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User’s Guide

Version 6

rev. 8
Fidelity Media logo
Copyright © 1998-2024 Fidelity Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Welcome

Thank you for using MegaSeg!

MegaSeg is available in two editions, DJ and Pro, which share many core features. While this guide covers both editions, all the screenshots and descriptions in this guide are from the Pro edition. MegaSeg Pro offers many additional features for pro DJs, video mixing for VJs, and broadcast automation functions for radio and TV stations, as well as various business applications.

Automation functions are covered in the sections 🔖Advanced Playlist Features, 🔖Events, 🔖Scheduling, 🔖Rules, and 🔖Logging.

If you have any questions not covered in this guide, please visit our FAQ at megaseg.com/faq, or e-mail us for assistance at welcome@megaseg.com. We also maintain a list of improvements and new features on our version history page at megaseg.com/version.

System Requirements

MegaSeg version 6.x supports any Mac running macOS 10.6 or better, with Apple Silicon or Intel processors. To support a wide range of macOS versions, have use multiple “builds” of MegaSeg that are downloaded automatically. For support on macOS 10.12 and older, you must download MegaSeg directly from the older system to ensure the compatible version is installed. If you upgrade your Mac from macOS 10.12 or older to 10.13 or newer, use our Recovery System to install the correct version.

Getting Configured

When using traditional hard disks (HDD), we recommend you enable the “Keep All Drives Spinning” option in MegaSeg’s Settings. This will help prevent system delays with drives that spin-down or sleep frequently. (This option enables automatically the first time you import media from multiple drives, but can be disabled if necessary.)

If you use an external drive for your media, we recommend checking if it’s formatted using a native Mac format for the best compatibility and proper file tracking support. To do this, select the drive in the Finder and press Command-I (or “Get Info” from the File menu.) Under the “Format” section, it should show “AFPS” or “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”. If it shows ”ExFat” or other formats, unless you need to share the drive with a Windows PC, consider reformatting it using Apple’s Disk Utility app, located in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder. (Note, if you already have files on the external drive, you’ll need to back them up first, and restore them after reformatting the drive.)

When formatting a drive (SSD or HDD) on macOS 10.14 or higher, it’s best to choose the modern “APFS” format. However if you need to share the drive with an older Mac running 10.12 or older, or formatting a traditional hard drive (HDD) on macOS 10.13, you’ll need to use the older “Mac OS Extended” format.

Apple’s Disk Utility can also be used to verify your system’s internal drive is in good health, such as before installing the major macOS upgrade each year. To do this in Disk Utility, select your main drive from the list on the left and click First Aid.

It’s always good to keep your system optimized and running smoothly. We maintain a list of troubleshooting and maintenance tasks you can perform on our FAQ at megaseg.com/faq#911.

Connecting to a Sound System

All Macs come with a built-in high quality sound output via a standard 1/8” stereo mini-jack. To hook up your Mac to most mixers or sound systems using this output, you will need an 1/8 inch to RCA cable, which is easy to find online or at most local electronic stores. Many mixers and controllers have built-in USB audio connections that work with MegaSeg as well. This has the added benefit of freeing the built-in headphone jack as an additional cue or preview channel.

MegaSeg supports using multiple audio devices at once, such as two inexpensive stereo USB audio interfaces, as well as multi-output devices (i.e. a single interface with multiple stereo output channels), allowing you to cue or preview tracks in your headphones without interrupting the main playlist. You can also use your Mac’s built-in output to cue, while using a second sound device for your main playlist or vice-versa. You can find many popular audio interfaces and USB mixers at megaseg.com/interfaces

Choose the audio device output options in MegaSeg’s Settings window under the Devices tab. You can set an output for the main playlist, a preview channel for cueing, a Hot Keys output for sound effects, and the input/output combo for Mic Play-Thru. There is also a checkbox to enable Discrete Output Mode, which will be discussed further in the 🔖Mixer section of this guide.

For the best signal-to-noise ratio, you should maximize the volume of the output you use with MegaSeg while connected to a mixer or sound system. To do this, select System Settings in the Apple menu, and click on Sound, then the Outputs tab. Each output device has its own master volume setting. In the list, select each device one by one, and maximize the volume slider (if available for that device) for the highest quality signal.

MegaSeg has an option to set the system’s volume to its maximum when launched, and reset to the original volume when quit. This “Maximize System Volume” setting is in the Advanced tab of the Settings, but only effects the system’s selected output device.
MegaSeg with the Mixer view visible
MegaSeg with the Mixer view visible

The Main Interface

The main MegaSeg screen is designed to be used in either window or full screen mode. To switch into full screen, from the menu choose MegaSeg → Enter Full Screen. In this mode, MegaSeg will enable Dock Hiding. To access your dock, move your mouse to the side of the screen where your dock is located.

There’s an option for MegaSeg to start in full screen mode in the Advanced tab of the settings. You can quickly switch between MegaSeg and other full screen apps using a three-finger swipe on the trackpad (or use Command-Tab to switch applications.)

Two lists are displayed on the main screen. The left list is your library of imported tracks. The right list is your current playlist or cue. Above the library display are two text labels used to select different views of the library.

The library’s sort order popup menu
The library’s sort order popup menu

Click ‘by Title’ to bring up a menu to select a different sort order. You can sort the library by Title, Artist, Album, BPM (beats per minute), Play Count, Time, Year, Date Added, or Folders. You can also sort your active playlist cue the same way with additional options.

The Category Browser to left of the library
The Category Browser to left of the library

The default category displayed is “All Categories”. Click the Category button to the left of the library to access the Category Browser. MegaSeg comes with example categories which you can fully customize using the FileEdit Categories menu command. Click a category to filter your view of the library’s contents. If the category is empty, MegaSeg will ask if you want to remove it, as well as all empty categories.

Use the checkboxes next to each category name to show media in multiple categories. When more than one category is selected, there are options below to match “Any” or “All” of the selected items. Select Any to display tracks that match any of the checked categories, or select All to show only tracks assigned multiple checked categories. Press the Spacebar to toggle the checkbox for any selected row, and Control-Click or Control-Spacebar will uncheck or toggle all checkboxes.

We use the term “Category” in MegaSeg for more than Genre tags. While Category and Genre are generally interchangeable, we prefer the Category term because categories are used in more ways than just categorizing music genres in MegaSeg. For example, you can assign multiple categories to tracks, or use categories to “schedule” or generate playlists via a formula. More details are in the 🔖Advanced Playlist Features section.

Below the library is a bar where it displays the total number of tracks in the current list as well as the total duration of the tracks. This information is also shown below the Playlist queue, along with the time (and date) the current selected track in the playlist will play, as well as the number of minutes away. Note that the queue’s total duration is shown in a second accurate format (HH:MM:SS) when under 6 hours.

There are many ways to select a track from the library to play. Most common is simply click and drag a track into the playlist. But a great shortcut to add tracks to the playlist cue is simply double-click tracks in the library. If you holding the Option key while you double-click, it will add the track to the top of the playlist. Double-clicking a track in the playlist will promote it to the top, ready to play next. To remove tracks from the playlist, simply drag them back into the library, or select a track and press the Delete key. There are many more keyboard shortcuts to add, move, and remove tracks, for example Command-Right Arrow and Command-Up Arrow (see the 🔖Keyboard Shortcuts section, or choose Help → Keyboard Shortcuts in the menu.)

Rows Displayed toggle

MegaSeg lets you customize the way the library and playlist displays information. For instance, the lists can show one, two or three rows of information per track. Thus the two and three row modes show much more information besides Title, Artist, and Time. (Note in one-row mode, the time field may be replaced with info specific to the current sort order.) To toggle between modes, click the button at the bottom-right of the library or playlist, which displays one or more horizontal lines corresponding to the number of rows displayed.

You can further customize the list views in the Settings, under the Views tab. There are options to set the font typeface, size, text and background row colors, plus options to enable category and Finder label colors which will be discussed later.

If you are using MegaSeg for the first time, and have nothing in your iTunes library, your MegaSeg library may be empty, so let’s import some media now!

When we refer to ’Music.app’ in this guide, we’re talking about the media player and library application that replaced iTunes in macOS 10.15 and higher. It still includes the ability to purchase music via the iTunes Store. (If you don’t see that, and also subscribe to Apple Music, you may need to enable the “Show iTunes Store” option in the Music.app’s settings.)
If you subscribe to Apple Music, and want to play those tracks in MegaSeg, they must be downloaded for offline playback to import them into MegaSeg. You can download entire playlists by Control-Clicking on the playlist name in iTunes, or download all tracks in the Songs view by using pressing Command-A (or Edit → Select All in the menu) then Control-Click on any selected track and choose "Download". If you want to check how much disk space it will take prior to downloading all tracks, you can select View → Show Status Bar in the menu, and the size of the current list appears at the bottom of the list view.
There are various caveats when playing DRM (Digital Rights Management) copy-protected files (which use the ‘m4p’ or ‘movpkg‘ extensions). We recommend utilizing DRM ’subscription tracks’ as a supplement to your core library of ‘purchased tracks’ to test out new music or play incidental requests, then add them to your core library when they prove themselves over time.

Importing Media

The Import dialog
The Import dialog

MegaSeg imports most standard audio and video formats including MP3, MP4, AAC (M4A and M4P), Apple Lossless, MPEG, MOV, MOVPKG, M4V, DV, AIFF, WAV, FLAC and many more. Click the Import button on the left side of the screen (or select File → Import from the menu) and a dialog with various import options will appear. You can import media from a folder on any drive, your iTunes library, or a connected iPod that supports Disk Access Mode. There are two iTunes options, one which reads the iTunes database to import new files since the last date scanned, and the other iTunes button performs a full scan of all the iTunes music folders for new files. Either option should prevent duplicates as long as the path to the files matches what is already in the MegaSeg library. (The full scan option also supports MegaSeg specific tag data that may be stored in the files when moving from another MegaSeg system.)

You can drag-n-drop import files or folders from the Finder, or tracks from the iTunes window, directly into MegaSeg’s the library, playlist, or decks. The playlist Browser also gives you direct access to your iTunes library and playlists, and will import tracks automatically as necessary.
Importing files into MegaSeg does not copy or duplicate the source files, but simply references the media from its original location. For example, when importing from iTunes, MegaSeg will use the same files as iTunes without using extra drive space. Keep this in mind if you use MegaSeg to move tracks into the Trash, as they are the same files iTunes uses.

Besides importing from your internal drive, you can also use an external hard drive or network server to store your media, or split your library across multiple drive volumes. If you use a server, there may be a slight delay when you start playing a track, and recommend a Gigabit or faster Ethernet connection for the best performance.

The Import Folder button also allows you to select entire drives to scan for media, but be careful not to select your internal drive that contains the Mac system and apps. Since MegaSeg can import and “play” so many different types of files, including pictures, PDFs, and even text files, you’ll end up with a library full of stuff you don’t want. Fortunately, it’s easy to mass remove imported folders using a special “folder tree view” which is available from the File → Remove Folders menu command (or Folders View in the library’s sort menu.)

There’s an “Import to Category” option at the top of the dialog which is useful if you have a folder of files you want categorized as such. Otherwise, use the default “Same as Genre Tag” option to map each track to a category. Since tracks can be assigned to multiple categories, you can combine using the Genre tags and also assigning an overall category with the “Import to Category” option. (This happens by default when selecting a specific category, but can be disabled in the Options as discussed next.) You might for example want to import tracks with today’s date as a category, and later display that category for editing, and then remove the date category while keeping the track’s genre tag intact.

Sort the library by ‘Date Added’ to view recently imported tracks by clicking the Library’s header which displays a sort popup menu.

Import Options

Various importing options
Various importing options

Press the Options button for additional import control. The first section deals with the Import Folder method. MegaSeg uses a special tagging system for imported media, which works with all type of files. It uses the Mac’s native file system to store specialized metadata, including custom start and end times, memory cue positions, categories, notes, etc. The “Use MegaSeg Tags” checkbox enables MegaSeg to read this stored data if available (for example if previously edited in another MegaSeg system.) If a song has not been edited in MegaSeg before, the ID3, AAC, or native tags will be used instead. For some data (e.g. start, end, and intro times) the MegaSeg tag will always be used if available.

The “Use Genre Tag as Category” checkbox tells MegaSeg to honor any Genre tag assigned to the files as an additional category, regardless if one is selected with the “Import To Category” popup menu.

Next, there’s an option to filter out files by their extension using the “Skip files with extensions” text box. Enter extensions of file types you never want MegaSeg to import, with commas separating each extension; For example use “jpg,gif,png” to filter out common picture types.

The next section allows you to control which additional iTunes media types you want to include. This only affects the first iTunes button which scans the iTunes database. There’s also a button to reset the date last imported filter.

The last section pertains to the iTunes Media folder import option. This defaults to the iTunes folder inside your “Home” Music folder. You can select a custom folder to scan when using the scan “Media Folder” import button.

The library does not limit the number of tracks you can import. It can hold as many files as you have memory and drive space for.
The Edit Info dialog
The Edit Info dialog

Editing a Track

To edit a track’s info and settings, just select it and click the Edit button or choose File → Edit Info from the menu (Command-I.) MegaSeg has many fields in the database, many of which are displayed in pop-up info boxes, as well as useful for logging.

The Artist Last Name field is a special sort field, allowing you to sort by the last name while displaying the full name in typical “First Last” fashion.

To assign categories to a track, click the Set button to the right of the Categories filed, and a category list will appear, along with buttons to Add, Rename, and Remove categories. When you rename a category, MegaSeg will perform a find and replace throughout all tracks in the library. The remove button has options to keep files, remove files (i.e. forget they were imported), or move them to the Trash.

To merge two or more categories, simply select multiple categories by Control or Shift-Clicking and click Rename to give them a new merged name.

The Set Color button allows you to assign a color code for the selected category, which in turn will display tracks in the category with colored text. There’s an option to enable category colors is in the Settings under the Views tab.

The File menu’s Edit Categories command does not include checkboxes, as it does not modify a specific track’s category.
The File menu’s Edit Categories command does not include checkboxes, as it does not modify a specific track’s category.

Check the categories you want to assign to this track (or double-click a category name to quickly select one category.) You can also use the arrow keys or type-to-select a category, and press the spacebar to toggle the selection of the highlighted category. Also Control-Click or press Control-Spacebar to clear all other checked categories.

Back in the Edit Media dialog, the Highest Chart field can be used to enter the highest chart position a track reached in any given year. This can be useful trivia while announcing a song, for example.

The Popularity and Energy/Mood settings will help you remember and gage your music. (They appear in the pop-up info boxes when you hovering your mouse over a track, when enabled in MegaSeg’s settings under the Advanced tab.)

The Vocalist setting is used to tell MegaSeg the sex of the vocalist. This works with the Rules feature to limit the number of male or female vocalists that can play in a row (a trick many radio stations use to keep the mix sounding fresh.) When dealing with groups or bands, use the primary vocalist for each song. For example, Fleetwood Mac could be labeled as Male or Female depending on the song.

The ‘Use Display Color’ checkbox allows you to assign a color code for this individual track, and overrides the global category color if set.

In the Options Tab, you can set the Volume, Pitch, BPM, Into Countdown, Start and End times, Ending Type and Segue Options.

The Edit Media’s Options tab
The Edit Media’s Options tab

Let’s start with the End Time, as it is most important regarding the automatic mixing features (e.g. the Auto segue mode.) The End Time (or "segue time") is the time when MegaSeg will start the next track in the playlist complete with an automatic crossfade. If you don’t set a custom end time (i.e. you keep the default end time of the track), it will enable the Auto Trim Range feature that will use special volume detection to determine a good segue point within the set safety range near the end of the track. Depending if the song ends with a fade out, it will crossfade, otherwise will always keep things sounding good and tight between songs, and prevent “dead air”. The default Auto Trim Range time is 7 seconds from the track's end. If you play music that has extended endings or long fades, you might want to increase this in the Settings under the Playback tab.

When MegaSeg segues between tracks, the End Time (Segue) is the time the fade will start—not when the fade ends. Don’t worry about it fading out a cold ending prematurely if you set the end time to the very last note.

For perfect segues every time, you can set custom end times for each track. A good segue time is usually after a lyrical phrase, or the downbeat after a measure. For the best auto-segue results, these segue point judgments are best set by you rather than rely on the Auto Trim Range feature.

The Edit Media’s Options tab
The Segue button with Segue & Set showing

Luckily, we’ve added an easy way for you to set custom segues on the fly without having to use the Edit Media dialog. If you turn off Auto mode by clicking the Auto button to the right of the playlist, when the song reaches the end of the track, it will just wait for you to click the Segue button to start the Next song. While you’re in Administration mode (the default mode, if you have not enabled the “Password protect library” feature that we’ll cover later), hovering over the Segue button will reveal a “Segue & Set” button to the right. This will segue into the next track while also displaying a dialog asking if you want to save the moment you clicked the button as the track’s new end time. This makes it easy to set endings while mixing live, but also quick to set many tracks in a row by using the current song’s ‘Play Ending’ button (or Command-9) and other transport controls.

If after setting a custom segue time with Seg & Set, and you feel it was not right, you can “rewind” the playlist two tracks using the ‘Cue Position’ buttons, and start the same song over, then press Play Ending (or Command-9), and try again. (Command-; and Command-’ are the keyboard shortcuts for Cue Position.)

Back in the Edit window’s Options tab, you can also set the End Time. Simply press the ‘Play’ button to the right, which will start the song near the end of the track. (You can also scan the track using timeline control below.) When you hear the perfect moment where you want MegaSeg to automatically fade out and start the next track, click the ‘Set’ button. This stores the current time you click Set into the End Time field. Click Set as many times as needed to get the perfect time. Once saved, when this song is played in the playlist while in Auto mode, any track that follows this track will start at that exact end point, and this track will fade out behind it.

The “Use native length for End Time” checkbox is useful when you may be swapping out sound files behind MegaSeg’s back that have different lengths. For example, if you are running a radio station, you may have imported some generic news programs that change daily, but with different durations. If you check this option, you won’t need to set the End Time when the source file changes.

MegaSeg tracks the location of files that are imported, so if a file is moved or renamed, it will locate that file automatically (via a Mac Alias.) However, if you replace a file with one of the same name and location, MegaSeg will notice this and use that file instead, abandoning the alias link to the original imported file.

Continuing with the Edit’s Options tab, you can set an Intro countdown timer to display when you start a song, and see how long before the vocals start (aka “the ramp”.) The Intro time setting has no effect on the playback at all. It’s simply a visual countdown as you are talking over the intro of a song. It’s also used for automatic back-timing of Voice Over tracks (as described later) and displayed in the library and playlists.

Next, the Start Time (Cue-In) is used to trim the beginning of a track. This is handy to remove dead space before the music starts. Use the Play button on the right to preview the track’s current Cue-In, as the preview player below will always start from the beginning of the track. The Set button works the same as the End Time and Intro Time’s Set button, as described before.

The Volume setting allows you to adjust the level of each track in your the library. Since some songs are recorded softer than others, use this help match the levels. (Be careful not to distort by setting it too high.) MegaSeg also has an Automatic Volume Control option under the Setting's Playback tab which will automatically ride the levels of all playing tracks. Because it analyzes the sound level and does adjustments on the fly, it overrides any custom volume levels set in the Edit Media window. There’s also an alternative Sound Check option which uses pre-analyzed iTunes volume data.

The Pitch setting allows you to change the speed of playback for this track. This will change the song’s default playback speed. However, this can be changed on the fly in the Mixer (discussed later in the guide.)

The BPM (Beats Per Minute) indicates the native tempo of the song, and will be displayed when you sort by BPM in the library (or the 2 and 3-line display modes.) BPM info is helpful for beat matching songs, but also useful for determining the mood of a song when building general auto-segued playlists. To set the BPM, start the song using the Play button near the bottom of the Edit window, then click the Set button next to the BPM field. A window will pop up asking you to tap the Spacebar 16 times to the beat of the music (use the T key for a longer tap count.) If you get off beat, just click Reset (or press R) to start over. The BPM Tapper will calculate the BPM based on your best taps.

You must have the Pitch set to 100% when using the BPM Tapper from the Edit Media window to get a correct reading. (This is not necessary when using the Tap BPM buttons in the Mixer.)

The Ending Type option will display a reminder for how the track ends (e.g. a fade or cold ending.) A fade means the music keeps playing while the sound slowly gets softer and softer, while a cold ending means the track ends abruptly with a musical sting. Sustain is similar to cold, but where the song ends on a single note held out gracefully. This setting has no effect on playback, and is simply a label for your reference. It is displayed as a single letter (F, C, or S) at the end of the time, and also in the pop-up info boxes.

The Segue Options allow you to create special tracks that automatically play over other songs. For example if you have a pre-recorded voice over (ID or announcement) you want to play over the intro of a song, you can click the “Voice-Over (play over next track)” checkbox. This does two things. First, it sets the End Time to “Auto”, meaning as soon as this track starts, it will start the following track at the appropriate time based on its set intro time (i.e. “Intro Back-timing”.) Next it enables the Segue Fade-Override checkbox which allows this track to continue playing after starting the next track in the playlist without fading out. Enabling the Segue Fade-Override option by itself will prevent the track from fading when it reaches the End Time, and the next song in the playlist starts, which may be useful for certain situations.

It is not necessary to use the Segue Fade-Override setting to keep a song that ends with a cold ending from fading out prematurely. Simply set the End time for the song at the exact moment the song ends (the sting.) MegaSeg does not start fading the track until after the End time is reached, so it won’t effect the cold ending.

Under the History & Dates tab, there are fields for Play Count, Last Played date, Show History charts, and Restrict Daypart and Play Dates options. The Play Count and Last Played date can be edited or cleared, but the Show History option will scan the Logs folder for all dates and times the track has played, and display a chart. If you wish to clear the History, you can trash or archive the Log files inside the MegaSeg data folder (located in your Music folder.) The Show History and Log features are further discussed in later sections of this guide.

MegaSeg will automatically archive Logs older than 6 months into an “Archived Logs” folder within the Logs folder of the MegaSeg data folder (~/Music/MegaSeg/Logs/Archived Logs/)

Restrict Play Dates is a feature that allows you to prevent a track from playing out of a certain range of dates. Similar, Restrict Dayparts limits playback to certain times of day. If the track is added to the playlist when outside the restricted range, it will be removed automatically before it gets to the Next position, and will alert you of the restriction.

Under the Additional tab are fields useful for logging, and some display in the pop-up info boxes when mousing over a track. The Related Artist field also works with the Rules feature to prevent related artists from playing to close together. Since members of groups may also have solo projects, this field allows you to keep them from breaking the artist separation rule. For example, if editing a song by John Lennon, you would enter “Beatles” in the Related Artist field to keep the solo track from playing too close to another Beatles track, or any other track that has Beatles set as the Related Artist, for instance a Paul McCartney or Wings song.

The Notes field is also note worthy, as it can be searched via the Search Notes command in the File menu, and displays in the info pop-ups when mousing over a track.

Under the File tab is technical info about the media file itself, including size, data rate, sample rate, and the file’s location on the drive. The Show File button reveals the file in the Finder, while the Browse button allows you to set a new target file for this track in the library.

The “Rename file when saved” checkbox is a global setting that renames the the track to match the Title and Artist fields when saved. Click “Use Format” to select how you want the files renamed. The format setting also affects how MegaSeg determines the Title and Artist fields from files imported without proper metadata. (For example, if the filename includes both title and artist separated by a dash, which to expect first.)

Once everything is set, click Save (or press Return) and the changes will be saved to both the database as well as MegaSeg’s tags. Alternatively, to edit the next song listed in the library or playlist, press the Edit Next button.

Remove Imported Folders and Files

To remove individual tracks from the library, select a track to highlight it and press Command-Delete or Right-Click on a track to bring up a contextual menu. You can also select multiple files to remove at once by Command or Shift clicking multiple tracks, or pressing Command-A to select all tracks in the list.

The dialog will confirm the track or number of tracks selected and ask if you want to continue. Notice the checkbox that allows you to optionally trash files, which unchecked will only remove the track from MegaSeg’s library, and leave the related file on your hard drive, where it could be re-imported later (or still in use by iTunes.) You can trash files without having to use the checkbox by pressing Option-Command-Delete.

If you use the checkbox to trash a file via the Remove File dialog and then empty the trash, if that file was imported from iTunes, it will no longer be available for iTunes to play.

Besides using multi-select to remove multiple files, MegaSeg has a command to remove entire folders at once. Select the File → Remove Folders command and it will display a lists of drive volumes you’ve imported from. Use the disclosure triangle next to each drive transverse the folders that have been imported within that volume. You can remove entire volumes at once, or a specific folder deep inside the drive. Once you found your target, select the folder or file and press the Delete key. If you want to remove everything from your library, simply select each volume one-by-one and press Delete. This has no effect on the files at all, as it simply forgets the files were imported.

While we’re on the topic of removing media, there’s a command that can help weed out missing files in your library. Select File → Library Tools → Scan for Missing Files and it will check each track in the library to ensure they can be found. If missing files are encountered, it will display a full report with buttons to Find (or re-link) individually selected tracks (or double-click in the list), as well as Remove or Remove All missing files.

As your library grows in size, it’s inevitable you’ll end up with duplicate tracks. To help conquer this problem, there’s a “Scan for Duplicates” command in the File menu under Library Tools. This has several options to narrow down the results. (The “Fuzzy” options finds near matches.) Use the preview feature to decide which ones you want to remove. The keyboard shortcuts come in handy here, for example Command-U for preview and Command-Delete to trash a file.

The Library’s search field
The Library’s search field

Searching the Library

To search the library, click the magnifying glass icon on the upper right corner of the Library list view, or select the Find command in the File menu (Command-F). The search results will appear as you type. Click the ‘X’ button to clear the search results and return to the category display. The search engine is designed to return “fuzzy” results, which means you don't need to type in every word exactly. If someone makes a request and doesn't know the exact title, the search will most likely find the song. For example, say you want to find the Billy Joel song, "We didn't start the fire". You could type in ‘start fire’, or partial artist and title info, for example, ‘joel fire’, or ‘billy fire start’.

The search is not case sensitive, and filters out most punctuation. It also performs a word-by-word search, so ’Mister Mr.’ will match Mr. Mister or MR Mister. Add quotation marks around the search to find an exact phrase or words in order.

Finally, the library and playlist support type-to-select, where it auto-selects a track that starts with what you type while the list is selected. Click on the list you want to find a track in, then start to type and the list will jump to the track that starts with what you’ve typed, depending on your sort order (Title, Artist, Album, BPM, etc.)

In the Playlist, type-to-select will match any field that starts with what you type, where as type-to-select in the Library will target the sorted field.

Building Playlists

With tracks now in your library, let’s build a playlist. The fastest way to add tracks to the playlist is to double-click them from the library. Tracks quickly jump over to the playlist cued up and ready to go. To insert a track into the “Next” position of the playlist, double-click while holding down the Option key. Double-clicking a track in the playlist also promotes it to the top. To remove a song from the playlist, select it and press the Delete key, or drag the track back into the library. You can also drag-n-drop to insert or reorder tracks.

Add every track from the current library view into the playlist by clicking the Add All button that is between the library and playlist, and visible when moused over (or use Command-A to select all tracks and then drag-n-drop.)
The “Add All” button
The “Add All” button

When you add a song to the playlist, a vertical bar appears along the left side of the track in the library to mark the track has been added to the playlist. If you remove a song from the playlist (and it doesn’t appear multiple times) the bar will disappear. Clearing the list with the Playlist → Clear menu (or Command-K) will clear all markers.

Double-click a track to add it to the playlist
Double-click a track to add it to the playlist

When a song plays, the marker changes red to remind you which songs have already played. It will stay red until your next session, or until you select the Playlist → Clear Red Play Marks menu command.

To shuffle your playlist, click the Random button to the right, or Playlist → Randomize menu (Command-R.) This can also be useful to mix multiple categories. (For example, display your “Punk Rock” category in the library, click Add All, then display the “Country” category, click Add All, and randomize the playlist. You now have an incredible mix of punk and country songs to enjoy! Alright, maybe not the best example mix...)

Some additional commands in the Playlist menu include a Sort By sub-menu with various options to sort the current playlist, a Duplicate Track command for selected tracks in the playlist (Command-D), a Remove Duplicates command which removes all but the first occurrence of each track, and an Insert Break command that inserts a “Break: Wait For Segue” track into the playlist at the selected track position (or the top or bottom of the playlist.) When in Auto mode, Break Tracks will pause the playlist and wait for you to click Segue to resume. (The Break button below the playlist always inserts the break track in the Next position.)

Click the Playlist text label above the current playlist cue to view the playlist sort menu.

A handy feature to build playlists is the Playlist → Add 5 Random menu item (Command-5), which adds 5 tracks randomly selected tracks from the current library or category list. An integrated “no repeat filter” prevents repeating recent tracks. You must have at least six tracks displayed in the library view for this command to function.

To clear the playlist, click the Clear button to the right of the playlist, or select Playlist → Clear Playlist from the menu (Command-K.)

MegaSeg automatically saves the playlist when you quit, and restores when you restart.

You may have noticed by now, when a song or track starts to play in MegaSeg, the playlist advances forward removing the track from the top of the playlist. Actually, the playlist “cue position” has simply moved. The playlist only shows the next cued track forward. Use the Cue Position arrows below the playlist to “rewind or fast forward” the playlist. This allows you to quickly restart tracks already played, or play tracks out of sequence without changing the playlist order, or repeat a track without inserting it into the playlist multiple times. The keyboard shortcuts for Cue Position are Command-; (semicolon) and Command-’ (apostrophe.)

Playlist control buttons
Playlist control buttons

The Break button next to the Cue Position arrows will insert a Break: Wait For Segue track into the top of the playlist, as described above, and the Skip To button is used to jump the playlist to the selected track in the playlist.

Keyboard Shortcuts

MegaSeg is very keyboard control savvy. For example, the playlist can be built entirely using the keyboard. To insert a song anywhere in the playlist without using drag-n-drop, first press the right arrow to select the playlist. Then the up and down arrows to select the position you want to insert into. Next press the left arrow to select the Library, and the track you want to insert. Now press Option-Right Arrow, and the track will insert in the playlist.

To add to the bottom of the playlist, press Command-Right Arrow. To remove the selected playlist song, press Command-Left Arrow. The Home, End, Page Up, Page Down keys also affect the selected list.

To move a track in the playlist, press Command-Up/Down Arrow. Either of these keys can be held down to speed up the movement. To quickly move a track out of the way, press Option-Down Arrow, and it will jump to the bottom of the playlist. Option-Up Arrow moves the track to the top “Next” position.

The following is a list of common keyboard shortcuts. Select the Help → Keyboard Shortcuts menu to see the expanded list.

Previewing Tracks

The mini preview player
The mini preview player

At any time, you can preview a track by selecting it and pressing the Preview button to the left of the playlist (Command-U.) Playback controls will appear on the bottom left of the MegaSeg screen. When preview is on, you can click any other track and it will instantly switch to preview the selected track. To prevent this from happening, press the ”Lock” checkbox above the title in the preview player.

MegaSeg supports multiple outputs when previewing a track, so you can preview in your headphones without disrupting the music playing in the playlist. When using multiple outputs, you can force the preview to play on the main sound output by holding down the Option key when selecting preview (or Command-Option-U.) Read the 🔖Multiple Sound Outputs section for more info.

The Request List

MegaSeg has a useful feature to note requests from any list using the Note button (or Command-N.) A dialog appears with the option to add a reminder message to display when the song is cued up in the Next position of the playlist. Once you have noted some requests, press the Requests button to display and add them to your playlist. Songs are automatically removed from the Request List when you add them to your playlist.

Your list of “noted” requests
Your list of “noted” requests

Starting the Playlist

With tracks cued up in the playlist, click the Segue button at the bottom of the screen, or from the menu select Playlist → Start Playlist (Command-G.) The first track in the list will move into the top player and start counting down the time. You can toggle start and stop using Command-G. However there are also two shortcuts to control start and stop exclusively; Command-[ to start and Command-] to stop the playlist. These are handy for mapping buttons on programmable wireless remotes.

Stop Playlist and Segue buttons
Stop Playlist and Segue buttons
MegaSeg is compatible with many wireless remotes and MIDI controllers. (See the 🔖MIDI chapter for more details, and our controllers page at megaseg.com/controllers for example options.)
Playback options tab
Playback options tab

MegaSeg defaults to Auto mode, indicated by a highlighted “Auto” button on the right side of the main screen. In this mode it automatically segues to the next song. The default fade out time is 3 seconds, and the next track starts at full volume. You can change both of these options under the Playback tab in Settings (Command-T.) The “Fade out speed” setting does not affect the next song’s start time, as the fade begins at the track’s set end time. (See 🔖Editing a Track for details about Auto Trim Range and segue times.) While it’s best to keep the “Fade in speed” set to the default of 0 seconds, there may be occasions where you want a more dramatic effect. However this can also be accomplished with the Mixer discussed later in this guide.

Next there’s an option for Automatic Volume Control. This feature will act as a real-time volume leveler for each song played. If a part of the song is soft, it raises the levels to increases the average volume, and helps keep it consistent across your entire library. The Use Sound Check checkbox is similar, except it uses the iTunes “Sound Check” method, which scans each media file to determine a fixed volume setting relative to all other tracks in the iTunes library.

Some sound devices have limited headroom and may distort easily. To compensate, simply reduce the Main volume slider slightly (on the bottom-right corner) to allow for additional headroom.

Back in MegaSeg’s main screen, you can manually segue to a new song at any time by pressing the Segue button (Playlist → Segue Now, or Command-/, or Command-Space.) This will instantly start the next song and fade the current song. Sometimes it’s desirable to fade the current song a little, before starting the next one. You can do this by using the Start/Stop Playlist button (or Command-G) to stop for one second, then start it again quickly for the desired effect.

The Segue button works with both Auto mode on or off (i.e. manual mode.) When Auto is turned off, MegaSeg waits for you to press the Segue button at the end of a song. (The Stop Playlist button will force fade the current song and wait.)

When in Administration Mode, the Segue button has an added Seg & Set button (visible to the right of the Segue button when hovered over), which allows you to set the track’s end time on-the-fly. This makes it easy to set your segue times interactively while you listen to how the segue sounds.

Looping the Playlist

Loop toggle button

You can loop the playlist by toggling the Loop button below the playlist. Optionally you can save a playlist you want to loop, and create an event that will reload the playlist when the current one ends (or use the Scheduler to set the playlist to reload itself.) This is useful to remove any changes that may have occurred to the playlist (e.g. with Events and Rules), and make sure the looped playlist is restored fresh.

If you are using the Events, Scheduler, or Rules features, it’s recommended you use an event to reload a playlist using the "When Playlist Ends" trigger, or the Scheduler’s “Loop Playlist Schedule” option to create the loop. This ensures the playlist queue is cleared of any build-up or modifications (e.g. Insert Track or Category events.)

Opening and Saving Playlists

Your current playlist cue can be saved using the Save button to the right of the playlist display. Click Save, and a dialog appears asking for a playlist name, where you want to save the playlist, and a list of other playlists in that location. The “Where” pop-up menu lets you select “MegaSeg Playlists” (the default) which saves it as a file in MegaSeg’s Playlists folder (~/Music/MegaSeg/Playlists/), or “iTunes Playlists” which opens iTunes and saves it there.

MegaSeg’s native playlist format is compatible with iTunes, so you can import a playlist file into any application that supports the iTunes playlist format.
The Save Playlist dialog
The Save Playlist dialog

At the bottom of the Save Playlist dialog, there is an “Include tracks already played” checkbox that tells MegaSeg to save all tracks in the playlist along with tracks already played (and no longer in the playlist because they are past the cue position.) Otherwise with this unchecked, it only saves the next track forward.

To open a saved playlist, click the Playlists button on the left side of the screen. In the playlist browser that appears, there are two sections listing your MegaSeg and iTunes playlists. Single click any playlist to see a preview to the right, or double-click to open that playlist into the current playlist cue.

The Playlists browser
The Playlists browser

You can drag-n-drop individual tracks from the playlist viewer into your current playlist or decks, and preview any selected track by pressing Command-U or click the Preview button on the left side of the screen.

Below are buttons for Open, Prefix, Req (to open in the Requests List), and minus (-) button to delete a playlist (or use the Delete key if not visible due to the width of the window.) Click Open to replace your playlist queue with the selected playlist in the browser. If you wish to add the selected playlist to the current playlist without clearing it, click the Prefix button, or the Add All button (between the two lists), to append. The Req button loads the playlist into your Requests List. The minus (-) button deletes the selected MegaSeg playlist file, however you can not delete Apple’s iTunes playlists; Instead do that within iTunes.

When opening a playlist, any media not already in the library will be imported automatically. If tracks can’t be found to import, or have since been deleted from the library, MegaSeg will show a warning symbol (⚠) you can click to view a report.

Sound Effect Hot Keys

The Hot Keys window showing keys assigned to various sound effects
The Hot Keys window showing keys assigned to various sound effects

The Hot Keys window allows you to quickly play any track. To show the Hot Keys window, press the Hot Keys button on the left, or select Hot Keys in the Playback menu (Command-Y.)

You can drag tracks from the library or playlist into the Hot Key’s Sound Effects category, or any displayed category you’ve selected from the ‘Show’ popup menu. This will add the tracks to that category (in addition to the already assigned categories for that track.) If you want MegaSeg to replace the category of a track, you can hold the Option key while you drop it in. To remove a track from the list, select it and press the Delete key.

There are various ways to play tracks. First, when the Enable Hot Keys checkbox is not checked, you can type the first few characters of a track’s title and it will jump to select the closest matching item. The press the Return key to start and stop the playback. If you change selections while a track is playing, pressing Return will instantly switch to that track. Double-clicking a track will also start or stop playback.

With the Enable Hot Keys option checked, pressing any key that has been assigned to a track will start that track instantly. To assign a key, select a track and press Set Key. You can also start a track by its hot key with the Hot Keys window closed or Enable Hot Keys unchecked by holding down the Tilde (~) key while pressing the track’s hot key. (The Tilde key is located in the upper left corner of your keyboard next to the 1 key.)

Advanced Playlist Features

MegaSeg has many advanced features for building automatically generated playlists, enforcing artist separations, programming automation events, displaying track analytics, and custom logging. The combination of the Events, Scheduler, Rules, and Log tabs in the Settings allows you to create truly powerful automation solutions.

Using these features you can program song rotations and have playlists load when certain events occur. For example, automatically insert jingles or voice IDs into a playlist every 15 minutes. Radio stations can setup category rotations for playing certain songs more than others, scheduling commercial breaks, or other scheduled programming. Restaurants and bars can use it to start playlists at exact times to set the mood throughout the day, and adjust the volume. Mobile and club DJs can use it to generate playlists based on their customized categories to help create a more varied mix.

These features are outlined in the following sections.

The Events tab showing a list of event actions and triggers
The Events tab showing a list of event actions and triggers

Playlist Events

Select the Events tab in the Settings window, or optionally select Events from the Playlist menu (Shift-Command-T.) Here it allows you to set an action to occur at a particular time, date, day of week, or other trigger event. Some examples include loading a playlist at startup, inserting a track every 30 minutes, inserting a random track from a specific category every 5 segues, and adjusting the volume at specific times.

Press the New Event button to show the available event actions. The “Open Playlist or Schedule” option allows you to select a playlist to replace the current playlist cue. The “Insert Playlist or Schedule” option preserves the current cue while inserting a selected playlist into the top of the current cue. This is useful for inserting commercial breaks (stopsets) for example, among many other possibilities.

The various event types under ‘New Event’
The various event types under ‘New Event’

Using the “Insert Track” option you can select a specific track to insert into the top of the playlist. The “Insert URL” option allows you to specify a live streaming URL, a podcast RSS feed, or download a file from a web or FTP server to insert. For URLs that are downloaded, there are additional options for absolute-time based events to have the file pre-downloaded a number of minutes ahead to ensure a timely start. For live streams, they will pre-buffer before starting the crossfade. If a stream fails or drops in the middle, MegaSeg will automatically start the next track in the playlist cue while trying to re-establish the connection. If the connection can be re-established it will resume and seamlessly crossfade back into the stream. Otherwise if it fails after several attempts, it will continue with the playlist cue. Because live streams have an infinite duration, you can stop the stream and resume the playlist using another Insert event (i.e. Insert Track, Category, or Playlist) with the Interrupt option set. For example, use Insert Track with Interrupt to play a station ID or promo to end a stream and it will play the track and resume the playlist queue.

Live stream URLs can be formatted with either the http:// or icy:// protocol prefixes, as long as a port is specified (e.g. domain.com:port) Otherwise, if no port is specified, you must use the icy:// protocol prefix to clarify it is not a website download URL.

The “Insert Category” option will pick a random track from the selected category to play, and useful for rotating many tracks as one. For example, if you have variations of voice overs that introduce golden oldies, you could put them all into a category called “VO-Oldies”, and use an event to insert that category before all older songs.

MegaSeg pre-shuffles the tracks in each category and plays them in sequence before reshuffling to create an even rotation. This is better than simply picking tracks at random each time the category is called for. You can control how frequently MegaSeg reshuffles each category using the Category Settings dialog in the Scheduler, detailed in the next section.

The “Insert Break” option will insert a “Break: Wait For Segue” track which in Auto mode, will cause it to stop the playlist and wait for you to click Segue to continue. The “Serial Trigger” version sends a custom USB-to-serial signal to activate a relay switch or other external device. This can be used to toggle a satellite feed or an external automation system while pausing the playlist and waiting for a return signal from the relay to continue. The default preset is designed to work with the SRC-4 box from Broadcast Tools (www.broadcasttools.com). More details and examples are available on our FAQ at megaseg.com/faq#satellite.

“Adjust Master Volume” can be used to change the volume level of MegaSeg via the master volume on the lower right corner of the screen.

“Mic Play-Thru On/Off” toggles the Mic button on the lower right corner of the main screen, which will lower the volume to the set attenuation under the Playback tab in Settings, as well as pass the audio from the set input in MegaSeg’s Devices tab within the settings window to the selected output device.

“Net Logging On/Off” allows you to toggle if MegaSeg should submit the current track info to a server as set in the Preference’s Log tab.

“Rules On/Off” toggles the global Rules setting as defined in the Preference’s Rules tab. This mode is also shown on the main window to the right of the playlist cue.

“Start Ambient Playlist” will load and start the selected playlist in the Ambient Video Playlist cue, which is covered later in this guide.

“Import Files” allows you to select either a folder, the iTunes library, or iTunes media folder to scan for new files to import, and optionally assign a category upon importing.

“Switch Event List” gives you added power and flexibility by allowing the entire Event List to be swapped out at any time. For example, if you have a particular set of events that you run during the week, you may want a different set of events to run on the weekend. You can accomplish this by creating an event that swaps events at 12:00 AM Saturday, then add another event in the weekend event list that resumes the weekday events at 12:00 AM Monday.

After selecting one of these options, and any optional settings that may pertain to that event type, the following dialog will specify the trigger conditions...

Set time, day or date for an event
Set time, day or date for an event
The event trigger dialog
The event trigger dialog

Now we’re ready to choose the “Time of Event”, or what actually triggers the event. The Time or Date option allows you to set a specific daily time, or time and days of the week, or time a specific date the event will fire. Click the Set button to assist in selecting the proper format, but you can manually type this in the field once you’re familiar. Notice in the Select Time/Date dialog that appears, if all days are selected, only the time will be inserted in the Time or Date text field.

Back in the Add Event dialog, the next few options are self explanatory, such as MM:SS (minutes:seconds) past every hour, Every X minutes, Every X tracks played, When current playlist ends, and At MegaSeg startup.

The “Before category” option can be toggled to “After category” by clicking the text. This trigger can be used to create an event that inserts a track before or after another track of a specific category. For example, if you want a voice track to play before all songs in your Oldies category, you would have previously selected the Insert Track or Insert Category event types, selected the voice track or category, and then in this dialog click to toggle it to Before Category (if not already shown), then click Set and choose the “Oldies” category.

Next there’s an option to “Interrupt Current Track or Break”, which is only valid if there is a track playing or break track in the current deck when the event triggers and the event action involves modifying the playlist. When unchecked, MegaSeg always lets the current track finish playing before advancing to the revised playlist. If a Break Track has stopped the playlist, then the Interrupt option will force it to restart with this event.

The “Prioritize Over Following Events” checkbox will add a flag to the event that prevents any conflicting events from overtaking it, such as forcing an “Insert Track” event to stay in the next position, while another non-prioritized “Insert Track” event is inserted below, or prevents another “Open Playlist” event from removing the prioritized event from the queue when loading a new playlist.

The “Block Other Events While Playing” option is similar to ‘Priority’ but instead of other triggered events inserting below the Priority tracks, the events are completely blocked from firing at all, as if all events are turned off while the Block tracks are playing.

Finally, the “Resume Track After Interrupt” is an option paired with the ‘Interrupt’ option that will resume the track that was previously interrupted by this event when finished.

The option settings can be changed after adding an event to the list by clicking within the Option column of each event, which brings up a popup menu with the options: Interrupt, 🚩Priority, 🚫Block, and ⏮️Resume. Some options may be disabled if not relevant to the current event type..

Once an event has been added to the event list, make sure the events are enabled by clicking the Playlist Events On checkbox. The “Toggle with Playlist Start-Stop button” checkbox will enable or disable all events depending on the current playlist start/stop mode. You can also toggle the events on and off from the main screen using the toggle switch on the right hand side (below Auto mode.) Also notice each event has its own checkbox you can use to enabled and disable individual events.

All event lists are saved automatically as you edit them, but you can click “Save As” to give this event list a name, which allows you to use the “Switch Event List” event to chain multiple event lists together as described above.

If you would like to delete or otherwise manage your event list files, open the Events folder in the Finder located inside the MegaSeg data folder (~/Music/MegaSeg/Events/.) The Switch Event List event expects the event files to be in this location.
The Scheduler tab generates powerful category-based music rotation playlists
The Scheduler generates playlists using custom category formulas

Playlist Scheduling

Next up in the settings window, press the Scheduler tab. This feature allows you to generate playlists based on your categories. Just drag-n-drop a category from the left into the Playlist Schedule on the right. The category names act as place holders for the tracks that will be scheduled in their position. When you save this Playlist Schedule, it stores it in your playlists folder, and when opened as a playlist, a random song from each category is slotted in (like using the Event’s Insert Category option.) Each category is pre-shuffled based on your Category Settings, and then sequentially pulls the most rested tracks from each category as needed for the playlist, which creates a nice even rotation, and a turnover speed based on how frequently a category is scheduled. As you drag categories into the schedule, MegaSeg does the math for you by displaying the rotation speed for each category in the right column using the average length of all tracks in that particular category, in relation to the ratio of other categories in the list when looped. This is extremely handy to fine-tune your rotations and formulas.

The speed of each category’s rotation for any particular category depends on four things. First, the number of tracks in the category. Second, the average length of the tracks in each category. Third, the total length of the Playlist Schedule (assuming it rotates endlessly.) And fourth, the ratio of each category in the list in relation to others.

The rotation speed is based on looping the current playlist schedule. If you use multiple schedules or events, the rotation time will be different, but you could calculate this based on how many schedules are alternating. (This is easier to determine if all schedules are the same length.)

Here’s an example of a Playlist Schedule using “genre-style” categories:

When this schedule is loaded as a playlist, it will pull a track from each category and put it in the playlist. This makes it incredibly easy to generate playlists with voice IDs and jingles placed between every song for example. Although you can also accomplish that with the Events feature, and keep Playlist Schedules dedicated to music rotation formulas. But for sake of example, here’s a typical radio station’s hour long looped schedule using custom categories for rotation speed with production elements included:

Notice the positions which contain IDs, Jingles, and Sweepers, for example the “Top of Hour ID”, can be either an absolute track dragged into the schedule from the library, or a category that contains multiple ID tracks that rotate. Also notice the commercial break starts with a “Stopset Music” category that could contain various instrumental music beds before each commercial break for a live announcer to talk over.

In this example, categories are created for chart position or popularity of a track. For instance “Heavy” would contain today’s top 5 tracks to play most frequently. By creating these custom rotation categories, you can place the correct amount of songs in each one based on the ratio you schedule each category, and generate a playlist with your desired rotation speeds. For example, a “Heavy” category may rotate every 3 hours, while a “Medium” category that holds more songs rotates every 5 hours, and a “Gold” or oldies category that holds the largest number of tracks and scheduled only once or twice an hour takes several days for a rotation.

Here is a basic outline of a typical “Top 40” radio station’s categories and rotations:

Category Songs Calls/hour Rotation Time
Heavy 5 2 2.5 hours
Medium 10 3 3.3 hours
Light 13 3 4.3 hours
New 12 2 6 hours
Recurrent 120 4 1.3 days
Recurrent 2 250 2 5.2 days
Gold 400 2 8.3 days

Notice the “Calls per Hour” column, which describes how many times that category is inserted into the schedule in relation to other categories. If this schedule was an hour long, and rotated endlessly, with the Number of Songs listed in each category, the Rotation Time column is the resulting rotation speed.

At the bottom left corner of the Scheduler, you can set it to load a different Playlist Schedule file when the current one ends, which in turn could load another playlist file, and so on. This allows you to create many variations of Playlist Schedules, and have them cycle in their own rotation. For example, you could create even and odd hour variations of a hour long playlist. Note when doing this, MegaSeg can not accurately calculate the rotation for the categories, unless each schedule has the same number and ratio of categories.

Even if the tracks in each category is randomized only once and played sequentially, the schedule and varying rotation speeds create a secondary shuffling effect. However, if your rotations are too even (multiple categories cycling around the same time, or evenly divisible of each other), it may create rotation problems.

Consider this example using only two categories, Heavy and Medium, with 5 songs in “Heavy” and 10 songs in “Medium”. If your schedule is setup like this...

...you will frequently hear the same songs next to each other, because with an equal ratio of tracks in the categories, this schedule makes them rotate at the same speed.

In contrast, try:

By dropping one ”Medium” category the two categories are no longer rotating at the same speed. The Medium category now rotates slightly slower, which generates a shift over time causing different songs to be next to each other over a longer duration. (Optionally, you could add or remove a track from one of the categories to create the shift.)

But there’s still a problem with fast-rotating categories; You typically do not want two of the same category next to each other, because if the category rotates fast and it’s not set to reshuffle “Every 1 Rotation” (see Category Settings below), it will frequently play the same two tracks from that category next to each other. (Typically for fast-rotating categories, you’d set them to reshuffle “Once a Day” to prevent uneven rotations due to over-shuffling.) So there are two good ways to deal with fast-rotating situations:

  1. Instead of an even ratio of songs two categories, make it slightly odd and never schedule two of the same categories next to each other. Now the track positions will shift overtime, and avoid the problem of two songs next to each other.
  2. Simply introduce a 3rd or more categories as a buffer to prevent two of the same categories from being next to each other.
Set time, day or date for an event The event trigger dialog
The Category Settings dialogs to control reshuffle triggers and edit rotation order

Next, click the Category Settings button in the Scheduler, and let’s take a look when categories are set to reshuffle. The Reshuffle Times tab shows how frequently and the last date each category was randomized. Select a category in the list and then change the desired shuffling trigger option below. (Typically you’ll want fast-rotation categories to be reshuffle less often, for example “Once a Day”, and slow-rotation categories to be reshuffled “Every 1 Rotation”.)

Click the Rotation Order tab to see the current order of tracks and cue position (highlighted in green) for a category. The cue position is the next track to be scheduled from that category. You can drag-n-drop tracks to reorder them, and change the cue position by clicking the Set Cue button. Manual re-ordering of tracks is useful if you have a category set to Never reshuffle, and you want to manually control the play order. For example, if you want to schedule a series of shows to play in order. Rather than use Events to program each individual show to play, you can create an event to insert the show category, or use the Scheduler to insert the show category within a Playlist Schedule. Then add shows to the category and arrange the order they should play.

Once you have playlist scheduling mastered and running smoothly, you can create a unique mix that takes little effort to maintain over time. Simply move new tracks in and out of your various categories, and make sure to keep the same number of tracks in each category to maintain your desired rotation speed.

Rules for track separations, with options to warn, enforce, or ignore
Rules for track separations, with options to warn, enforce, or ignore

Playlist Rules

Under the Rules tab are options to warn or prevent the same artist, title, or album from playing too close together, as well as prevent tracks from playing in the same hour as the previous day, and limit the maximum male or female vocalists played in a row.

The options below control the outcome of broken rules, as well as exclude categories from being enforced (for example commercials or jingles.) You can have MegaSeg warn you with a red icon in the playlist when a rule is broken, or have it automatically enforce rules. The ‘Move Track Down Playlist’ option moves the track to a position it doesn’t break any rules. If the playlist is not long enough, it will either display a warning, or if the playlist is a looping schedule, extend it automatically to make room. The 'Replace Track With Same Category’ option is the most sophisticated, as it reschedules that position with a new track from the category and reconciles the replaced track for later insertion. This is the recommended mode for radio stations, especially when using the 🔖Scheduler to automatically generate playlists that follow a specific category formula.

For radio stations to meet the DMCA streaming criterion, set the album rule to 60 minutes. This means you will not play more than three songs from the same album in a 3-hour period. Set the album rule to 45 minutes to play no more than four tracks from the same compilation album within a 3-hour period.

Playlist Logging

The Log tab in the settings window has features useful for sending “Now Playing” track info for live stream severs or uploading to a web site. There’s options to send the current track info to SHOUTcast or Icecast servers, or any server via HTTP, FTP, and Telnet, or RDS (aka RBDS) units. When using HTTP you can optionally have MegaSeg send the info to two servers by separating the Sever URL and Username/Password data fields with a comma. This is useful if you encode multiple low and high-bandwidth streams. The preset menu allows you to select default URL formats for the various server types. You can customize the data sent in the URL field you’ve entered to include the metadata variables with the Insert Variable popup menu. First place the cursor in the text field position you want the variable to appear, then select the menu, and it will be pasted into the URL. The FTP mode works by uploading special log files detailed below.

Settings for logging track metadata
Settings for logging track metadata

MegaSeg also updates a few files in the Logs folder (~/Music/MegaSeg/Logs/) each time a song is played. By default, the “Now Playing”, “Recently Played”, and “Coming Up” files are saved in HTML format which you can upload using the FTP mode.

You can optionally customize the various output files with a template and change them to any format you wish (not just HTML.) Comment tags in your template files tells MegaSeg where to insert the song information. For example:

<!--MegaSeg NowPlaying-->

...will insert the title, artist, album (with year), and notes using a preset format.

<!--MegaSeg Title-->

...inserts just the title of the current track.

The complete list of supported tags include:

<!--MegaSeg Title-->
<!--MegaSeg Artist-->
<!--MegaSeg Album-->
<!--MegaSeg BPM-->
<!--MegaSeg Categories-->
<!--MegaSeg Composer-->
<!--MegaSeg HighestChart-->
<!--MegaSeg Lyricist-->
<!--MegaSeg Notes-―>
<!--MegaSeg PlayCount-->
<!--MegaSeg Popularity-->
<!--MegaSeg RecordID-->
<!--MegaSeg Publisher-->
<!--MegaSeg Year-->
<!--MegaSeg Length-->
<!--MegaSeg LengthSeconds-->
<!--MegaSeg Path-->
<!--MegaSeg Filename-->
<!--MegaSeg UniqueID-->
<!--MegaSeg LastPlayDate-->
<!--MegaSeg Artwork-->
<!--MegaSeg ArtworkTrueFalse-->

Based on the extension your template has, the NowPlaying and other output files will change its extension to match. This means you can make a template to output XML, a plain text file, or any format you wish. Here’s an XML template:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<nowplaying>
    <title><![CDATA[<!--MegaSeg Title-->]]></title>
    <artist><![CDATA[<!--MegaSeg Artist-->]]></artist>
    <album><![CDATA[<!--MegaSeg Album-->]]></album>
    <year><![CDATA[<!--MegaSeg Year-->]]></year>
    <artwork><!--MegaSeg ArtworkTrueFalse--></artwork>
</nowplaying>
The template files you create are the source files for the output files and must remain on disk in the selected location. Each time MegaSeg writes the output file, it reads from your template file and replaces the tags with the relevant track info. It’s recommended you keep your template files in the Logs folder for easy reference, and name them something similar to the output file, such as “NowPlayingTemplate”.

Next there are checkboxes to customize the Recently Played and Coming Up output files that are also saved to the Logs folder. This allows tags such as:

<!--MegaSeg Last X-->
<!--MegaSeg Next X-->

...where X is the number of tracks you want displayed. You can also use specific tags:

<!--MegaSeg Title 1-->

...to display the title of the last or next track (depending on the file), or:

<!--MegaSeg Album 6-->

...which displays the album of a track 6 positions away (the direction again depends on the file.) The same tag names are supported from the full Now Playing list above with a space and track number suffixed.

MegaSeg also outputs a NowPlaying.jpg file with the cover art for the current track, which can be referenced and displayed by your HTML for instance. This is also uploaded when using the FTP option as described above.

You can use Javascript in your template to display the current track info on your website and code it to show a logo or other graphic when no artwork is available. Here’s an example script:

<script>
   if ("<!--MegaSeg ArtworkTrueFalse-->" == "true") {
     document.write('<!--MegaSeg Artwork-->\n');
   } else { // Use logo
     document.write('<img src="MyLogo.jpg">\n');
   }
</script>

View Logs and Recently Played

MegaSeg creates a text log file for each day located in the Logs folder inside the MegaSeg data folder (~/Music/MegaSeg/Logs/.) These files log every track that is played, as well as the time and date, along with various track metadata. Tracks in the playlist that are missing from your drive will be skipped and noted in the log, as well as other events such as playlist break tracks, and opening playlists. You can view any log by clicking the “Log” button on the right hand side or Playlist → Log (Command-L) in the menu. A pop-up menu on the Log window shows either ‘Recently Played’ tracks as well as lists recent logs by date you can choose to view, or select ‘Open Range’ to select a specific date range or preset range (e.g. “Last Month”). Choose ‘Open Log' to select a single specific date.

The Log window can display and open old logs as a playlist
The Log window can display and open old logs as a playlist

Clicking the “Save As” button allows you to export the current log view in various formats, such as CSV, TSV, and several services such as BMI, SoundExcange, NPR, or a Custom format of your design. You can print or save a PDF of the selected log using File → Print (Command-P) in the menu.

To prevent unnecessary buildup of log files in the Logs folder, MegaSeg automatically archives logs older than 6 month inside an ‘Archived Logs’ subfolder within the Logs folder. You can optionally delete or archive logs manually. If you delete or remove a log from either the Logs or Archived Logs folders, it can no longer be scanned to build the 🔖Play History charts, or for the Library Tools → Refresh Play Counts command.

Playlist File Formats

MegaSeg’s playlist files are stored in the Playlists folder (~/Music/MegaSeg/Playlists/), and saved in a tab-delimitated text format which can be edited or generated externally. The fields that are used to match a track in the library are Title, Artist, File Path, and Unique ID. MegaSeg only needs to match one of these fields to successfully open a playlist. If a track in a playlist has not already been imported into the library, MegaSeg will automatically do so when the playlist opens if the Path field is supplied. MegaSeg also supports the .m3u playlist format if it includes full path info. In addition, any playlist file can contain a URL link to media files on a web server or a live stream. The URL may appear in the File Path column of the tabbed format, or by itself on its own line.

Administration Password

The Admin Password dialog

You can password protect the library and settings by selecting the option in the Advanced tab under MegaSeg’s Settings. When enabled, any time you select a command such as Edit, Import, or Settings, the password dialog will appear. To exit the mode, select ‘Administration Mode’ from the File menu.

Mic On/Off Button

The Mic play-thru toggle

MegaSeg’s Mic On/Off button toggles the mic input play-thru to the selected output device in the Devices tab within the settings. It also ducks (attenuates) the audio level for a talk over. The level can be set in the Playback tab in the Settings window (Command-T.)

Multiple Sound Outputs

MegaSeg supports playback from multiple sound devices, such as the USB-based audio interfaces or a MIDI controller with built-in audio, for previewing and cueing tracks. There are two modes when using multiple sound outputs with MegaSeg. In the standard mode, one output is dedicated to the program output, and the other is dedicated as your cue or preview output. The preview/cue output is where the music will play when selecting the headphone button in the Mixer or the Preview button on the left side of the library.

The headphone buttons in the Mixer are not visible while using Discrete Output Mode because that mode uses your external mixer’s dedicated audio channels for cueing and previewing tracks.

The Mixer’s headphone buttons toggles the output of either deck track between the main “Playlist” output and the “cue/preview” output channel. One benefit of using the standard mode is only one audio output is needed to crossfade between tracks. You don’t need an external mixer – just plug right into your amp or powered speakers. A second output device or channel can then be dedicated to your headphones for preview and cueing, so MegaSeg can fully serve as your virtual mixer in standard mode.

The Devices tab with various I/O settings
The Devices tab with various I/O settings

To beat mix between songs you may want to use an external mixer or controller for a tactile feel of a physical crossfader and dedicated cueing. You may find the Discrete Output Mode works best for you, which changes the playlist and preview output options to Left Deck and Right Deck outputs, similar to using two CD players or turntables, and thus requires an external mixer to sum the outputs together. This also removes the headphone cue buttons from the Mixer, and each deck is assigned exclusively to an output on an external mixer. In this mode, you plug your headphones into the mixer and use it’s cue feature to listen to either deck’s output, just as you would with traditional analog gear.

While in Discrete Output Mode, MegaSeg’s on screen crossfader will still function, but defaults to the center, so both decks output to your external mixer.

You can beat mix in the standard mode, but there may be buffer delays between sound output devices when toggling preview to switch channels, and cause the track to get slightly off sync. Some audio devices may have a buffer setting to minimize this effect.

You can also practice beat mixing without a second output by selecting the same output for both the playlist and cue/preview and MegaSeg will split the audio so the cue is in the left channel and the playlist is in the right. This is good to do when first learning the Mixer controls, which we’ll get into next.

The Mixer view features dual-decks, a crossfader, and the interactive wave viewer
The Mixer view features dual-decks, a crossfader, and the interactive wave viewer

The Mixer and Decks

The Mixer view allows you to fully control the mix with familiar deck controls as well as an advanced Wave Viewer for visual beat mixing. You can set precise memory cue points, adjust pitch, volume, EQ, enable pitch-lock (aka key lock or master tempo), set in and out loop points, and perform manual or automatic crossfades.

The following chart outlines each button, knob, or slider’s function:

Below the Deck’s track information
Stop (⏹️) Stops the playback and returns to the last set cue position.
Pause (⏸️) Pauses the playback at the current position, and sets a new cue position.
Play () Plays the track from the current set cue position.
Rewind () Rewinds the current position 2 seconds.
Cue fine-tune (◀) Move the cue position back 0.01 seconds.
Cue fine-tune (▶) Move the cue position forward 0.01 seconds.
Fast-Forward () Skips ahead the current position 2 seconds.
Memory Position (Mem) Click to toggle between three memory position modes: (A) “Mem” recall mode, (B) “Set” mode, and (C) “Del” delete mode. In recall mode, any enabled button to the right you push will move the cue position to that pre-saved position (if any) for this particular track. In set mode, pressing a plus (+) button will store the current playback position into that button for this track. In delete mode, clicking the corresponding minus (-) symbol will clear the previously set memory position for this track.
Loop Mode (Loop) Each click of the Loop button will toggle the loop mode from “Loop” to “Out” to “Exit”. When the button is marked “Loop”, clicking will set the in-point (start) of the loop. Clicking when it says “Out” will mark the out-point (end) of the loop, and the loop will then be active and looping. Clicking when it says “Exit” will exit the loop, and restore normal playback. While a track is looping, you can click and drag from the edges of the loop waveform to adjust the in and out points visually.
Tap BPM (🫳) Click to the beat of the music to set a BPM value for the track. The BPM is displayed above the ‘hand tap’ button. The BPM value is also adjusted based on the current pitch/tempo setting.
Search BPM (🔍) Click to search for tracks that have similar BPM values to this track.
Match BPM (=) Press to adjust the opposite deck’s speed/pitch to match this deck’s BPM value.
Key Lock (🔒) When enabled the pitch/speed does not affect the pitch or key of the music.
Pitch Reset (᮰) Resets the pitch slider/tempo to 0%. One click causes a smooth return, double-click jumps to 0% instantly.
Pitch Bump (+) Press and hold to cause a temporary increase in pitch/tempo (+2%)
Pitch Up Fine (⏶) Click to fine-tune adjust the pitch/tempo up 0.01%
Pitch Dip (–) Press and hold to cause a temporary decrease in pitch/tempo (-2%)
Pitch Down Fine (⏷) Click to fine-tune adjust the pitch/tempo down 0.01%
Pitch +/- 12% (▶) Drag the left side arrow to fine-tune adjust the pitch/tempo +/- 12% range. This range will pivot from the current coarse adjustment (see below.) For example, if the coarse pitch/tempo is set to -50%, this fine-tune adjustment will range between -62% to -38%.
Pitch +/- 100% (◀) Drag the right-side arrow to coarse adjust the pitch/tempo +/- 100% range.
In the center Mixer area
Cue/Preview (🎧) Toggle each deck’s playback to your designated “Preview Output” device and channel (see 🔖Sound Outputs), as well as start playback if not already playing on the cue output.
Gain slider (🎚️) Adjust the volume of the track from normal volume (center position) to +300% (top position) down to 0% (bottom position).
Treble, Mid, Bass (🎛️) Click and drag up/down to boost or cut the Hi/Mid/Low frequencies. Each knob can cut as much as 6x and boost as much as 2x. Double-click a knob to reset it to flat.
Crossfader (—▮—) Adjust the volume between the Left and Right decks.
Auto fade buttons
Auto Mix Buttons
Automatic fades types (from left-to-right): Slam-fade, Crossfade, Fade-in/Cut, Slam-cut. In every case, if the next track is not already playing, it will be auto started. The “Slam-fade” option is the default mode when using the Advance (aka Segue) buttons, unless you have specifically set a global fade-in time longer than the default 0.0 seconds. The Fade-in/Cut option operations in two parts. Click it once and it fades in the next track and waits when both equal volume (crossfader is in the center), then click it a second time to do a sharp cut of the previous track. The Slam-cut is an instant cut into the next track. Each button has a keyboard shortcut of 1, 2, 3, or 4 when a Deck as the keyboard focus.
Advance (▶|) Automatically segue into the next track (start the next track if not already, and crossfade out of the previous track.) This also shifts the track into the current deck, allowing the next deck to load a new track automatically.
Most buttons and sliders have keyboard shortcuts available when a deck has the keyboard focus. Select the Help menu > Keyboard Shortcuts to see a list of mixer and deck shortcuts.

The current time and remaining time displays can be flipped by clicking on the time.

The headphone buttons in the Mixer are not visible while using Discrete Output Mode, because that mode uses your external mixer’s dedicated audio channels for cueing and previewing tracks.

The Mixer can assist in beat matching when the BPM values for the two songs are set. To set the BPM for a track, tap the hand icon below the BPM value until the value stabilizes (typically 8–17 taps). You can use the T key as an alternative to clicking. Once both deck's BPMs are set, press the equals (=) button on either deck to automatically match the BPM and pitch with the opposite deck. You may need to fine-tune the pitch in order to perfect the match. The closer the match, the longer the two songs will hold tempo together. Restart the track multiple times on beat with the other song in order to determine how long it holds tempo, and make adjustments each time until it can hold tempo long enough to mix between them.

The pitch controls are unique in that the left side control is a fine-tune +/- 12%, and the right side is a full scale +/- 100% range, allowing for fine-tuning of pitch across the entire range.

The Wave Viewer above the crossfader can assist in visually syncing beats. It supports pitch shifting via mouse click-dragging and scroll wheel adjustments. Apple’s trackpads on MacBooks and the wireless Magic Trackpad offer two-finger scrolling, and Apple’s Magic Mouse offers one-finger scrolling. Simply scroll while the mouse is over one side of the Wave Viewer and it temporarily adjusts the speed. This is good for small tweaks or extreme spin-up or break effects. For beat syncing, it’s better to use the click-drag method, as you can let go of the mouse at the precise time you see the beats sync, and it snaps back to the pre-drag tempo. You can also use this as an optional fast-forward or rewind depending on how far you drag up or down. When the deck is stopped or paused, the Wave Viewer can be used to cue a track like analog tape or vinyl using the scrolling technique.

If you use trackpad scrolling in the Wave Viewer, most trackpads offer an acceleration effect that gives the Wave Viewer inertia or momentum, like spinning up a vinyl record and it coming to rest. If your trackpad has this as an option, we recommend enabling it for MegaSeg. You may also try increasing the Scrolling Speed for more control.

It takes practice to beatmix, but to help you get comfortable, start by mixing a song into itself. This eliminates the need to worry about matching tempos, and instead focus on cueing and track syncing. Start by putting a song in the playlist multiple times, press Segue, and bring up the Mixer. Now press the headphone button, which if using only one output, will split the audio of the two decks in your speakers. Now experiment with the cueing and playback controls, without adjusting the pitch. Try to start the track on beat to itself (the same song playing in the current deck.) If it’s not perfect, that is OK, because you can shift the track slowly while playing using the pitch bend buttons (+) and (-), or using click-drag in the Wave Viewer. You will notice the drums start to sync with an echo that gets shorter and shorter until a phasing effect happens. Once the tracks are in sync, let go of the mouse button and it will stay in sync. Now click preview to exit the cue mode, and experiment with the crossfader between the two decks.

The Wave Viewer (detailed above) allows you to “visually mix” and sync beats by simply clicking and dragging the waveform while it’s playing. The more you drag up or down, the more pitch bend you get. Let go and it snaps back to the set tempo.

Next practice cueing a track to a downbeat. You’ll want to find the perfect start point for the next song, which is normally the down beat of a measure. In preview mode (if not using Discrete Output Mode) press Play, listen for the start beat of a measure, and press Pause. At this point you can fine-tune the cue point. Click and hold the arrow buttons below the Pause button to adjust the cue point. Alternatively you can use two-finger scrolling when hovering over one side of the Wave Viewer to “scrub” the audio in an analog style. When using the arrows, it will enter a digital style “stutter mode” where you hear it play the current cue point over and over while you adjust it. Once satisfied, press Stop to lock it in. Even while the track is stopped, you can press the fine-tune arrows to adjust the cue point. Arguably, the Wave View method is preferable if you have the proper input device (i.e. a jog wheel, scroll wheel, or multi-touch trackpad.) Now press Play (or the Spacebar) to start at that cue point. Pressing Stop (or the Spacebar again) will return to your set cue point. You can also press the Play button (or the P key) multiple times in a row to restart from the cue-point like a sampler, and used to great effect while beat mixing.

An alternative way to set a cue-in point is to use the keyboard memory positions. Press Play, listen for the cue point, press the (M) key at the desired cue point to save it in the memory, then press the (R) key to return to the current saved cue point. You can then use the fine-tune arrows to adjust it, and press (M) again after you fine-tuned the position to store it. Pressing (R) while it plays is an alternative to clicking Play again to instantly restart playback from the memory position.

Now let’s work on beat matching two different songs together. Make sure the two songs have BPMs set, and start the first one in the playlist. Then in the deck, press the equals button (=), and MegaSeg will change the pitch of the song to match the tempo of the opposite deck’s. Next, preview and press Play (Spacebar) on the mixer when you hear the down beat in the song. If you were a bit late to start, try again by restarting the track, or press and hold down the plus (+) button until you hear the beats sync. Alternatively you can use the Wave Viewer and simply drag the wave up or down to sync the beats. Notice if the Next song starts to drift off beat. At first it may be hard to tell if it’s falling behind or ahead. Experiment with holding down either the (-) or (+) buttons until it gets in sync again, or use two-finger trackpad scrolling while hovering over the Wave Viewer. Once you determine if it’s slow or fast, make a small adjustment to the pitch, and try to sync again. Once you feel it holds tempo long enough, you’re ready to exit preview and crossfade to perform the mix.

The (+) and (-) buttons temporarily slow down or speed up the Next song while they are held down. You can increase the effect from +/- 2% to +/- 4% by holding down the Shift key, or decrease the effect to +/- 1% with the Control key. If you click the button quickly multiple times, and then click and hold, you can increase the limit as well. Also note while the deck is selected, the Up and Down Arrows control tempo shifting, and the Left and Right Arrows control the base tempo.
The deck’s transport, memory cue, loop, BPM, and pitch options
The deck’s transport, memory cue, loop, BPM, and pitch options

The Mixer’s crossfader has buttons below that start auto-crossfades. The duration of the auto-crossfades is determined by the fade-out speed on the Playback tab in Settings. The buttons from left to right are Slam-Fade, Crossfade, Fade-Cut, and Slam, with keyboard shortcuts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

The Slam-Fade (1) is the most common way to start a new song. It will start the Next song full volume and start fading the current song out smoothly. This is the same as clicking the Segue button with a fade-in speed set to the default of 0 seconds.

The Crossfade (2) will fade in the next track and then fade out the current track. It’s the same as clicking Segue with the fade-in and fade-out times set to the same length.

Fade-Cut (3) requires two clicks. When first clicked, it starts to fade in the next track, then waits while the crossfader is in the middle and both tracks playing at full volume. Then on the second click, it sharply cuts out the current song. This is a common crossfade move when beat mixing, when you want to cut the last song out right after they play together for a measure or two.

The Slam (4) option will slam the crossfader to the opposite side it’s currently on, causing a sharp cut between decks. The (S) key will also trigger the slam option.

Finally, once the crossfade is complete, use the Advance button to advance the playlist. This shifts the track in next deck to the current deck, and then loads a new track into the next deck. If your crossfade is not complete when you press Advance, it will finish the crossfade automatically.

Use the row of five memory buttons at the bottom of the deck’s transport controls to save cue points by clicking the Set button to the left, and then the memory button to store the current position. To delete a memory position click Set twice to put it into delete mode. You can optionally press the (M) key to store the the first memory position, and the (R) key to return to that position.

If you want to search for tracks with similar BPM values, click the Magnifying glass icon below the Hand (BPM Tap) button. It will enter the track’s BPM value into the search field which brings up a list of similar tracks as well as sort the library by BPM.

The Loop button triggers MegaSeg’s looping feature, and marks the start of the loop. You can press this while a track is playing or in pause or cue mode. After pressing Loop, the button changes to “Out”, which will mark the end of the loop when clicked. If it is playing, you will hear it looping that section of the track over and over. The button will now change to “Exit”. Clicking that will clear the loop and allow the track to play through to the end, or until you start another loop.

There are keyboard shortcuts for Looping. Press (I) or (L) to mark the Loop In, (O) to mark the Loop Out, and (K) to toggle exit loop and resume or reloop. The added power of using the keyboard shortcuts is you can adjust the loop points as you go by holding down Shift or Control while pressing the (I) or (O) key multiple times. Finally, you can also drag the edges of the loop waveform to adjust the loop in/out points as well.

Select the Help → Keyboard Shortcuts menu for a list of several additional Mixer shortcuts.

MIDI Controllers

MegaSeg is compatible with any MIDI controller device for mixer functions. In the Settings, click the Devices tab and then the MIDI Settings button to select a preset for some popular controllers, or click New to create a custom preset, and use MIDI Learn Mode to set the list of codes to match your controller. With MIDI Learn Mode enabled, select each item in the list and then press the button or slider on your controller that matches, and it will learn the code for that control. Use the Up and Down Arrows on your keyboard to quickly run through the list of functions.

You must have your MIDI controller connected to your computer before starting MegaSeg for it to be recognized correctly.

The Variable Input Options allow you to select specific modes for the Jog Wheel, Crossfader, Pitch, and Gain controls. These vary between all controllers, so experiment with each one to see what mode works with your controller. If the controller supports high-res jog wheels or pitch controls, MegaSeg will detect this automatically.

MIDI controller presets dialog with MIDI Learn function
MIDI controller presets dialog with MIDI Learn function

All changes to custom presets are saved when you click OK, but there are also options to Export and Import presets to share with others. When you receive a preset file, you can simply double-click it to add it to MegaSeg automatically, or use the Import button. Optionally you can manage your custom presets in the MIDI Presets folder inside the MegaSeg data folder (~/Music/MegaSeg/MIDI Presets/.)

See megaseg.com/controllers for examples of popular MIDI devices and wireless remotes.
The Play History chart marks each hour a track has played
The Play History chart marks each hour a track has played

Viewing a Track’s Play History

Using the log files, MegaSeg can display a play history chart for any selected track via the File → Show History (Shift-Command-H) menu command. The chart maps each hour of the day the selected track was played for all dates found in the Logs folder. If a song was played more than once in any given hour, a play count number will appear inside the bullet point. This makes it easy to track when and how often tracks play; which is especially handy when fine tuning the rotation speed of playlists generated by the Events and Scheduler features, or generating a client report for a commercial. You can print or save a PDF of the chart using the Print button at the bottom of the window.

Printing the Library, Playlists and Logs

Select columns to print from the library, playlist, or logs
Select columns to print from the library, playlist, or logs

MegaSeg can print any list of tracks that appears in the library, category browser, main playlist cue, logs, or show history windows. Simply target the list you want to print by clicking it, and then select Print from the File menu (or press Command-P.) For most lists, you can choose up to seven fields to include as columns in the printout.

You can save a PDF file instead of wasting good old-fashioned paper when you get to the second print dialog. Simply click the PDF popup menu on the left to save the file (and a tree.)

Video Playback

Many popular video formats can be imported to the library, played in the main playlist, and cued and controlled by the decks, just as if it were an audio file. MegaSeg will display a video window when a video plays at the native size of the video by default. You can control the size and other options of the video window with the Video menu. There are options to keep the video window open or closed at all times, or open only when a video plays. You can also specify if you want the video to display at full screen, and optionally hide the menu bar. If you have a second monitor or video display connected to your system (i.e. a 2nd desktop), you can move the video window to that screen by dragging it off to the side of the main screen. (Use the System Settings to adjust the arrangement of the displays in virtual space, so you know which side the 2nd desktop space is attached to your main desktop screen.) Once the video window in on that desktop, you can enable one of the Full Screen modes in the Video menu and it will resize to fit that screen. You can exit full screen at any time by pressing Escape.

By default, MegaSeg will detect a 2nd desktop or video display connected to your Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, or HDMI output on your Mac, and use that display for full screen video.

When using the Mixer, the current deck will display video. When cueing a track in the next deck you will hear audio until you click the Advance button, and then the video will switch from the current to next track. When beat mixing video, you would typically start the next deck and crossfade the audio in, and then press Advance to switch the video.

Ambient Video Playlists

This feature allows you to play videos and animations at the same time you are playing and mixing audio-only files. If you include a music video or other normal video file with audio in your main playlist, when it plays it will pause the Ambient Video Playlist, and show the video in the main playlist. When that video ends, it will continue to display the videos in the Ambient Video Playlist.

To set this up, click the Ambient button on the right side of the playlist, and the Ambient Video Playlist will appear in place of the main playlist cue. Now drag-n-drop ambient video tracks from your library into this list. You can drag to reorder tracks or click the Delete key to remove tracks. There’s also an option to set tracks to loop multiple times by clicking on the multiplier column. Finally, click the Start button below and it will continuously play the tracks in a loop (except when a normal video is played in the main playlist cue.)

Network Library Syncing

MegaSeg can sync the library, playlist, and events between multiple MegaSeg systems running on a local network. This is useful in radio stations where an On-Air system can be edited or synced with systems in the Production Room or Program Director’s office.

To enable this feature, we recommend setting up the system that is used for performance (such as the On-Air system) with direct access to the media files, from an internal or external drive, then enable File Sharing on that system so other systems can access the media over the network. Once this is done, open MegaSeg’s settings on each additional system, and under the Advanced tab locate the “MegaSeg data folder location” setting. Click the Change button and select the data folder the main system is using (i.e. ~/Music/MegaSeg/ where ~ is the remote volume’s home folder.) It will then load that library and have access to the same playlists, events, and other data used by the main system. Next, click the Network Settings button to name this MegaSeg system to help show what systems are currently online and sharing data.

When you make a change to the library using any of the edit features, you can then sync those changes to all systems that are linked by selecting the File → Library Tools → Sync Shared Library menu command. If a system is busy, it may take up to a minute for the sync to complete.

Always sync after making any changes to the library. If you forget to sync, and another system syncs back, it will overwrite your changes. Be especially careful if multiple people are making changes at the same time. Make sure the drive volumes are named differently when networking to ensure no confusion and conflicts between systems.

When mounting the main system’s volume to link multiple systems together, mount the root of the volume, not the user’s home folder, to ensure files can be linked correctly.

Web Command Interface

The Web Command Interface (WCI) is an experimental advanced feature that allows you to send simple commands to control MegaSeg via HTTP endpoints. When the Web Command Interface option is enabled in the Settings > Advanced tab > Network Settings dialog, MegaSeg is listening for these commands sent to it via the HTTP protocol on port 42099, for example:

http://localhost:42099/segue

If you don’t have an Admin Password set, this link will trigger a segue to the next track from any device on your local network. If you do, you must prepend the password before the command (e.g. PASSWORDsegue)

Below is a list of commands currently available, and their usage description.

Endpoint Description
Segue Start next song
PlaylistStop Stops the playlist
PlaylistStart Starts the playlist
PlaylistToggle Toggles start/stop playlist
Hold Moves the current song into the “Hold” category
Insert X Inserts the top result when searching “X” to play next
InsertCategory X Inserts a random track from category X
InsertBreak Inserts a break track next
VoteUp Increases the track's average popularity value
VoteDown Decreases the track’s average popularity value
Skip Starts next song, but limits to 5 skips per hour, and 60 seconds apart
ComingUp Returns the ComingUp.html file in the Logs folder
NowPlaying Returns the NowPlaying.html file in the Logs folder
NowPlaying.jpg Returns the NowPlaying.jpg file in the Logs folder
RecentlyPlayed Returns the RecentlyPlayed.html file in the Logs folder
EventsOn Turns Events On
EventsOff Turns Events Off
EventsStatus Return Events status (On/Off)
RulesOn Turns Rules On
RulesOff Turns Rules Off
RulesStatus Return Rules status (On/Off)
AdminOn Turns Admin Mode On
AdminOff Turns Admin Mode Off
AdminStatus Return Admin Mode status (On/Off)
The endpoints are not case-sensitive, and if you have a MegaSeg administration password set (in Settings > Advanced > Password protect library), it must precede the endpoint command, such as http://localhost:42099/PASSWORDsegue

The MegaSeg F.A.Q.

Please visit our frequently asked questions at megaseg.com/faq for more help and information. You can also read recent release notes at megaseg.com/version for the latest details on new features not covered in this guide. And finally, if you have any questions, please contact us at welcome@megaseg.com.

We hope you enjoy using MegaSeg!