TuneTracker™ QuickTip

When NOT to use Time Corrects

The TuneTracker "time-correct" feature is a really slick way to keep your programming on-track in a very inoffensive, non-obtrusive way. By programming a little more music than you need, and dropping in time-corrects every-so-often, you give TuneTracker permission to occasionally skip some music or other programming in order to stay on track. If the time-correct feature was expressed verbally to TuneTracker, it would probably sound something like this:

"Go ahead and finish what you're currently playing, but when you're done, jump down here and play whatever follows me, even if you have to skip a few event to get here."

For a music-oriented show, we recommend you put time-corrects into your log at least once per half hour.

AVOID ZAPPING COMMERCIAL STOPSETS

However, the very thing that makes time-correct such a powerful and useful feature can suddenly turn against you if you use it in the wrong way. Here are two examples, followed by an explanation:

BAD APPROACH...

# interrupt@:00:00 5
# TimeAnnounce
Rotate Comment StationID
Play /boot/Haiku®RADIO/News/News_01.mp3
##
## Break 1
Rotate Comment TT
Rotate Comment Sweeper
##
Random Comment Song Protect
Random Comment Song Protect
Random Comment Song Protect
Rotate Comment Mundy
Random Comment Song Protect
##
## Break 2
##
Play /boot/Haiku®RADIO/VoiceTracks/Even Break 1 Inbuffer.mp3
play /boot/path/commercial1.wav
play /boot/path/commercial2.wav
Play /boot/Haiku®RADIO/VoiceTracks/Even Break 1 Outbuffer.mp3
Rotate Comment Sweeper
# time-correct@:20:00
Random Comment Song Protect
Random Comment Song Protect
Random Comment Song Protect
(etc.)

GOOD APPROACH...

# interrupt@:00:00 5
# TimeAnnounce
Rotate Comment StationID
Play /boot/Haiku®RADIO/News/News_01.mp3
##
## Break 1
Rotate Comment TT
Rotate Comment Sweeper
##
Random Comment Song Protect
Random Comment Song Protect
Random Comment Song Protect
Rotate Comment Mundy
Random Comment Song Protect
##
## Break 2
##
# time-correct@:13:00
Play /boot/Haiku®RADIO/VoiceTracks/Even Break 1 Inbuffer.mp3
play /boot/path/commercial1.wav
play /boot/path/commercial2.wav
Play /boot/Haiku®RADIO/VoiceTracks/Even Break 1 Outbuffer.mp3
Rotate Comment Sweeper

Here's the problem with the first approach above. Suppose you happen to have a grouping of songs that runs long. While that last song is running, prior to the commercial break, time-correct notices it'll be at least 20 past the hour before the song ends, so it says, "jump down to this place in the log when the song is done," skipping right over your commercial break in the process. Not good.

The better scenario is the second one, where the time-correct is used to skip over unneeded music in order to get to your commercial break at about the right time.

An interrupt is like a time-correct on steroids. It's an exact-time time-correct that puts its foot down and says,

"No, doggone it, don't finish the current audio event. Fade it right now (or chop it off right now) and go to what's next!"

If you have an interrupt coming up on your log, there's no particular reason to also include a time-correct. As a matter of fact, in some cases, such as during periods of mixed live and recorded programming where you're relying on interrupts to do hard-time-based joins and cutaways, adding time-corrects just muddle things. So the basic rule is this: Where you have interrupts scheduled, you don't need time-corrects.

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