Avoid starting long songs shortly before the top of the hour

[Radio-Albena]

Hi everyone,


While listening to my own station I noticed that RadioBOSS sometimes starts a new song only one or two minutes before the top of the hour. As a result, the song has to be faded out almost immediately when the hourly event starts.


I know there are different ways to deal with this, such as fillers or Time Stretch in the Ultimate edition.


Personally, I would prefer a solution that does not manipulate song speed, but instead tries to avoid starting a song that obviously cannot finish before the hourly event.


Does this happen to your station as well?


If so, how do you deal with it?


I'd be interested to hear how other users solve this.

 

[djsoft]

If you want to avoid speed changes, you can use Sweepers: https://manual.djsoft.net/radioboss/en/sweepers.htm
Apart from that, there's little else can be done.

Please also ensure the tracks are scanned so that duration is known exactly, this way, the sweeper will be more precise: https://www.djsoft.net/community/threads/precise-start-time-and-duration-calculation.4598/

 

[Radio-Albena]

Thanks, that answers my question.


I was mainly wondering whether RadioBOSS had another mechanism to avoid starting a full-length track when there are only one or two minutes left before a fixed event.

I prefer not to use Time Stretch, so I'll experiment with Sweepers and make sure all tracks are properly scanned for precise durations.

Thanks for the clarification!

 

[djsoft]

I was mainly wondering whether RadioBOSS had another mechanism to avoid starting a full-length track when there are only one or two minutes left before a fixed event.

There are typically 3 ways to solve this:
1. Create playlists that end exactly at the end of the hour, but for many reasons that's not usually possible, especially if there are other events start while the playlist is playing, changing its duration.
2. Use the sweepers which is what RadioBOSS offers.
3. Use Time Stretch to change playback speed, making the playlist end when needed.
Of course those approaches can be combined.

Do you have some other solution in mind?

 

[Radio-Albena]

Yes. This is actually one of the functions I am currently testing in BroadcastVoice.

The idea is to monitor the remaining time before a fixed RadioBOSS event. If the next regular song would not fit within a configurable maximum cut, BroadcastVoice can look for a suitable short music track in a dedicated filler pool instead.

For example, the filler pool can contain 50–100 short songs of up to 3 minutes, with its own repeat protection. The system tries to find a track that fits the remaining window as closely as possible, rather than starting a normal 4–5 minute song that would have to be cut heavily.

If the current song already reaches the fixed event with only a small permitted cut, nothing is changed.

I’m testing this live at the moment. The goal is not to replace RadioBOSS scheduling, but to add a little more dynamic decision-making around fixed hour events.

 

[djsoft]

The idea is to monitor the remaining time before a fixed RadioBOSS event. If the next regular song would not fit within a configurable maximum cut, BroadcastVoice can look for a suitable short music track in a dedicated filler pool instead.

This is exactly what the Sweeper feature in RadioBOSS does: https://manual.djsoft.net/radioboss/en/sweepers.htm

For example, the filler pool can contain 50–100 short songs of up to 3 minutes, with its own repeat protection. The system tries to find a track that fits the remaining window as closely as possible, rather than starting a normal 4–5 minute song that would have to be cut heavily.

Sweepers do that, repeat protection and it can also select two smaller tracks that in sum have the desired duration (considering mixing and other things)

 

[Radio-Albena]

Thank you, Dmitry. I was aware of the Sweeper feature, but I had overlooked that it can also select two shorter tracks, account for mixing and apply its own repeat protection.

That does indeed cover the short-music fitting part better than duplicating it externally. I will test Sweepers with my fixed top-of-hour event and let RadioBOSS handle the filler-track selection.

BroadcastVoice can then focus on monitoring the event, protecting queued announcer links, handling the AI hour-close logic and providing additional safety checks and diagnostics.

This is very useful information — thank you!

 

[Radio-Albena]

Thank you, Dmitry. I found the relevant options and have now configured the fixed top-of-hour event to allow RadioBOSS to select more than one sweeper, together with the built-in repeat protection.

I had not realized that RadioBOSS could combine two sweepers to match the available duration while also considering mixing. I am testing this now.

If it works as expected, I will remove the duplicate filler-selection logic from BroadcastVoice and let RadioBOSS handle this part.

 

[djsoft]

If it works as expected, I will remove the duplicate filler-selection logic from BroadcastVoice and let RadioBOSS handle this part.

You can keep it I guess, in case you want a different logic for it, which may be better for you than what RadioBOSS does.