Straight away it's pretty clear what's going on. Most of the screen is taken up by two list boxes, each of which can independently display one of the database types. From now on, we're going to refer to these as selectors. You can change the type that the selectors display by clicking the radio buttons above each selector.
Below the selector we have 2 players, into which a recoring must be loaded before
it can be played. In between the players there is the playlist, and below that
there are buttons for controlling how Ed FM's automation behaves.
The radio buttons along the top control which database type is to be displayed
in the selector. The entries can only be displayed in the order they are in
the database, which is (for the time being), the order in which they were
created. To change display types without using the radio buttons, press
the letter key the type name begins with (e.g. "M" for Music etc.).
Pressing the letter key on it's own will affect the left-hand selector, and
pressing the key whilst holding down "Shift" will affect the right-hand
selector.
By right-clicking on the listbox area, you can select a number of search
functions, all of which are pretty self-explanatory, with the possible
exception of "Goto", which allows you to jump directly to a recording
in this category by entering it's ID number. Note that the menu options
are also repeated in the "Selector n" menu on the top menu-bar.
And that's about it. Single clicking on an entry will select that recording,
and double-clicking an entry will load into the next available player, or the
playlist if both players are full. You will note that between the two selectors,
only one recording can be selected at any one time.
To start the recording, press the left hand (green-outlined) Play button.
Once playing, you can pause playback by pressing the second (yellow-outlined)
Pause button, or stop and re-cue the recording by pressing the third
(red-outlined) Stop button. During playback, the gauge will indicate progress,
changing colour depending on which part of the recording is being played. You
can also use this gauge to jump straight to parts of the record, by right-clicking
on it.
When you've finished with the recording, press the right-hand (blue-outlined) Eject
button. If "Auto reload" is selected, the top item from the playlist will be
automatically loaded in, but more about that later.
The player's buttons are mirrored on the function keys. For the left-hand
player, the four controls map to F1-F4, and for the second player they map
tp F5-F8.
The timer in the middle can display the time of all the recordings in the
playlist, plus the duration remaining on either or both of the players.
Right-clicking on the timer allows you to control exactly what makes up the
value that is displayed. By left-clicking
the timer itself, you can toggle between count-up and back-time mode. In back-time
mode, the counter will display the time you need to start the contents of
the playlist and/or players in order for them all to finish on the hour. For
example, if you have exactly 10 minutes worth of recordings loaded in, back-time
mode will display "50:00.0".
Right-clicking over the playlist displays the Playlist menu (also accessible from
the main menu bar). This menu contains functions that allow you to save and load
playlists. You can also control whether the playlists loops forever or not.
The Selectors
Totally unconnected with the popular music scheduling package or the 80s ska band,
the selectors allow you to navigate the database and select recordings for
queueing or playing.The Players
To load a recording into a player, first select the recording in one of the
selectors, then press the "Load" button above the player into which you wish
to load that recording. If all goes well, the player should come to life,
displaying the recording's Title, ID number, Artiste/Comment, intro length,
and overall length.The Playlist
The playlist can be used to queue recordings for manual or aumated playback.
There are several ways to load the selected recording into the playlist:
The "Up", "Delete" and "Down" buttons allow you to make changes to the
playlist after you've stacked a load of recordings up.The Transitional (Automation) controls
These buttons control how Ed FM's automation system works. The best way to
tackle this is to describe the function of each button in turn.
| Auto-reload: |
Ed FM will behave in the following way when this option
is selected:
|
| Auto-play: |
With this option selected,
when recordings are loaded into both players (either
manually or automatically), Ed FM will decide how best
to make the transition between the two recordings. In
the free version of Ed FM, this will almost always be
a segue, unless the second recording is of type "Jingle"
and sub-type "Tag", in which case "Switch" will be selected.
This function can also be toggled by pressing "P". Note
that auto play requires auto reload to be enabled, and if
you attempt to activate auto play without auto reload, it
will be enabled automatically. It is worth remembering that Ed FM only makes the auto play decision after both players are loaded, so if you don't like the decision it makes, you can change it and it wont insist otherwise. |
| None: | When this radio-button is selected, Ed FM will make no attempt to automatically make the transition between two recordings. This transisional mode can also be selected by pressing "N". |
| Segue: | When this radio-button is selected, Ed FM will segue between the two players. A segue means that the second record will be started when the first reaches its "Start Next" point, and the first recording will be faded over a configurable time. (See the Setup application's documentation). If you have loaded material into the playlist, remember you MUST activate "Auto reload" to force played recordings to be binned. If you don't, Ed FM will just cycle between the same two recordings forever more! This transitional mode can also be selected by pressing "S". |
| Switch: | This transitional mode isn't really an automation feature. It's primary use is for variable-length talkover jingles or beds that have a separate tag. When the tag is started, the bed will automatically be faded over a configurable time (See the Setup application's documentation) This transitional mode can also be selected by pressing "T". |
Ed FM's automation capabilities are intelligent and powerful, however, they can take a bit of getting used to, so here are a few helpful points that are always worth bearing in mind:
| Fade on segues: | Toggles whether the first recording should be faded when the second is started when performing a segue. Note that even with this function disabled, Ed FM will still prematurely fade the first recording if it needs to for technical reasons. This option must be disabled for setups with one sound card. |
| Fade on switches: | Toggles whether the first recording should be faded when the second is started when performing a switch. With this option un-checked the bed is stopped dead when the tag is started. This option must be disabled for setups with one sound card. |
| Allow replays: | When this option is selected, pressing a player's Play button during playback will cause the track to be started again from the start. With this option un-checked, the Play button does nothing during playback. |
| Remember selections: | Toggles whether the selectors should remember the last selected recording when switching between types. |
| Protected play: | When this option is enabled, the only way to stop a player is by pressing its Stop button. If this option is un-checked players can be ejected and re-loaded whilst playing. |
| Player controls | |
| F1 - F4 | Play, pause, stop and eject respectively for player 1 |
| F5 - F8 | Play, pause, stop and eject respectively for player 2 |
| [SPACE] | Start next player |
| [CTRL] + [LEFT] & [RIGHT] | Skip player backwards and forward respectively |
| Selector controls | |
| M, J, A, I | Change selector to display music, jingles, adverts and inserts respectively |
| [CTRL] + A | Searh selector by artiste |
| [CTRL] + T | Searh selector by title |
| [CTRL] + G | Goto specified recording |
| [CTRL] + R | Refresh selector |
| 1 & 2 | Load selected recording into player 1 and 2 respectively |
| [RETURN] | Load selected recording into next available player, or playlist if both players loaded |
| Transitional controls | |
| P | Toggle status of "Auto-play" checkbox |
| R | Toggle status of "Auto-reload" checkbox |
| N, S, T | Select transition mode none, segue, and switch respectively |
| [ESC] | Switch to manual mode (turn off auto-reload and auto-play, and set transition to "None") |
| Playlist controls | |
| [INSERT] | Add selected recording to playlist |
| [DELETE] | Remove selected playlist item |
| + & - | Move down and up selected playlist item respectively |
| D | Change the time display mode |
If the key-press could be controlling either of the selectors or players, using the key unshifted will control the first selector/player, and holding down shift will affect the second selector/player.