The Chime Master music library is the heart of our products. Decades of arranging and carefully recording each hymn by experienced church bell musicians has resulted in the best available music for automatic ringing.
A dynamic record of how the musician stroked the keyboard as they were played is permanently stored in Millennium and Platinum carillons. Several arrangements for specific sizes of bell instruments are stored in permanent memory as virtual piano rolls. These arrangements are played on the selected bell voice in real time in a similar fashion as an old player piano.
Music is stored in the Six-SS carillon as a media recording called a track. These tracks are created using a special studio prototype of the Platinum carillon and a recording computer that captures the performance completely in the digital domain, eliminating the noise and distortion caused by analog converters.
SmartAlmanacTM
SmartAlmanacTM is our unique and proprietary feature that integrates the music library into our ringing systems. Thirty years after Chime Master debuted this feature, we are still the only company to offer true set-it-and-forget-it scheduling. Instead of scheduling specific songs or even seasonal music to play on certain dates, simply indicate at what times during the week you want music to play. The system will choose appropriate music for the current season from then on, every week, every season, every year.
SmartAlmanac's festival database includes either Western Gregorian or Eastern Orthodox holidays that move with Easter.
Music is grouped first into Sacred or Non-Sacred, then into Catholic, Protestant or Ecumenical, then into the appropriate season(s). When programming random selections, the user selects between Sacred and Non-Sacred. If the Marian season is enabled in the almanac setup menu, then Catholic selections play for the Sacred groups. When the Marian season is disabled, Protestant music will play.
Premium Management Suite support software allows you to configure your own personalized random play lists for each season. Simply drag and drop the music you want in the season's list or delete those you do not care to hear.
Catalog of Music
Millennium and Platinum
The printed selection catalog shows all of the music that is loaded into the system, even those that are 'hidden' because they are only played for special events. Any song on the system may be played by entering its numeric selection code as found in the catalog when it is needed for a special event.
The printed catalog includes an Almanac column with codes that describe the random categorization:
- First Character: Sacred, All (both)
- Second Character: General, Catholic, Protestant
- First Character: Nonsacred
- Second Character: clAssical, pOpular, Folk, shoWtune (Not used in current Almanac)
- Third Character: Nonseasonal, Lent, Easter, Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, Marian, Patriotic (USA)
- Optional Fourth Character: + means selection also plays in other seasons (assume at least Nonseasonal)