In general, artist separation is handled very smoothly in Powergold without any user intervention.  However, there are special cases where getting more hands-on can help you build exactly the sound you want, when the “out of the box” behavior isn’t exactly what you need.

First a summary: Like many of Powergold’s rules, artist separation is handled at the category level.  This means rules controlling how close any given artist in your library can play to itself is controlled directly by settings found in the Categories button on the main toolbar.  In general, Powergold has always recommended keeping identical artist separation settings for every category you have.  This can either be accomplished manually, by clicking on each category and verifying its artist separation setting is the same as the others, or you can run Automatic Setup found on the Edit menu of Powergold’s main window, which will set them for you.   Because this rule is controlled at the category level, it is possible to set artist separation differently in different categories.  There isn’t anything inherently wrong with doing that, but it can make the situation quite complex for you, the music programmer, so we generally advise against it.

Armed with that background knowledge, let’s discuss two common problems that come up.

Multiple artists:  When a song has multiple artists, the music programmer needs to exercise care to make sure that all artists are listed correctly for a song. If you simply enter a new song into Powergold with multiple artists and take no extra steps, the result may not be what you expected.  Let’s use an example:  If you enter a song performed by Artist 1 featuring Artist 2, you might enter “Artist 1 F./ Artist 2”, “Artist 1/Artist 2”, or “Artist 1 Featuring Artist 2”.  Unfortunately, neither of these options really arms Powergold with enough information to separate Artist 1 and Artist 2 from other plays of Artist 1 and Artist 2 that may appear individually in your schedules.  Powergold simply sees “Artist 1 Featuring Artist 2” as its own separate artist brand new, having nothing to do with Artist 1 or Artist 2.

Confused yet?  Well telling Powergold what you really want to happen is quite simple.  Just keep the following rule of thumb in mind:  Anytime you enter a song performed by multiple artists, they need to be entered separately in the Artist Separation list.  To do this:  from the Song Information screen, press the Artists button.  This resulting screen lets you pick any artist in the database to add to your song.  This is useful not only for adding multiple artists but for creating complex relationships between artists with changing names and/or group affiliations.  If you don’t see the artists you need on this screen you can add a new one at any time by pressing the Artist Editor button and entering a new artist there.  Once you are finished you can add the new artist to the song you are currently editing. 

It’s important that for every song in your library that is credited to more than one artist, you have separate line entries for each artist within your artist separation list.  This is an extra step but it’s essential for Powergold to give you the kind of control you need.  Using our fictitious example from before, we can now be absolutely sure that our new song performed by Artist 1 Featuring Artist 2, will be perfectly protected against plays of songs by either Artist 1 or Artist 2.

Next let’s discuss special artist separation.  Unlike using multiple artists (which can almost never be completely avoided), special artist separation can be totally avoided if you don’t need the power it offers.   Remember, earlier we mentioned that artist separation is controlled at the category level by default.  Well special artist separation gives us artist by artist controlling over Powergold’s behavior.  While you may have set a 2 hour separation for artists in all of your categories, you may have a couple artists that really stand out and a little but goes a long way.  If you choose, you can separate those artists even further by using special artist separation.  To implement this on your station, from the Song Information screen, you would again click Artists, and then Artist Editor, and this time look toward the right hand side of the screen. For each policy you use, you can enter a time value and a point value you want used for this artist only.  This overrides the artist separation settings you have set at the category level, but only for this single Artist.

Exercise caution when setting this up, as failure to set a time value for every policy or to enter a point value can result in absolutely NO artist separation for that artist (since the default artist separation will have been overridden with your custom settings).  Settings you create in special artist separation are non-destructive.  This means removing them at any point in the future leaves you with exactly what you had before you set them, the default category level settings.

Using special artist separation controls allows you to retain Powergold’s automatic handling of artist separation while easily giving you the flexibility to create special case rules for fringe artists in your format.  As a side note, special song separation provides a very similar kind of control, only with respect to songs not artists.

As always, when changing your programming rules, you may have questions.  Powergold’s experienced techs are always a phone call away to walk you through it and help you reach your music goals.  Call us anytime at 501-821-1123.