properties temporarily until you press the Save button in the Track Properties window. This option also allows Track Properties that are not saved in the file to remain with program and spot files as well as the saved queue.

Open the preferences to the Advanced pane and find the item ManuallySaveTrackProperitesand check the box to your preference.

Time Announcements use overlap
Normally Time Announcements are very short and an overlap is not desirable. But perhaps in some cases you've made very customized time announcements that are longer that you want them to overlap. Turning this option on will allow Time Annoucement files to use either the overlap value saved in them via track properties editing or as set by Track Prep

Open the preferences to the Advanced pane and find the item OverlappingTimeAnnouncementsand check the box to your preference.

Custom iTunes Library Location
Normally Radiologik looks for the active iTunes library location. But in case you have multiple libraries and you want to Radiologik to read from a different library than what is active, you can set the path to the folder which contains the xml file. Here's an example:
Open the preferences to the Advanced pane and find the item iTunesLibLoc." Enter the path, eg.
"/Users/admin/Music/ModernMix/"
Note: Marking tracks played will still be done through the active iTunes Library.

iTunesMarkScriptToClipboard
For troubleshooting marking tracks as played in iTunes, if iTunesMarkScriptToClipboard is on, the marking AppleScript will be copied to the clipboard when it is executed.

iTunesMarkUsingAlbum
If iTunesMarkUsingAlbum is on, Album name match will not be required to mark the track played in iTunes
ResetPitchWhenAuto
Default is on. When this is off, the pitch adjustment you make to the top 3 players is kept even when Auto is on.
TweetEvery
Default is 1 which is to tweet every. Use a higher number to tweet every 2nd, 3rd, or nth track.

Radiologik File Locations

Files for Radiologik are stored in the following locations:
Preferences
 		~/Library/Preferences/Radiologik/
Database & Saved States
 		~/Music/Radiologik/
Scheduler
 		~/Music/Radiologik/Schedule/
Time Announcements
 		~/Music/Radiologik/Time Announce/
~/Music/Radiologik/DJ Voices/[DJ Name]/Time Announce/
Voiceover intros
 		~/Music/Radiologik/Intros/
~/Music/Radiologik/DJ Voices/[DJ Name]/Intros/
Voiceover outros
 		~/Music/Radiologik/Outros/
~/Music/Radiologik/DJ Voices/[DJ Name]/Outros/
DJ Program Files
 		~/Music/Radiologik/Programs/
AppleScripts
 		~/Music/Radiologik/Scripts/
Logs
 		~/Library/Logs/Radiologik/
Now Playing
 		~/Library/Application Support/Nicecast/NowPlaying.txt
[or]
~/Documents/Radiologik/NowPlaying.txt
Recent/Upcoming HTML
 		~/Music/Radiologik/Web/

Log format
A new play log file is created for each day and stored in ~/Logs/Radiologik/Play Logs/. Each line is a track played. Fields are separated by tabs and are in this order:
  1. Date & Time
  2. Artist
  3. Title
  4. Album
  5. Composer
  6. File path
  7. Duration in seconds
  8. ISRC code
  9. Publisher
Version Notes

Known Issues
 Changes to 2012.1.1 (2012-01-14)
 Changes to 2011.12.1 (2011-12-07)
 Changes to 2011.11.2 (2011-11-21)
 Changes to 2011.11.1 (2011-11-15)
 Changes to 2011.10.2 (2011-10-31)
Changes to 2011.10.1 (2011-10-13)
Changes to 2011.9.2 (2011-09-21)
Changes to 2011.9.1 (2011-09-12)
Changes to 2011.8.3 (2011-08-19)
Changes to 2011.8.2 (2011-08-06)
Changes to 2011.8.1 (2011-08-05)
Changes to 2011.6.1 (2011-06-02)
Changes to 2011.5.1 (2011-05-04)
Changes to 2011.4.1 (2011-04-26)
Changes to 2011.3.1 (2011-03-31)
Changes to 2011.2.2 (2011-02-17)
Changes to 2011.2.1 (2011-02-03)
Changes to 2010.12.1 (2010-12-22)
Changes to 2010.11.1 (2010-11-23)
Changes to 2010.10.1 (2010-10-27)
Changes to 2010.09.2 (2010-09-10)
Changes to 2010.09.1 (2010-09-02)
Changes to 2010.07.1 (2010-07-28)

Older version notes
Legal
Radiologik DJ is shareware. If you use it regularly, please register and pay the shareware fee.

You can make copies of this software and distribute them as long as the software is not modified in any way and the registration information does not accompany the software.

You may not sell copies of this software. You may not rent, lease, or distribute this software as part of a shareware sampling package without the permission of the author. You may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, copy, or create a derivative work from this software.

You are permitted to make a backup copy of this software.  You may make archival copies of the software for each License obtained under this Agreement. You may make copies of the written documentation which accompanies the software in support of your authorized use of the software.

Limited Warranty/Limitation of Liability:

This software is licensed as is with the removal of shareware reminders. Shareware allows you to "try before you buy" and I operate on the understanding that you are satisfied with the software before you register.

This warranty is in lieu of any other warranties, express or implied, including the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event will the author be liable to you for damages, including any loss of profits, lost savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of your use of or inability to use the software.

Customer Support:

I will attempt to answer technical support requests from registered users, but this service is offered on a reasonable efforts basis only, and I may not be able to resolve every support request. I can support the software only if it is used under conditions and on operating systems for which it is designed.

General:

If any provision of this Agreement is found to be unlawful, void, or unenforceable, then that provision shall be severed from this Agreement and will not affect the validity and enforceability of any of the remaining provisions. This Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of Illinois.