I have a question. In big corperations that have multiple stations per format, do they all use the same source audio or do they have their own? For example, when KOST plays a song, is it pulling the file from the same server that WLTW, KKCW, and KMXG also pull from or do they each have their own audio source?
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source audio
- Thread starter bobdavcav
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If you're talking on-air systems, the company for which I work each station has it's own server- though there are some situations where two or more stations reside on the same server with redundancy. Though in our cluster there was some mention of merging servers. But if you lose that server, even briefly, you take out not one station but all of them.
Production wise-again each station does it's own thing but we do have a central audio server that any of the talent & prod people can access to swap files.
Production wise-again each station does it's own thing but we do have a central audio server that any of the talent & prod people can access to swap files.
Right I would imagine that stations programming different formats would have their own servers. Are the stations that share a server in your company programming the same format? That's the only way I could see it working as you'd have to tweak the processors more if you are trying to program a Hot AC with rhythmic CHR audio, at least I would.
The stations that share servers aren't the same format- the servers are sectioned off by station where the only thing they have common access is commercials. So you can't play a Bruno Mars song on the country station and you can't play Hank jr on the CHR 
. All of our processing occurs post server anyway so they can be processed individually.
. All of our processing occurs post server anyway so they can be processed individually.With Clear Channel there's one song per server. All stations have access. As it should be. One copy is all that is needed. Those servers are backed up. So if there's a loss, no issue.
Where I presently work.. there are multiple versions of songs muddying up the servers. No need IMO. But, that's how they do. "Magic Carpet Ride" is in Scott twice, for the jurassic rock and for the oldies station.
Where I presently work.. there are multiple versions of songs muddying up the servers. No need IMO. But, that's how they do. "Magic Carpet Ride" is in Scott twice, for the jurassic rock and for the oldies station.
It's poor system design, if you have multiple copies of the same song.
In my Audiovault (designed by me, not a prebuilt from BE), I use two File Servers. There are no audio cards in the servers. Simply file access. All workstations boot and run from an Intel SSD and mount both servers for audio.
All stations have access to all files, immediately. If I take server A offline, everyone goes to B... Even in the middle of a cut, there is no audio drop. The only disadvantage to this approach is if I lose my Network Switch, the stations will go down.
I find this approach much easier to manage than scanning and copying files to every single workstation. There is no wait for a file to transfer and it is very easy for me to do cleanup, etc...
It's a personal preference, but I like organized, clean file systems. It would drive me crazy to have multiple copies of the same audio in the system.
In my Audiovault (designed by me, not a prebuilt from BE), I use two File Servers. There are no audio cards in the servers. Simply file access. All workstations boot and run from an Intel SSD and mount both servers for audio.
All stations have access to all files, immediately. If I take server A offline, everyone goes to B... Even in the middle of a cut, there is no audio drop. The only disadvantage to this approach is if I lose my Network Switch, the stations will go down.
I find this approach much easier to manage than scanning and copying files to every single workstation. There is no wait for a file to transfer and it is very easy for me to do cleanup, etc...
It's a personal preference, but I like organized, clean file systems. It would drive me crazy to have multiple copies of the same audio in the system.
C
Charlie
Guest
chriscollins' method is a good one. The actual "sorting" can (and should) be handled by your playout system and/or scheduler. Songs that appear in your CHR's A-List schedules may by in a "Hold" group on your Soft-AC station. If you can pick/choose from Categories in the playout system, there's no danger of a really unsuitable track being used as a substitute (assuming that you're allowed any control over the picking of music!). Searching for a track in the "archive" would obivously find it.
In some cases, you might not even "see" the song in your playout system - Especially if the systems use log-ins that instantly bring-up the "station" in terms of database, logs, etc.
In some cases, you might not even "see" the song in your playout system - Especially if the systems use log-ins that instantly bring-up the "station" in terms of database, logs, etc.
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