Adding Tracks To Categories

Section 3.2: Adding Tracks to Categories

Before importing your music and audio files into NextKast, it is essential to plan and define the Categories you want to use. Categories help organize your music library and control how the tracks are scheduled and played. Some examples of categories might include:

• Power
• Recurrent Gold
• Top 40
• Commercials
• Drops and Sweepers
• Slow Songs

You can create as many categories as you need—there is no limit. However, before adding any tracks, you must first create these categories within NextKast to ensure they are ready to receive your music and audio files.

Creating Categories

1. Access the Category Creation Tool:
   • Locate the Category Display Area on the main screen.
   • Click the + (plus) symbol to the right of this area to open the category creation window.
2. Define Your Categories:
   • Enter the desired category name.
   • Select the appropriate category type (e.g., Music, Commercials, or Imaging). The Music type is the default and can be used for all categories if you do not need different crossfade times.
   • Set Colors: Assign background and foreground colors to each category. This allows for visually distinguishing categories in the generated playlists.
   • Mapped Categories: Specify if the category is a mapped category and set the location of the mapped folder. This is useful for playing audio assets from a Dropbox location that automatically updates via the cloud drive.
   • Song Picking Options: Choose between random or alphabetical song picking.
   • Daily Reshuffle: If “Re-shuffle Daily” is checked, NextKast will reshuffle the category for each day it generates a playlist.
   • Day Segment Separation: Enable this option to force songs to play in all specified day segments before playing again, preventing songs from playing at the same time each day. Caution: This feature requires a large number of tracks in the category.
   • Artist and Title Repeat Override Rules: Set specific artist and title repeat override rules, allowing a category to have a different separation time from the global setting.
   • Play as Voicetrack: For commercial categories, this option can be set to “Play as Voicetrack.” This is useful if you have a category with dry voice announcements and want them to play in the voicetrack player and hit the post (intro until) of incoming tracks.
3. Save Your Categories:
   • Click Create Category to add the new category to the list. Each newly created category will appear in the scrollable area to the left of the + symbol, accompanied by a music note icon.
   • Note: If you are using “Natural Log” traffic software with NextKast, ensure that one of your categories is named “advertising.” Otherwise, you can name your categories as you choose.
4. Deleting a Category:
   • To delete a category, right-click its icon and select Delete. This action will remove the category and its contents (if any). Categories will initially be empty, and you can populate them with music files as needed.

Adding Music Files to Categories

1. Select the Appropriate Mode:
   • Enter the TRACKLIST/ADD MUSIC Mode on the main screen. This mode allows you to manage your music library and add new files.
2. Choose a Category:
   • Click on the icon of the category you want to add music to. The selected category will light up in blue (or white later).
3. Add Music Files:
   • Click the large + symbol at the lower right of the music file display area. This will open a file browser window where you can navigate to the folder containing your music files. Select the files you want to add and click Open.
   • Alternatively, drag and drop files directly from your computer into the black music file display area. The files will be copied into the highlighted category.
   • Note: A blue progress bar at the bottom left of the screen will indicate when NextKast is busy updating or importing files. Do not proceed with further operations until the bar disappears.
4. Managing Duplicates:
   • NextKast will automatically prevent duplicate entries within a category by overwriting any file added more than once.
5. Removing Files:
   • To remove a song from a category, select the song in the music display area, right-click, and choose Delete. This action will only remove the song from the NextKast library folder and not from the original folder on your drive.
6. Metadata Extraction:
   • NextKast automatically extracts metadata from common audio file types, including MP3 tags and WAV cart chunks. This metadata includes information such as Title, Artist, Album, Year, Genre, and more, ensuring accurate and comprehensive data for scheduling and automation purposes.

Using SHD Format for Audio Files

The SHD format in NextKast is a specialized audio format designed to embed metadata directly into music files. This format is particularly useful for ensuring that all metadata—such as artist, title, and album information—is accurately maintained and accessible during playback and scheduling. The SHD format is managed through the nkManager, which handles the conversion of all music audio files to this format as needed.

Benefits of SHD Format:

• Embedded Metadata: All metadata is embedded directly within the audio file, allowing for consistent and reliable playback information.
• Superior Audio Reproduction: SHD files takes up 1/10 of the space of .wav files and accomplishes perfect audio reproduction with 0 artifacts, essentially identical to the original .wav file.
• Improved Performance: By using the SHD format, NextKast enhances the response time when accessing audio files, particularly when working with large libraries or mapped network drives.
• Flexibility: SHD files are supported across different categories, including music, commercials, and imaging, making it a versatile option for diverse scheduling needs.

To enable the SHD format in NextKast, go to Advanced Settings and select the option to convert all music files to SHD. This feature ensures that your audio files are optimized for use with NextKast’s internal music scheduling and automation systems.

By following these steps, you can effectively manage your station’s music library using NextKast’s category and file management tools.