Knowing the characteristics your database is made up of makes it a lot easier to understand how to set up rules. MusicMaster makes this job easier with Library Analysis. If you load your rotated music or a specific category, you can use Library Analysis to determine what percentage of the database each code has.

When you open your music categories, right click and open the context menu and select Library Analysis. By default, the Analysis will calculate on the field you were in. If you need to analyze a different field, use the drop down box to pick the new target. When the Analysis is done, it shows you the codes, count and percentage used. In this example, the active library has been loaded and the Analysis is done on Gender:

This database has four unique values. You may notice that the percentages do not add up to 100%. This is because the field allows more than one code to be applied to it.  Currently the screen is set up to display Individual codes. To see what the percentages are of the different combinations, you can change the display to Code Groups:

There are now eight unique values for the various combinations of the codes used in the data.

With the information of how much each Gender code is used in your database, you can make informed decisions when setting up your rules. For instance, in the first example, the Male Gender code is used on 66.43% of the songs.  If we played 12 songs in an hour, we would expect eight of those songs to be Male and four Female to represent the database.  Knowing this helps us to set up rules like Max in Sequence or Time Separation for these codes.  With this Analysis, we also have a good idea of what we will happen if we set up rules that don't work with the data.  For instance, if we turned on an unbreakable rule that said you could only play one Male in a row, we could expect unscheduled positions as a result, since the data is heavily Male and there just aren't enough of the other codes to fill in the gaps.

Another good use of Library Analysis is to make sure you are on target for your programming goals.  For instance, you may consider your station to be and up tempo station.  As you add news songs each week, you might not realize that you've added more of one tempo than another.  With Library Analysis, you can make sure that you are maintaining the desired tempo distribution in your rotated music.

You can continue to analyze any field by simply changing the drop down to a new target. Library Analysis is a great way to make sure you not only understand what your database is made of, but how to use that information to make rules and maintain the sound of your station.