The Rivendell Library consists of a set of objects called carts (short for "cartridge", a nod to the days when audio material for radio broadcast was commonly loaded to and played from physical magnetic tape cartridges). A Rivendell cart is a data container that holds either one or more pieces of audio (called an audio cart), or macro commands to the system (called a macro cart). Carts are the fundamental schedule building block in Rivendell, in that they are the smallest object or 'atom' that the outside world (like a traffic or music scheduler) can see. RDLibrary, upon startup, will show the current list of all carts on the system (see below). RDLibrary Main Window A number of important attributes of carts can be seen from this illustration. First is the cart's number. Each cart in the Library gets assigned a unique number when it is created. This number can range between 1 and 999999, and is the primary 'handle' by which both Rivendell and external systems (like traffic or music schedulers) refer to the cart. Very often, sites have specific rules concerning which types of audio (commercials, promos, music, etc) and macros get assigned which numbers. We'll cover this area in some detail when we discuss groups. Cart numbers in Rivendell are commonly displayed so that they always have six digits, even if that means adding leading zeros to the numbers --e.g. cart '123' will be displayed as '000123'. This convention is used as a visual reminder that the value in question is a Rivendell cart number, but it is perfectly valid to use numbers without the leading zeros when inputting cart numbers into Rivendell. Immediately to the left of the cart number is an icon indicating the type of cart. Just to the right of the cart number is the average length of the cart. Except in the case of where timescaling is in use (in which case it will be indicated in blue numerals), this value is calculated automatically by the system. Next comes various columns showing information from the cart label – Title, Artist, Client and Agency data, etc. This information can be edited by opening RDLibrary's Edit Cart dialog, either by double-clicking on the desired cart entry in the list, or by touching the desired cart entry and then touching the Edit button. In either case, you should get a dialog similar to that shown in the illustration. The Edit Cart Dialog Near the center of the dialog will be a dropdown box labeled Schedule Cuts. When set to By Weight (the default), this will allow cut rotation to be managed by means of daypart settings (see ). When set to By Specified Order, the precise rotation of the cuts within the cart can be set manually. This is how an audio cart looks when loaded into the Edit Cart dialog. The upper half of the dialog is the cart label data. The meaning of most of these fields should be fairly self-evident, but a few call for special comment: Enforce Length When checked, this indicates that timescaling should be applied to this cart when it is played in RDAirPlay, meaning that the cart will air at the length indicated by the Forced Length field, rather than the native length of the audio. Care is needed when implementing timescaling within a facility, as there are limits to how much the length can be altered, while only certain types of audio adapters support it at all. Group This is a pull down menu by which the group ownership for the cart can be set. Every cart in Rivendell belongs to precisely one group. The system administrator configures the list of available groups for each user in RDAdmin, and may also define limits to which cart numbers are allowed to belong to particular groups. Usage This defines the use to which the material is put. It is included in records generated by the ASCAP/BMI Electronic Music Report. User Defined As the name implies, this field has no dedicated meaning to Rivendell itself, but is provided for each site to use as is seen fit. The example in the illustration above shows an audio cart. As such, the bottom half of the dialog displays the lists of cuts contained within the cart. Each audio cart can contain one or more cuts. A Rivendell cut is an actual piece of audio, somewhat analogous to a 'track' on a CD. Up to 999 such cuts can exist within a single cart. Each line in the cut list contains information about the cut, including: Wt The weighting value for the cut. see for discussion. Order The order value for the cut. see for discussion. Description An arbitrary string, assignable by the user as an aid in keeping track of the content, it is roughly analogous to the 'Title' field in the cart label. Length The actual, measured play out length of the cut audio. This field is calculated automatically by the system. Last Played he last date and time that the cut was aired by one of the on-air modules. Useful for keeping track of stale inventory. # of Plays The total number of times the cut has been aired by the one of the on-air modules. Source The Rivendell user and host names from which the audio content originated. Ingest The name of the host and the date/time at which the audio content was ingested. Origin The name of the host upon which the audio in the cut was last recorded, along with the date and time. Outcue A user settable field. This line shows up in the RDAirPlay log display when the cut is played. Start Date The effective start date/time of the cut. End Date The effective end date/time of the cut. Start Daypart The start time of the cut's daypart. End Daypart The start time of the cut's daypart. Name The internal CUTNAME of the cut as used in Rivendell's database. SHA1 The SHA-1 hash value of the cut's file in Rivendell's audio store. What happens when more than one cut is placed into a cart? The default answer, in a word, is rotation. Rotation is the ability to schedule a single cart in a log, but to have that cart play out different material at different times. This capability has myriad uses. One of the simplest, common in commercial radio facilities, is to allow multiple versions of a spot to be placed into the system, while still allowing the traffic department to have to track and schedule only one cart number. A more sophisticated use involves use of the cut's dayparting settings, forcing different cuts to play based upon certain date/time criteria, such as day of the week or time of day. Cut dayparting is a very powerful feature in Rivendell, and is something we will discuss shortly. To edit the properties of a cut, either double-click its entry in the cut list, or touch it once to highlight and then touch the Cut Info/Record button. The Record Dialog will now open up. The Record Dialog Roughly the upper third of the dialog is for editing the various cut parameters, the middle section is for configuring the cut's daypart settings, and the bottom third is a record machine that can be used both to record new audio into the system and to audition any recording already made. For carts for which Schedule Cuts is set to By Weight, each cut in can be dayparted on the basis of these parameters: Weight Absolute Start and End Date-Time Relative Start and End Time Day of the Week While not strictly a dayparting parameter, the Weight setting of a cut can strongly influence the order (and hence placement) of when a particular cut will play. The weight value of each cut in a cart consistutes the numerator of a fraction, the denominator of which is the sum of the weight values of every cut in the cart. Rivendell's cut selection algorithm will seek to play each cut in like proportion. If it is important in some cases to be able to specify the precise order of each cut play-out, consider changing the Schedule Cuts dropdown to By Specified Order. By default, each newly created cut in a By Weight cart starts out with dayparting disabled, meaning that it will be 'eligible to play' at all times. By clicking the Enabled radio button in the Air Date/Time box, an absolute start and end date for the cut can be entered, meaning that the cut will be prevented from airing in the on-air modules at any time outside the range of those date-times. Likewise, by selecting the Enabled radio button in the Daypart box, start and end times (relative to the day the cut is to air) can be entered. Cuts designated in this way will be allowed to air only within the specified range of times. Finally, by ticking or clearing the appropriate boxes in the Day of the Week box, a cut can be constrained to air only on certain days of the week. All of the dayparting parameters can be used either singly or in combination with each other. When combined, the resulting 'eligibility' is calculated as the logical AND of the applied dayparting limits. For example, a cut with the 'Monday' box cleared will refuse to air on Mondays, regardless of whether any of the other daypart rules match. It's important to remember that dayparting rules affect audio play out only within the on-air modules. You will still be able to audition and play the audio without limitation in the other Rivendell modules. By ticking the Cut is EVERGREEN box, the cut is played into evergreen mode; wherein the normal dayparting rules are bypassed. Instead, such a cut will play if. and only if, no other cuts in the cart are eligible to play, thus providing insurance in the event that other cuts in the cart were not updated in a timely fashion. Each cart or cut in RDLibrary is assigned a color to indicate it's 'playability' for air, as follows: NO COLOR Event will play normally CYAN Event will not play (cut datetime is in the future) RED Event will not play (outside of dayparting limits or audio is not available) GREEN Event will play an Evergreen It's important to remember that the color displayed for each event indicates playability at the instant that the event is being viewed. The lower third of the Record Dialog is used both to audition and record audio. To audition the cut, simply press the play button (the one with the triangular symbol). The button will illuminate, audio will show on the bar meter and start playing immediately. The audio will play to completion, unless either the stop button (square symbol) is pressed, or the Record Dialog is closed. To record new material into a cut, first ensure that the Channels drop-down menu is set to record the appropriate number of channels, then touch the Record button (round symbol). If the cut contains audio that was recorded previously, a warning box will pop up at this point to inform you of this and to give you a chance to abort the recording without erasing what was previously recorded. If Yes is selected here, the previous recording will be overwritten and no longer accessible. The Record button will now be illuminated steadily, while the Play button will be flashing, indicating that the record machine is in 'ready' mode. The bar meter will also be active to indicate input levels, and this is the point where you want to verify that your levels are correct, with peaks just into the yellow area being optimal. Nothing is actually being recorded just yet. We have two options for actually starting the record machine. We can start it manually by pressing the Play button, at which point the machine will immediately begin recording, or we can set the Record Mode drop-down menu to the VOX (short for voice activated) setting. When in VOX mode, the record machine will start automatically as soon as it senses the presence of audio at the input. Once started, recording will continue until either the Stop button is pushed, or the maximum allowed length for a manual recording (set by the system administrator) has been reached. Once stopped, if the AutoTrim drop-down menu has been set to On, the Start and End markers will be automatically set to the beginning and end of detected audio within the cut. (We will discuss Markers in detail when we get to the section on the Edit Markers dialog). In addition to manually recording material in realtime, RDLibrary supports two alternative methods for audio ingestion: Importing from a File Ripping from a CD To import audio from a file directly into a cut, we start by opening the cut's parent cart in the Edit Cart Dialog. Next, touch the cut's entry in the cut list and then touch the Import/Export button to open the Import/Export Audio Dialog. The Import/Export Audio Dialog Select the file you wish to import, either by entering the path and filename to it in the Filename field or by clicking the Select button to open a file browsing dialog. Rivendell is capable of importing the following types of audio files: Microsoft WAV (*.wav) – PCM16, PCM24 and MPEG are supported MPEG (*.mp1, *.mp2, *.mp3) OggVorbis (*.ogg) Free Lossless Audio Codec [FLAC] (*.flac) Next, set the Channels drop-down menu to the appropriate number of channels. You may also wish to adjust the Normalize or Autotrim controls, although these will normally be set to reasonable default values by the system administrator and should seldom have to be altered. If Normalize is selected, then the imported audio will be peak normalized to the level indicated. The Autotrim does the same thing as in the Record Dialog (see section 2.0.1.2, 'Recording and Auditioning a Cut in the Record Dialog' above for details). Finally, touch the Import button. A progress bar will indicate percentage completion of the import, followed by a popup box to announce completion. The Import Audio Dialog will automatically close after acknowledging completion. The audio is now imported, and can now be auditioned and otherwise processed in the usual way. To rip audio directly off of a CD into a cut, we again start by opening the cut's parent cart in the Edit Cart Dialog. Next, select the cut's by touching the cut's entry in the cut list, and then touch the Rip button to open the Rip CD Dialog. The Rip CD Dialog Load a CD into the CD drive. After a few seconds, list of tracks should appear in the Tracks area. If the system administrator has enabled it, the system will attempt to locate a record for the disc at the MusicBranz.org music encyclopedia. If it finds a record there, the disc title and track information will be populated automatically. A typical MusicBrainz lookup It's possible that a disc will match more than one MusicBrainz record, in which case the system will present a dialog asking you to select the actual disc being used. The MusicBrainz Multiple Matches Dialog If this occurs, select one or more entries from the dropdown list and then touch OK. If more than one track is selected, the selected tracks will be seamlessly concatenated together in the target cut. Set the Channels, Normalize and Autotrim controls appropriately (see for details on using the Normalize and Autotrim controls). Next, touch the track you wish to rip and then press the Rip Track button. The track will now be ripped into the cut, with a progress bar keeping you informed of progress. When the rip is complete, a message box will pop up to inform you of this. If MusicBrainz data was found for the CD, you can have that information automatically be placed on the cart label for the cart by ticking the Apply MusicBrainz Values to Cart box before closing the Dialog. Sometimes, when transferring multiple audio tracks from CD, it's more convenient to be able to set up the entire transfer at once and then let the rip run in a 'batch' mode. RDLibrary is capable of ripping audio in this manner as well. To do this, click the Rip CD button near the bottom of the main RDLibrary screen, bringing up the Rip Disk Dialog. The Rip Disk Dialog This dialog is similar in many ways to the Rip CD Dialog described above, except that each track or range of tracks can be assigned to ripped to a different cut by double clicking on its listing or selecting the desired tracks, touching the listing and then the Set Cart/Cut button, bringing up the Select Cart/Cut Dialog. It's also possible to create a new cart automatically for each selected set of tracks by touching the Add Cart Per Track or Add Single Cart buttons. The Set Cart/Cut Dialog Select the desired cut to rip to and then touch the OK button, or create a new, empty cart/cut by touching the Add New Cart button. The complete set of library filtering tools are available to you here – see for details on their function, just as in the main RDLibrary screen. Once all of the desired tracks have been assigned to cuts, be sure that the Normalize, Autotrim, Channels and Apply FreeDB Values to Cart controls have been set as desired, then click the Rip Disk button. A set of progress bars will keep you informed of the progress of each track, as well as overall progress. When, the rip is finished, a message box will let you know. A macro cart is a cart that contains one or more commands written in Rivendell Macro Language (or 'RML' for short). The Edit Cart dialog for a macro cart is similar in many ways to that for an audio cart with the exception of the lower half, which contains a list of RML commands to be executed rather than a list of cuts. (NOTE: for a complete description of Rivendell Macro Language, including a breakdown of available commands, see ). To add a new line of RML, select the desired location in the list and touch the Add button. Similarly, a line can be deleted by selecting it and then touching the Delete button, or modified by touching the Edit button. The RML can be tested, either line-by-line or as a whole by touching the Run Line or Run Cart button respectively. It is also possible to Copy and Paste individual lines both within a given cart or between carts. In addition to RML code, lines can also contain host variables (see ) and filepath wildcards (see ). The Edit Macro Cart Dialog The uppermost section of RDLibrary's main window contains tools designed to allow for fast searching of the entire audio library, making locating a particular piece of audio easy even in a library containing thousands of carts. It's possible to control what carts are listed, as well as how they are sorted. The order in which carts are displayed in the cart list can be changed by simply clicking on the header of the column by which you want them sorted by. By default, the carts are sorted by Cart Number. To sort them alphabetically by Title instead, simply click the Title header once. To sort them by Title in reverse --i.e. from 'Z' to 'A' – click the Title header once again. Clicking the Title header a third time restores the sort to normal 'A' to 'Z' again. And so on for all of the columns in the cart list – it's possible to sort the Library by Artist, Length, or any other parameter shown in the cart list. Often, one will want to find a cart or set of carts whose label(s) contains a particular word or phrase. It's possible to narrow the list of displayed carts to this set by simply entering the desired word or phrase into the Filter field at the top of the main RDLibrary screen. The full list can be restored by clearing the Filter field or by clicking the Clear button. For a detailed description of search filter syntax, including examples, see . It's possible to limit the list of carts to only those in a particular group by setting the Group drop-down menu to the desired group name. You can tell RDLibrary what type of carts to list by checking the Show Audio Carts and Show Macro Carts boxes. Clearing both boxes obviously results in no carts at all being displayed. It's also possible to combine all four of the above search and sorting methods. Once the desired cart has been located on the cart list, load it into the Edit Cart Dialog by either double clicking its list entry, or by touching its list entry and then touching the Edit button. If a cart contains more than one cut, you can view all the cuts contained by the cart by clicking the + icon. The cuts can be hidden by clicking the - icon. A selected cart or cut can be played by either pressing the play button (the one with the triangular symbol) or by pressing the space bar. If a cart or cut is currently playing, selecting another cart or cut with the mouse or arrow keys will automatically play the newly selected item. To stop a playing cart or cut, press the stop button (square symbol) or press the space bar again. A selected macro can be run by pressing the Run Macro button. Rivendell uses a system of cue points within audio cuts, referred to as markers. Markers can be used to specify a number of parameters for a piece of audio. They are set in the Edit Markers Dialog. To access the Dialog, open an audio cart, select the cut to open on the cut list and then touch the Edit Markers button. The Dialog is divided into three areas: the waveform area in the upper half, consisting of the waveform display and Amplitude and Time buttons; the transport controls area in the center, consisting of Start, Pause, Stop and Loop buttons along with an audio meter and marker position readouts, and the bottom section containing the usual OK and Cancel buttons. The Edit Marker Dialog It's possible to 'zoom-in' on the waveform in various ways by clicking the Amplitude and Time buttons. By default, the waveform is displayed fully 'zoomed-out', thus showing the entire length of the audio cut. The GoTo buttons can be used to jump directly to the current play out cursor position, start or end of the waveform. Audio can be played one of two ways: either by clicking on the waveform to indicate where play out should start and then clicking the left-hand Play button, causing play out to start from the selected position, or by clicking the center Play button, which will cause play out to start from the currently selected start marker. Clicking the Loop button will cause the audio to play out continuously, looping from end back to start, until either the Stop, Save or Cancel buttons are clicked. All cuts have Cut markers, used to indicate the absolute start and end of the cut when played on-air. To adjust the position of the markers, position the mouse cursor over one of the arrows on the marker, press and hold the left-hand mouse button and drag it to the desired location. The marker's arrows will become larger to indicate that the marker has been selected. Additional markers can be set as follows: Fade Down Indicates the point in the cut play-out to begin a steady fade down that will continue until the end Cut marker. Fade Up Indicates the point in the cut play-out to end a steady fade up that starts at the start Cut marker. Hook Indicates the portion of the cut to be played by a sound panel when in Hook mode. Segue Indicates the portion of the cut to be overlapped with audio from the following log event when used with a SEGUE transition in rdairplay1. Talk Indicates the start and end points of the "Pie Widget" talk timer when the cut is played in rdairplay1. To add a marker, position the mouse cursor on the waveform, press the right-hand button and select the desired marker from the pop-up menu. Once added, a marker can be repositioned in the usual way. To delete a marker, position the mouse cursor on one of the marker's arrows, press the right-hand button and select Delete Marker from the pop-up menu. The Marker Menu It's possible to make copies of an existing audio cut on the system by opening up the cut's parent cart in the Edit Cart Dialog, selecting it on the cut list and clicking the Copy button. To paste the copied audio, simply select the desired destination cut (within the same cart or a different one) and press Paste. Various Library reports can be generated by touching the Reports button on the main RDLibrary screen and then selecting the desired report and touching the Generate button. The contents of the resulting report will be filtered according to RDLibrary's the current search parameters. The following reports are available: The cart report consists of a list of all selected carts on the system, with their attributes. The cut report consists of a list of all cuts contained by the selected carts on the system, with their attributes. The CSV cart data dump is a special type of report that consists of CSV formatted data elements, one line per cut for the selected carts on the system. It is intended for use where a 'dump' of available carts in the system is desired for import into an external system (such as a music scheduling system).