StationPlaylist is a software vendor which provides a suite of Windows-based software for both managing media and broadcasting audio online. 

In this help article, we will cover:

This suite is known for advanced features such as scheduled music automation and extensive playlist management capabilities, making it ideal for broadcasters and station managers to plan out daily, weekly or even monthly content.


The Live365 Windows Virtual Machine add-on comes with the following components of the StationPlaylist suite:

  • StationPlaylist Creator Pro

  • StationPlaylist Studio Pro

  • StationPlaylist Remote Voice Tracking Standard (5 user licenses included)

  • StationPlaylist Encoder


All of the software above comes pre-installed and licensed with the delivery of your Live365 Windows Virtual Machine.


We chose to partner with StationPlaylist because they are a pioneer in the market and provide a robust solution for internet radio scheduling and streaming. 


Within this article, you will be able to review the basic features of the StationPlaylist software that will get you up and running on your Live365 Windows Virtual Machine. StationPlaylist provides their own help resources, and this is simply our effort to help our shared customers get up and running using their software with Live365. Over time, you may find that you would like to explore the more advanced capabilities of StationPlaylist. Consider watching their detailed video tutorials on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@stationplaylist/videos or contacting their professionally trained technicians through one of the contact methods provided here:  https://stationplaylist.com/contact.html



Introduction to StationPlaylist Studio


StationPlaylist has an official video tutorial that we’ll reference throughout this tutorial. Be sure to check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmfqJsgL8dM


Streaming your station programing is simple when using Studio. This is the on-air playout application of the StationPlaylist suite that provides useful features for DJs during live shows. Studio also enables unattended automation when used in conjunction with the StationPlaylist Creator track scheduler. Virtually any DJ of any skill level can use this software. A clear interface and large control buttons make this one of the easiest-to-use broadcasting applications.



Studio manages and controls multiple players for such purposes as automatic voice track/song overlapping. The advanced intelligent crossfader allows for tracks to mix together perfectly with no human intervention.


Many of Studio's advanced automation features depend on playlists that are generated by StationPlaylist Creator. However, it can simply be used as a "DJ jukebox" without the scheduler features. Tracks may be inserted from the interface or through drag-and-drop from Windows folders.


Studio comes with a great built-in Help Center that will walk you through the more advanced features and options. You can find these resources by clicking on the Help menu at the top right of the menu bar.


We recommend that you review all of StationPlaylist’s help resources before applying any changes to the StationPlaylist Studio configuration, as it comes already configured with a solid set of options applied by our Setups Team.  



Introduction to StationPlaylist Creator

StationPlaylist Creator is a powerful, yet simple-to-use spot and music scheduler. It can be used to design your station format using rotations of music categories and spot groups (jingles, ads, etc.). Rotations may be scheduled for specific hours of the day. This gives you full control over what types of music or programs are scheduled for different times of the day or days of the week.

Categories, Spot Groups, Rotations, and Schedules are the 4 building blocks for designing as simple or as sophisticated playlists as you require.


Categories


Video: https://youtu.be/Vml-tMLM16o?t=165


Instructions: Once you have organized your audio files on the virtual machine, it's now time to start using Creator. The first step to using Creator is to set up a new Category. A Category is normally used to contain all the songs associated with a particular genre, but you can set up categories to fit your needs.  Here are the basic steps for creating a new Category:

  1. Click the Categories button on the left to show the Categories page and click New.

  2. Give the Category a name that describes the type of music, e.g., Currents, Gold, 80's Slow Rock, 90's Fast Pop, All Music, etc., by typing a name for it.

  3. Optionally, in the Files or Folders area, drag and drop files or folders from Windows, enter the filenames or folders manually, or use the Add Folder or Add Files buttons to browse for the files or folders to include in this Category.
    If you have moved your files into separate folders, then specify just the folder location and not the individual files within the folder. This can be a folder with a number of sub-folders containing the music. In this case, click the Include Subfolders checkbox.

  4. Click OK to create the Category.  This will load any files specified into the Category and read track information from all the audio file tags, if available.


Spot Groups


Video: https://youtu.be/Vml-tMLM16o&t=127s


Instructions: Spot Groups are similar to Categories except that they usually contain a smaller number of audio files such as station IDs, jingles, advertisements, or a weekly talk series, for example. Often there is only one audio file in one Spot Group.


Note: If your Live365 station is enrolled in the Ad Revenue program, Spot Groups is the feature that you need to use for including the Ad Trigger files in your programming. Creating a separate Spot Group including your preferred duration Ad Trigger files is recommended.

Here are the basic steps for creating a Spot Group:

  1. Click the Spot Groups button on the left to show the Spot Groups page, and click New.

  2. Give the Spot Group a name that describes the type of spots, e.g., Station IDs, Live365 Ads, etc

  3. In the Files or Folders area, enter or browse for the file or folder to include in this Spot Group.  Drag and drop is also available from a Windows folder.

  4. Click OK to create the Spot Group.  This will load the track(s) into the Spot Group.


Rotations


Video: https://youtu.be/Vml-tMLM16o?t=258


Instructions: A Rotation is an hourly template of Categories and Spot Groups that determine where the media will be selected from. At least one Rotation must be created in Rotation Properties.

A rotation is defined by selecting the music categories in the order desired for one hour of the schedule.  The actual hour or hours that a rotation will be scheduled is not defined at this stage. This is done in a Schedule described in the next section of this article.

Here are the basic steps for creating a Rotation:

  1. On the Rotations page, click New.

  2. Give the Rotation a name that describes the type of music that will be played at this hour.  Default is a common name for the rotation that will be used for most hours on a regular day. Other examples are Weekday Mornings, or Saturday Nights. 

  3. Drag Categories on the left to the Rotation List on the right several times until the Approx Time at the top of the list is over 60 to 64 minutes (01:04:00).  You will most likely need to drag the same category several times.

  4. If you have created one or more Spot Groups, you may also drag a Spot Group over to a position in the Rotation List.  For example, you may like to have a Station ID play every 3 songs, so insert this Spot Group after every third Category.

  5. Click OK to create the Rotation.

If the same rotation structure is desired for all 24 hours of every day, then only one rotation will need to be created.

Rotations should be defined to exceed one hour by at least four or five minutes.  This is the Approx Time displayed at the top of the Rotation List.


Here is an example of Rotation. The red items are Spot Groups, and the Categories are green: 

  • Station ID, Pop Songs, 80's Songs, Pop Songs, Station ID, Live365 Ad Trigger, Pop Songs, 80's Songs, Pop Songs,



Schedules


Video: https://youtu.be/Vml-tMLM16o?t=309


Instructions: The next step is to create at least one daily Schedule in Schedule Properties.

A Schedule is a list of 24-time slots, one for each hour of the day. Each time slot is assigned a Rotation to use for the hour. This is where you select which Rotations will be used at different times of the day and/or days of the week. The same rotation is often used for multiple time slots. One rotation can be used for all 24 hours if desired.

Here are the basic steps for creating a Schedule:

  1. On the Schedules page, click New.

  2. Give the Schedule a name that describes the days of the week that this schedule will be used. Default is a common name for a Schedule when the same types of music and programmes will be used every day of the week. Other examples are Weekdays or Saturdays.

  3. You will notice ...DEFAULT... listed beside all 24 hours in the Schedule List.  This is a special virtual rotation that represents the Default Rotation.  The Default Rotation is the first rotation you created unless you changed the Default checkbox inside a different Rotation. 

  4. Select the rotation and use the single arrow to add it to the selected hour or use the double arrows to fill all 24 hours with the selected rotation.

  5. Click the days of the week that this Schedule will be used.  If this is a Schedule that will be used only for weekdays, then tick all days except the Saturday and Sunday checkboxes.  If you are planning to play the same types of music and programmes every day of the week, then tick all 7 days.  In this case, you will need only one Schedule.

  6. Click OK to create the Schedule.

For StationPlaylist Creator to generate a playlist for every day of the week, all 7 days of the week need to be ticked somewhere in the list of Schedules.


Generate a Playlist


If you have followed the previous steps and managed to create at least one Schedule, then you are almost ready to create a playlist. Some options will need to be checked and modified if necessary.


Click the General Options button on the left. The Start Day and Hour is the day and time you want your playlist to start. This is usually set to a future date, such as tomorrow, but for your first playlist, set the Start Day to today's date. Please note that the hour is in military time, so 00:00 represents midnight, while 12:00 is noon.


The next option down on the General Options page is the number of days you wish to generate a playlist.  The default is 1 day, which is common if there are changes made to the programming on a daily basis, such as commercials being inserted and removed.  If your programming requirements are static from day to day, then you may wish to generate a playlist every week. In this case, set the option to 7 days; however, up to 90 days is supported.


You should now be ready to create a playlist. Click the Create tool button to load the Playlist Creation dialog, and click Start to create playlists. A window will appear showing the progress, plus some statistics of how many times each Category, Spot Group, Rotation, and Schedule was used.


To view the playlist created in the Playlist Editor, click the View/Edit Playlist button. If you are not happy with the playlist, then you can go back and make changes to the Rotations or Options, or whatever requires attention, and then generate another playlist.


Once you are happy with the playlist, it is important to click the Save All button. This saves the scheduled dates/times for each track scheduled in the playlist, so the song, artist, and title separation intervals will work when you generate a playlist for the next period. The Save All will also move the Start Day to the next playlist period.

You can now load Studio, and it will start playing the current hours playlist.


StationPlaylist Encoder

The StationPlaylist Encoder, included with Studio, takes the audio produced by Studio and encodes it on the fly, then sends it to your Live365 Station. Here are the quick steps to set it up:

  1. Open the Live365 Dashboard here. (Login Required)

  2. Select Streaming ➡ LiveDJ from the left-hand Station Menu. The Encoder Settings screen will display.

  3. You will need to input this information into the encoder's interface. For accuracy, we recommend that you copy and paste this information directly into the encoder fields. To copy each field to your clipboard, you can use the copy button next to each field in the Dashboard. Then, switch to the encoder application, locate the corresponding field, and press CTRL+V (Windows) or Command (⌘)+V (macOS) to paste the copied text.

  4. The StationPlaylist Encoder is set to start with your StationPlaylist Studio.

  5. On the SPL Encoder window, Click the Add Encoder button.

  6. Double-click the line in the list box below to open the encoder configuration window.

  7. Select the Server Type -- Icecast2.

  8. Enter the Samplerate of 44100 Hz.

  9. Enter the number of Channels -- 1 for mono or 2 for stereo. We recommend using Stereo for the best audio quality.

  10. Enter the Server IP that for Live365 stations will always be ingest.live365.com

  11. Enter the Server Port -- 8000.

  12. Encoder Username – source.

  13. Enter the Encoder Password displayed in the Live365 Dashboard.

  14. Add the Mountpoint of your Live365 station, which can also be found under the LiveDJ section of your Dashboard.


For optimal audio quality and streaming performance, we recommend configuring the AAC or MP3 codec to be close to the bitrate you've selected as output within the Live365 Dashboard.

To adjust your Live365 station’s preferred output format and bitrate simply navigate to Streaming → Encoding and then ensure your encoder aligns with those specifications. One requirement is that the sample rate must always be set to 44.1 kHz.

If you are uncertain about what encoding settings to use, please refer to the following blog article for additional information and guidance: Understanding Radio Streaming Formats & Bitrates


Remote Voice Tracker



The Remote Voice Tracking tool enables your automated shows to sound 100% live when using the SPL Studio Pro automation software. It takes a fraction of the time compared to producing a live show, letting you connect to the Windows Virtual Machine from your own computer, record, and place voice tracks between the songs that have been selected by SPL Creator. 


Once a playlist is created for today or further into the future, you can see what songs are queued up. Then, it is as simple as selecting a position between two tracks for the voice track to be placed and clicking "Record".


The connection details and the download link for the Remote Voice Track Client will be provided by our Setup Specialists as soon as you are up and running with your station. The Setup of the Remote Voice Track tool requires at least one active stream running in your StationPlaylist Encoder.


Once a Remote Voice Track Editor has successfully logged into the Voice Tracking Server, a list of playlist log files is displayed. Any one of these may be selected and opened.  The playlist log data (PLG file) is downloaded from the Voice Tracking server to the editor.


Once the DJ has finished recording voice tracks, the Save All button will create playlist files locally for the hours modified, and these are uploaded to the Voice Track Server to replace the previous playlist files.


The Windows Taskbar and System tray icon for Voice Track Server show the number of connected users in brackets, excluding audio connections.


Following the steps above, should get you up and running with the Live365 Windows Virtual Machine and StationPlaylist. 


If you encounter difficulties with any of the steps described in this help article, please contact our Support Team by creating a ticket at this link or emailing help@live365.com. If more advanced assistance is required with some of the features, we highly recommend reaching out to our partners at StationPlaylist.



⬅ File Upload and Media Management