Soft option for a classic jingle machine

During the Christmas break I whiled away a few hours trawling eBay for vintage broadcast gear. I wasn’t really looking to buy anything, I just wanted to see what was out there.

I quickly came across a Sonifex NAB cart jingle machine (boy, they were great in their day). The price was a cool £400 plus delivery. Wowza! That’s a lot of money for a machine you know will need work – and what practical use does it even have today?

As that thought settled in and I dismissed any idea of stumping up the cash, it occurred to me that having a software version of a jingle machine on my website would be a wizard wheeze. I left eBay and went searching. Then it hit me. Why not make one as a plugin for WordPress?

To be honest, my coding skills – such as they are – are pretty rudimentary. A bit of CSS here, a bit of HTML there. Hang on though…What about ChatGPT? Could that help?

Click a listed jingle and press the play button.

With a few hours spare, I drafted the basic functions of a jingle machine. To do this I drew on my High School electronics classes and a thing called a Nand Gate, which could be described as saying ‘if this, then that’.

ChatGPT got me well on the way by preparing the various files needed for the plugin, which I called Softsoni – not wanting to breach any copyright or passing-off laws. My plugin is not endorsed by Sonifex.

While ChatGPT eventually delivered something resembling a working jingle machine, it got stuck in a cycle of ever-diminishing returns during the refinement stage. Many hours were lost before I searched for an alternative AI service with a stronger reputation for software development. Claude came out on top.

Claude to the rescue

Over at Claude, I uploaded the best version of my plugin’s files, described the issues that needed fixing, and made rapid progress.

Next came the graphics required to make the player look something like a vintage jingle machine. I created these using Affinity Publisher and Affinity Designer. The red, green, and yellow buttons I used are screen grabs of an actual Sonifex machine, while the main faceplate is based on one of the company’s units.

All up – and partly because I didn’t really know what I was doing – I reckon I spent around 30 hours producing a functional jingle player and went through 23 versions before I got one that was good enough.

Inspiration

Can I take much credit for the plugin? Not really. Sonifex provided the inspiration, AI did the heavy lifting, and the images I created were based on existing hardware. I knew what I wanted, knew how to brief the AI services and create the graphics, and then it was just a case of methodical trouble shooting.

But I do feel a bit chuffed to have a plugin that people with fond memories of old analogue broadcast gear might enjoy playing with.

While the original Sonifex didn’t feature an LED audio level meter, I’m tempted to add one in a future update – just to enhance the visual splendour.

Completing this project has given me the confidence to build another plugin when time allows, and even update an open-source plugin I use that was abandoned by its developer in 2022. I might even dabble with a smartphone App idea…

However, I do feel for those who’ve studied hard to learn JavaScript, CSS and the like, as AI has allowed me to create something I couldn’t have done in a month of Sundays.

But did I deprive coders of work by not commissioning one for this project? Not in this case. It was a zero-budget exercise, a personal experiment to see what was possible, to learn about plugin creation, stretch myself, and build something that nobody else on the planet even wants. It gave me joy. And maybe that’s the point.

Bottom line…A piece of hardware that was once seen in radio studios across the world, and used every few minutes by presenters to play station IDs, music, and commercials, now lives on as code.

We’ll be right back after these messages…

If you want to hear more radio jingles, pop over to Aircheck Downloads.