Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Hilton]

Some of you may have seen my DJ thread in the MC20 forum and this request relates to that thread and DJ'ing.

I know that MC20 isn't targeted at the DJ crowd but it has pretty good functionality with zones for a casual DJ session for parties.
I would love to see an autoplay and automix type function.
I looked at a few different ways of trying to script this and it was just too difficult.

I know you can have it set to repeat, but it would be great if you could have a repeat type function, however, instead of repeat it plays the next playlist or next track in another zone instead of just stopping.

Other ideas

1. have a playlist cue (a list of playlists in a cue, like grouped playlists) and each playlist plays in order and you can change the order of the playlists as a group of songs in each playlist, kind of like changing cds around in a jukebox. I looked for grouping by playlist but it looks like that function doesn't exist.  Even being able to sort by playlist position within a group of playlists would be handy.

2. have the next zone start playing when the current zone playlist finishes, if no tracks are cued anywhere, then automatically load a playlist. (this is kind of tied to automixing across zones)

Why you might ask?
Well, say you have a playlist loaded and you haven't checked on it for while and the last track finishes, or you or a guest just stuffs up and accidently deletes the nowplaying playlist, the dreaded party killer.... silence..

It would be great to have a way to automatically play a predefined playlist when the current nowplaying finishes, which is either in another zone which is mapped to the same sound output device. Or have a predetermined playlist load and play.

Many DJ software has similar functionality where you have an emergency playlist that will automatically cue if you forget to cue up the next track.

While im talking about DJ'ing, I used to DJ professionally and I know there's lots of other software out there for that, some of which I still have and occasionally use. BMP Studio Pro 4 and Traktor Pro 2.
But it would so cool to be able to use MC20 and its capabilities.

Having the capability to automix between 2 different zones and autocue playlists would be cool too.

[Hilton]

Worked out at least a quick sort of fix for now, you can setup a Car Radio preset with an emergency playlist. Can also have a few handy playlists ready with Car Radio presets. They wont auto play, but atleast its quick to find and start.

While im talking Car Radio presets. It would be nice to be able to drag and drop playlists either onto the presets or into the Car Radio Playlists Group and have them stick.
When you drag a playlist to Car Radio group and then click on a zone the list disappears from the group. (hmmm unless you put a number at the front of the playlist. ie "04. playlist name" before you click on zone.)

The only way I can get Radio presets to stick is to load them into nowplaying and then save them. (or adding a number in front of the playlist name)

[Matt]

2. have the next zone start playing when the current zone playlist finishes, if no tracks are cued anywhere, then automatically load a playlist. (this is kind of tied to automixing across zones)

How would it know what the "next zone" is?

[Hilton]

Aren't the zones numbered internally? Otherwise using zoneswitch.

[Matt]

Aren't the zones numbered internally? Otherwise using zoneswitch.

They're not really numbered at all.  There's a sequence they're created, but it's totally arbitrary.

[gvanbrunt]

In JRiver zones are designed as "output" zones and on DJ software they are "input" zones, correct? IE you mix between 2 songs, but the output goes to one "set of jacks". Wouldn't it be more like automix between 2 playing now lists etc? Perhaps what others are looking for are multiple "playing now" lists. You could designate one as a "fallback" list if one dries up etc. You could move them to whatever zone you want IE headphone zone or to the amps, or even not assign one.

I can see that kind of functionality useful to more that just DJ's as well.

[Matt]

Bump for Hiltonk.

[Hilton]

In JRiver zones are designed as "output" zones and on DJ software they are "input" zones, correct? IE you mix between 2 songs, but the output goes to one "set of jacks". Wouldn't it be more like automix between 2 playing now lists etc? Perhaps what others are looking for are multiple "playing now" lists. You could designate one as a "fallback" list if one dries up etc. You could move them to whatever zone you want IE headphone zone or to the amps, or even not assign one.

I can see that kind of functionality useful to more that just DJ's as well.

Yes your correct with software mixing you usually want 2 playlists (2 x Playing Now) to a single output and alternate crossfades between them.
There are scenarios where 2 zones with separate playlists to 2 outputs are an advantage where you have an external hardware mixer.

I believe the easiest approach though is to add some new rules to Zoneswitcher.  
It already has the rules engine and switching capability.

As long as your output is set to shared mode and not exclusive mode, you could setup Zoneswitcher to flip back and forth at the end of each track from each zone and have a crossfade rule from the standard crossfade presets we already have. (even better would be to have a manual crossfade override slider to fade between the 2 zones)

Then you would just need to configure each zone to playback to the same output in shared mode and load up 2 playlists, if a playlist dries up it could trigger a playdoctor playlist based on the last track playing, or load the 1st car radio preset as a fallback.

[Hilton]

BTW the DJing with MC20 on the Id worked perfectly with the zones I setup and I actually used the car radio presets twice. Once because I accidently overwrote a playlist and once because a guest connected to the Live playback zone and overwrote the playlist. I'll post an update in the thread.