14 DAY TRIAL // We all listen to the radio, whether it's a ground station radio or a web-based one and we usually give little thought (if any at all) to what's a radio built like, how does it work or "what's inside". Yet there are lots of people who dream of becoming radio stars or DJs, or simply be able to make a "flowing broadcast" fit for a party with the friends. The old days when playing music on the air and having to mix it with jingles or pre-recorded news was done with bare hands with proper DJ skills are long gone - it's now the computers' turn to do this job and believe me, they do it damn well.
Even if there are lots of completely automated broadcasting and mixing softwares around, most of them are very expensive (as you are looking for professional things) and may be difficult to learn. If we just add that home-users will never, ever be concerned with running these high-class applications, the reasons for the development of softwares like Hot Jingle Player become more than obvious. Basically it's the need to have and work with a program that could easily simulate the process of faded-playing and track sequencing, but not in an ultra professional environment; it's rather the need for a software that could actually do things as they are done in a radio station, but in a "light" version. Hot Jingle Player manages to do this so let's go deeper...
The Looks
From the very beginning I'll say that Hot Jingle Player looks quite like WinXP: its GUI is a fullscreenable window, whose minimal size, though, isn't reducible to almost nil. There are 3 large and distinct areas which divide the Hot Jingle Player's total surface in three different interest-points: the first theoretical area contains the very WinExplorer-like treeview of your PC, along with HDDs, CD/DVD-ROMs, USB or other types of storage devices you may have connected to you machine. Above this pane and covering the whole width of the Hot Jingle Player, very large, cool-looking and intuitive buttons have been placed for quick and easy access to the sets you have previously created and saved or for browsing your favorites.
The largest area in the Hot Jingle Player is dedicated to a 26-panes grid, each with its alphabet corresponding letter and loaded with features such as Play, Loop, Pause, Fade in/out, total and elapsed time and volume control. Needless to say that in these small panes you'll eventually load the audio tracks you'll be playing later...
The third and last area in the Hot Jingle Player is a large and extremely visible clock in the lower left region of the window which will display the system time and a seconds-counter with each 5th second being highlighted from the usual red to bright green. This is especially handy when precision timing is necessary. Actually, it really makes the user get into the beat, as the appearing red and green dots have a very rhythmic effect on the mind as you pay attention to it for a short time.
Even if there's no Vista-like appearance and the overall interface isn't too much of an eye candy, 3D one, the Hot Jingle Player's graphic developers have managed to create a very nice and comforting GUI with calm light coloring and a very friendly appearance. Technically, one does not need extensive PC or audio software knowledge in order to operate the Hot Jingle Player with excellent results in just minutes.
The Hot Jingle Player does not have any menus, so there's not even a Help section (for some individuals this could represent a problem) but after spending some minutes in front of this program you'll see that this section isn't at all a must. Once you have at least some basic knowledge about what playing music files in a sequential order is and what's the meaning of Fade In/Out, things will be as easy as one-two-three.
The Works
I am quite sure that by now you have understood what Hot Jingle Player does: it is a very easy and convenient software tool that will let you administer up to 26 different audio tracks simultaneously and set them in the order you want, play any of them, fade them and thus create a mix, a continuous and really "radio-like" audio flow. It's like having 26 decks at your disposal and also being able to control all of them with precision and ease - I guess it's more than obvious that such a thing would be at least hard (if not impossible) in the real life...
Whether you are using the Hot Jingle Player for a party (because "jingle" does not necessary mean that it can't be used for parties) or you are the DJ in a (small) radio, or even preparing to become a radio guy, the program is just perfect: no fancy stuff to get lost in the complex menus and settings in just minutes after starting it, no complicated operation that needs weeks to learn how to use and definitely a good sounding result. If there is no one paying the many hundreds or thousands of dollars for highly-specialized radio broadcasting software (assuming that you must really have such software) then it's clear that something else is needed - especially if we're talking about some small-enterprise radio; Hot Jingle Player? Hell, yes!
Operating the Hot Jingle Player couldn't be easier. Indeed, this piece of code is a true model of how the "drag and drop thing" should be implemented. Actually, dropping audio files one by one in each of the required "decks" is the only method to be used by anyone who wants to juke the Hot Jingle Player; not only can you browse for your audio files in the dedicated treeview pane and drag them from there, but you can also do this with files displayed in all other file-management applications. Since the Hot Jingle Player is a deck-by-deck program, I guess it is more than obvious that you can't use entire folders or multiple file-dragging with it; anyway, don't think that the 26-tracks capacity is a small one...26 songs mean 2 large albums or 3 usual ones, and this also means a very decent playtime.
Each of the 26 decks corresponds to a letter on your keyboard, but starting with A, B, C, D, E and not Q, W, E, R, T, Y: when focused, pressing these letters trigger the playback of the respective deck while pressing it again will stop it. For pause one must use the proper Pause button in each deck; of course there are graphic elements for mouse use (play/stop/pause) so it's really up to each user's liking how he/she is going to use the Hot Jingle Player.
If it happens (and it surely will) to build a "setlist" out of tracks with significant level-differences, you need not worry: simply adjust each deck's output volume so when switching between the "loud" and the "quiet" songs this difference will not be heard, or at least it will not be annoying. Of course you'll have to set the volume of the "loud" decks way lower than the rest, so you can compensate for the level mismatch... I am sure this is going to be one easy task for those of you who are willing to learn how to use such software...
Ending a track and starting the playback of the next one must not be abrupt and this is why Hot Jingle Player sports very handy and convenient fade in-fade out system, set for a 3-seconds period during which the software automatically increases/decreases the output level of the corresponding tracks allowing the two audio streams to actually blend and mix with each other. Thus - no more you having to operate the volumes in real-time as one track is about to end and you have to mix it with the next one in a fairly decent way: Hot Jingle Player does this thing for you, so you can concentrate solely on what's next and not crowd your thoughts in vain.
One must get acquainted a bit with the way Hot Jingle Player works until the proper "radio-like" results show up; as it's not a highly professional-grade software, it's obvious that you will have to work a bit to attain excellence. Nevertheless, it will not disappoint you, but rather make you love radio even more.
The Good
Hot Jingle Player is definitely one cool program, whether you are planning to throw exceptional parties, make your radio show sound professional or simply learn the basic ways of radio broadcast. Features like excellent drag and drop support and generic ease of use add true value!
The Bad
The only bad thing is the price: $65 for such a program is way too much!
The Truth
Download Hot Jingle Player, work with it and you'll see that radio isn't just fun, but a very serious occupation. You definitely have to try it!
See some screenshots of Hot Jingle Player below:
