Shift Name
A shift name is different to an announcer or rostered name in that it covers a number of hours. For example the hours 5 am to 9 am might be the "Morning shift", where the hours might be divided into different announcers. In Australian radio the shifts of a radio day are generally thus:

5 am - 9 am - Morning Show
9 am - 12 am - Mid Morning
12 am - 2 pm - Lunch
2 pm - 5 pm - Afternoons
5 pm - 7 pm - Drive
7 pm = 9 pm - Evenings
9 pm - 5 am - Late Night

You also set the overall shift name for this day and day part in the Drive to Compressor box. To change or add a shift name simply type it into the Shift Name field. The Shift Names are edited and displayed here as the compression settings are normally planned over larger general chunks of the day rather than individual hours. The shift names here are displayed on the On Air Screen during play back also.

Advanced
The advanced options box should normally only be changed upon advice from support.

This allows you to change fundamental Robot settings so that it will work properly with your PC's hardware. You should only make changes here if you are having hardware related problems. You may have to close Robot (completely) to apply these new settings.

Loop Cut
When Robot selects a new item to play it can not repeat itself if you have set separations. 100 (the default setting) equates to about 10 seconds, this means that if you don't have enough audio files on your computer to meet the requirements of your settings then after 10 seconds pause it will just play the next file in line to avoid dead air (regardless of all rules).  Providing you have enough audio files to use with the automation this setting  will not be relevant, a setting of about 50 is ideal if you have plenty of audio files available. Providing you have set everything up realistically this should not be a problem normally - this is a very "just in case" backup feature!

Meter Fine
On the On Air screen the progress meter may not work precisely on all systems. This setting allows you to adjust the meter to work accurately on your system. Usually adjustment is only needed on slower machines.


Drive Start Tweak
On slower machines it may take robot several seconds to start as the first audio file is buffered into memory. This delay of a few seconds can throw the first few items out of canter again on slower machines. If your hard drive goes crazy when Robot begins and items fall out of canter while the hard drive rummages around try adjusting this setting. On fast machines it should be set to 2.

Fade Top
The top volume level you wish to set for audio files played at their maximum. By default it is set at 1000 which seems to work well for most sound cards. You can increase or decrease the maximum slightly but do so at your own risk and be aware of distortion. This value equates to a fade 0 level, so 1200 is approximately + 1db for example. You can set this level to match your studio setup by using a tone audio file (make a temporary daily file perhaps). By altering the amount slowly you should be able to get an exact tone 0 setting matched to your studio.

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