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does DJ bot shuffle the songs?
  • level96level96 October 2011
    Hello, I love loudcasting!
    I have been noticing that the DJ BOT seems to play the same songs in the same order each day.
    I have restarted it every day, but it appears to me to not randomize the songs.
    My total amount of songs add up to about around 50 hours worth of music, but loops sooner.
    I am wondering - Is it this "just the way it is" -(normal) ? or what can I do?
    Can a "shuffle" control / button be added? Thanks! --Scott
  • reaperreaper October 2011
    I can recommend a few things. First, if you have 50 hours of music, set your time between repeats to 2500 minutes (600 minutes=10 hours). I like to leave a few hours on the back end to give the DJ Bot room to shuffle the tracks.

    Two, avoid playlists that are in 12 or 24 hour increments. Try to have odd hour playlists (7,13 or 15 hour playlists). This will prevent the same track from playing at the exact time every day.

    This should help.
  • level96level96 November 2011
    I tried this, and it didnt really help. When I upload 15 new songs..
    those play as a group, later. The next day, i add another batch of songs, and then, days later, they all play in a row. So I think it is playing the groups of songs uploaded - randomly. I wish there was a "shuffle now " or "randomize " control button. I am feeling frustrated and dissapointed. I guess I am obsessing, but when you know what the next song will be, it is a surprise. I just don't want listeners to have Deja Vu.
    I guess I will need to just create a bunch of play lists, and let those play.
  • reaperreaper November 2011
    I agree, variety is what all broadcasters want. Please be patient because I think the new version of Loudcaster will have better tools for broadcasters who rely solely on the DJ Bot.
  • level96level96 November 2011
    Thank you -- Sounds great. !
  • By chance do you have a lot of tracks set to "Power Play"? If it have too many of those, the DJ bot will use just those and nothing else.
  • songbookdjsongbookdj November 2011
    Interesting reaper I wasn't aware anything major was being done with the functionality of the DJ bot. Yes it looked like scheduling was being made easier but that was all. As for varying the order of tracks that can be tricky. I have quite a lot tracks uploaded, try to have a variety of artists, albums and numbers of tracks for them. Be careful using scheduled playlists I tried this feature just over a year ago and it tended to repeat the playlists. Try changing the number of minutes between artists and albums, I think you can go as low as 45 minutes for artists (good if you have lots of tracks of a particular artist) and an hour for albums.
  • reaperreaper November 2011
    The playlist creator (for lack of a better word) will be much easier to use and multiple playlists will be easier to manage. It is my understanding that Brandon has reviewed all suggestions made by us broadcasters and used that information while developing Loudcaster V2. The new dashboard is in beta testing by a handful of broadcasters.

    One thing that would be nice is integration with playlist builders such as Station Playlist or Music 1 where you could make compliant playlists locally and upload them to your dashboard.
  • The new dashboard is very nice. I suggested adding some additional functionality to playlist building and was told that they will address it when they are further along with the new Beta test.
    The drag and drop functionality of scheduling is VERY nice. I have encountered a small problem with playlists repeating at unauthorized times on 2 occasions but that problem seems to have been cleared up.
    They have been very responsive to input and I am pretty stoked about where things are headed.

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