Who is that DJ?!
WREK celebrates the return of Automation, the best DJ in Atlanta radio!
In June 2001, WREK launched its new digital automation system.
"Automation" allows a WREK DJ to simply let a machine play the music,
song announcements, public service messages, legally required IDs and
promotional
announcements, and leaves the DJ free to do other things (such as sleep,
during the late night shifts). And of course, since you've still got
Real Humans feeding the machine with WREK's uncompromising selection
of music (aka Music You Don't Hear On The Radio), it's still got all the
love, just now we can get some sleep.
Long-time WREK listeners are typically great fans of Automation, because
they know that without it WREK used to frequently go off the air at night
and even sporadically during the day through the summer months.
In April 2002, WREK launched Unattended Operation (UO). UO is an FCC-sanctioned
mode of station operation which allows WREK to stay on the
air even when nobody is at the studio -- this is critical for getting us
through the sparse summer months. Starting in May 2002, regular WREK
listeners got to hear WREK all summer, 24/7, for the first time in nearly
30 years.
Automation runs during summer and occasional late night shifts. Besides keeping WREK going during the thin spots, the coolest thing about it is that it is completely hooked into the WREK web site.
If you look at the
WREK home page
(opens in new window),
when you see "Song Playing Now" and a song title
displayed on the right side of the page, then that means that automation
is playing right now. Click on that song title and you'll get a
live playlist of the last 25 songs played -- and you can go back farther if you want: hours, days, weeks, it's all there.
Listen to your favorite specialty show using the 7-day internet streaming
archive.
Or listen to archived automation (e.g. archived during previous night's
overnight shift) and then use the playlist history to see what you're hearing.
Find a song in the playlist that you want ot hear and skip ahead to it.
As The Rough Guide to Internet Radio said about WREK, this isn't
just radio anymore, it's a whole new way of discovering music.
Most of these systems were created at little cost to WREK -- the material cost
was trivial and the skilled labor was donated by a few dedicated alumni.
Contrast this with the last time the automation system was rebuilt, when
it cost $16,000 to purchase the components.
Is WREK technologically the most advanced
non-comm/educational radio station on the planet?
That's our hypothesis -- please
tell us if you know of
other stations that are doing this much cutting edge stuff.
- Internet Streaming
- Currently offering
live mp3 audio streams
at two rates (128 and 24 kbps)
- Seven-day running
archive so you can listen to your favorite show
when you want to, not when we happen to be transmitting it
- First radio station in the world to stream live signal on internet
(07-Nov-1994): used homegrown software (both server and client) to
stream uncompressed 64 kbps audio; this was before mp3 and RealAudio
even existed.
- Music playback automation system
- Allows WREK to play music even when understaffed (during semester
breaks, overnights).
- Three major components: digital audio storage system, music
database, and web interfaces
- Industrial grade
AudioVault
digital audio production/storage system -- hardware, software and
integration labor donated by Jim Evans '74
of Technology Atlanta
- Automation music sequencer/scheduler logic -- labor donated by
Dave Slusher '90
- Database design and web interface integration (Oracle, SQL, Java)
labor donated by
Dave Slusher '90
- Catalyzing above efforts, public web site integration,
internal station process overhaul,
staff rah-rah effort (motivating and training 80+ staff members)
and general project management -- labor donated by
Chris Campbell '90 '96
- Information/status available to public online
- Today's show schedule [on home page]
- What show's on the air right now [on home page]
- What song's on air right now [on home page]
-
Live playlist when automation is running (overnights, breaks)
-- currently working on "live" playlist capability
- Music database:
search WREK's vast music library
- Guide to "genres" covered in WREK's schedule [on home page]
-- 100+ music types listed,
correlated to the specialty show that covers it (this is important
because the specialty shows usually have cryptic names, like "The Mobius")
- WREK alumni database
-- search online for old friends
- Info available to record labels online
- On-demand addlist generation
- Automated monthly addlist emails
- Search our library
- Internal systems (all accessible from anywhere in the world):
- web interface for programming music -- WREK music directors
can add approved music to database from comfort of home (or wherever);
this data entry process drives everything else (addlists, automation
production, library database, etc.)
- Internal web system ("intranet") custom built from scratch by
Adam Preble '01
- email aliases for all staff members (name@wrek.org);
staff can self-administer their own alias
- email mailing lists for staff announcements and functional
groups (e.g. music team, engineering team)
- all station procedures online (currently 150+ procedures
and counting)
- engineering task tracking system,
including automated email notification system ("nagger")
Other stations may have some of these covered (like streaming,
email aliases, some documentation online), but we believe we are the only
station in the world to offer so many different features all so tightly integrated, and certainly the first and only station
to do an automation system this advanced -- and custom built to help
WREK fulfil its mission of delivering quality diverse radio to the Georgia
Tech community, the Atlanta metropolis and the world.
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