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Old April 19th 04, 10:06 PM
John Higdon
 
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In article ,
(Robert Zachrisson) wrote:

Increasing the average audio level (but keeping the maximum constant)
will increase signal to noise ratio, and the perceived loudness,
whether it's for recording, AM or FM transmitting.


For competitive reasons, broadcast audio processing has become an art.
If I had my druthers, processing would be absolutely minimal. That
aside, I also concede that there are techniques to keep the signal away
from the noise floor that do not seriously mangle the music in the
process and can actually give the appearance of dynamic range.

In most major markets, there is at least one station that has figured
this out. What you can hear are "soft" passages that are actually louder
on the dial than other stations' din of squash, and then when the music
swells, it seems to get even louder! The effect is an illusion of
dynamics while maintaining an ear-grabbing, highly competitive sound.

As allways there are 2 sides to a coin, in this case the drawback is
listening fattigue due to decreased dynamics and increased distorsion.


Indeed. Fortunately, DSP has managed to neatly package sophisticated
techniques that could only be obtained in the past with considerable
experimentation using combinations of devices. The Texar/Optimod combo
was an attempt to pre-package such a technique, but unfortunately the
Texar was ill-conceived. Its audio bands were in the wrong places. Its
time constants produced more artifacts and fatigue than competitive
sound. And, of course, it still relied on the Optimod for modulation
control.

In short we make sure we use our recources fully.
Some don't settle for less then maximum all the time, while others
realise that there is a backside to it, and makes a more balanced
setting.


As Arlo Gutherie might say, "You can have anything you want..." in a
suitable digital processor. In that situation, everything is on the
table, and can be handled with a minimum of audible distortion. (But
always keep in mind that audio processing, by definition, IS
distortion.) With a Texar, you get hardwired, ill-conceived constants.

But as the technology matures, most of the gains are allready made and
further advances takes huge efforts and gives only small advances.

At this moment, all cind of metaphysical terms and decription starts
to florish, and I stop listening and turns my attension elsewhere.


First and foremost, you need to have an ear for work. It is, after all,
all about listening.

--
John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS
+1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407

  #22   Report Post  
Old April 19th 04, 10:06 PM
Bill Thompson
 
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Hi John,

This is an interesting thread, as another former broadcast engineer I
thought I'd toss in two cents worth...

John Higdon wrote:

I had nothing to do with it. But I'm not willing to believe that a dozen
engineers in the SFBA are incompetent. You can make that assertion if
you like, but I'd like to see you back it up. More than a dozen stations
tried Texar; every one yanked them off.


In the Philadelphia area we had a number of stations adopt the Texar,
and before that the Optimod, and before that the DAP, and before that,
well, that was before my timeG!

In every case there were stations who could make any of the devices
sound like their trademark fingerprint, usually excessively loud, and
there were stations that made them sound pretty darned decent.

When the Optimod came out the station I worked for was told by our
consultants (UGH) to switch from the DAP to the Optimod, and the owner
agreed. The other engineers and I were, needless to say, a little
miffed, and we didn't spend a lot of time learning how to use the
Optimod, and it sounded, predictably, pretty darned bad.

Then the college station where I worked got an Optimod, and for whatever
reason, I spent about a month playing with it before I put it on the
air. This was before the internet, but I called Orban, and Mr. Orban
himself spent quite a bit of time walking me through his design
objectives, and a whole lotta other info. (Thanks Mr. Orban!!!).

At that point I invited my fellow engineers at the commercial station to
have some fun playing, and we ended up with a pretty decent compromise
between the owner and PD request to be the loudest station on earth and
our own desire to sound good.

Then along came the composite clipper, and this time we spent some time
learning about it before we used it, and while it was audible, we did
manage to avoid over-using it.

At which point I left commercial radio...

Still, I have no doubt that one could use the Texar, or any other
processor and get really bad results, or really good results. I've
heard, but have no direct knowledge, that part of the problem was the
people selling the Texar... their focus was on really really loud, to
the point where good wasn't an objective.

Only if you are mediocre and uninspired. I'm making a fine living in
broadcast engineering, and I'm enjoying the challenges. Don't blame an
entire industry for your own inadequacies.


I think that is great... I enjoyed working as a broadcast engineer, so
much so that I acted as technical advisior at the college station until
this past Decemeber. But after a point the local market really closed
down... most stations cut their engineering budgets, and as they got
bought one poor engineer ended up taking care of multiple stations...
until there simply wasn't much of a market.

I know that as well. However, I have managed to influence the stations
under my charge to adopt reasonable approaches to their audio processing.


The ultimate challenge!! Congrats on having the chops, both technically
and politcally, to maintain some semblence of influence. It isn't easy!

My other recollection from my commercial radio days was rebuilding the
production suite. I was just out of school, and really wanted to make an
impression... I gave it everything I had, and through some great
coaching and a little luck the new production room sounded so good that
it made the air chain sound terrible. The owner and PD were furious, to
the point where they were convinced that something I had done in the
production room had broken the air chainG!

If that wasn't bad enough, I then tackled the air chain, and, as I'm
sure you've already guessed, everything I fixed made the rest of the
stuff sound worse. Sadly, I started at the sources, tape decks and cart
machines, so the difference was really obvious when the air staff would
switch the monitors from air to program.

I was fired... but the other engineers explained the situation to the
owners (I think because they didn't want to spend their evenings,
nights, and weekends finishing the task at hand), and I was re-hired,
and eventually finished the job, to everyones satisfaction.

I learned a lot of lessons from that adventure... and they still serve
me today!!!!!

Ah the lifeG...

Bill

  #23   Report Post  
Old April 19th 04, 10:06 PM
Sid Schweiger
 
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the old WABC trademark reverb-on-screaming-boss-jock sound...

Sheesh. Talk about mixing metaphors.

None of the WABC jocks screamed, nor were they known as "boss jocks." I don't
know what station you thought you were listening to, but it wasn't WABC.

  #24   Report Post  
Old April 19th 04, 10:06 PM
Scott Dorsey
 
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Bob Haberkost wrote:
I made no presumptions on your skills...you did. You stated that Texars were,
basically, crap, due to the fact that you couldn't make them do what you wanted.


More likely, it was a mismatch between what he wanted to make them do,
and what they do.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

  #25   Report Post  
Old April 20th 04, 02:04 AM
John Higdon
 
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In article ,
Bill Thompson wrote:

When the Optimod came out the station I worked for was told by our
consultants (UGH) to switch from the DAP to the Optimod, and the owner
agreed. The other engineers and I were, needless to say, a little
miffed, and we didn't spend a lot of time learning how to use the
Optimod, and it sounded, predictably, pretty darned bad.


I assume you are talking about the Optimod 8000. There is an interesting
history behind the 8000, which as crude as it is now by today's
standards, was revolutionary in its day. When Bob brought his Moduline
box prototype of the 8000 by my station and we put it on the air in 1974
(the first time an Optimod 8000 ever saw the light of day on the air, by
the way), I was blown away. I had never before seen (or heard) any
processor that had such tight modulation control on ALL program
material, while sounding relatively open with remarkably
natural-sounding high frequencies.

Then the college station where I worked got an Optimod, and for whatever
reason, I spent about a month playing with it before I put it on the
air. This was before the internet, but I called Orban, and Mr. Orban
himself spent quite a bit of time walking me through his design
objectives, and a whole lotta other info. (Thanks Mr. Orban!!!).


The 8000 was designed solely and exclusively by Bob himself. It was not
a collaboration with anyone. It was created as the result of badgering
by some of his friends who happened to be broadcast engineers who
insisted that he apply his considerable design skills to solve the
problem of modulation control on FM. Bob personally walked you through
it because, frankly, he was the only one who knew how it worked at what
became Orban Associates.

Then along came the composite clipper, and this time we spent some time
learning about it before we used it, and while it was audible, we did
manage to avoid over-using it.


I experimented with composite clipping just before the 8000 came to
pass. I (and others) insisted to Bob that there had to be a better way.
But that was well before it was perverted into a processing technique. I
simply used it to shave off the overshoots caused by passing square
waves into low-pass filters for modulation control, not to smash the
audio into it to make it louder.

--
John Higdon | Email Address Valid | SF: +1 415 428-COWS
+1 408 264 4115 | Anytown, USA | FAX: +1 408 264 4407



  #26   Report Post  
Old April 20th 04, 05:13 AM
Bill Blomgren
 
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On 19 Apr 2004 21:06:29 GMT, Bill Thompson wrote:

I think that is great... I enjoyed working as a broadcast engineer, so
much so that I acted as technical advisior at the college station until
this past Decemeber. But after a point the local market really closed
down... most stations cut their engineering budgets, and as they got
bought one poor engineer ended up taking care of multiple stations...
until there simply wasn't much of a market.


Back in the dark ages when I was CE at WMNF in Tampa, we had a minimalist
approach to processing brought on by a tiny budget.. We had a gates peak
limiter at the transmitter, and nothing else..

The station was the cleanest on the air in Tampa.. Mono, but clean.

The problem that made it sound junky at times: Phone lines. I fought with GTE
(genital telephone and electronics, so called because when you asked for a
"class A line", you had to hunt for hours before you could find someone that
knew what it meant. One guy in Tampa, who was usually not at his desk..)

The line to the transmitter in Riverview went past tons of tv transmitters,
and the end result was an ugly mishmash of horizontal sync audible in the
audio when the weather was right.. A little moisture, and all heck would break
lose.. There were times I threatened to drive it with a 100 watt amplifier to
get their attention. Didn't happen, however...

They finally got a new studio location. GTE hit them for $10k to change the
line from the original old house they were renting to the new location. Then
they got a microwave, and got the sound cured once and for all. As far as I
know, they are still paying $200 a month for the land line to the transmitter,
since it had a 20 year contract.

sheesh.

Since then they've gotten an old Optimod, and are treating it gently,
resulting in decent sound on the air.. at least it was last time I was down
there.

  #28   Report Post  
Old April 21st 04, 08:20 PM
Sid Schweiger
 
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If memory serves, the "boss jocks" were an RKO General creation.

Yes...but even so, very few of them screamed, at least on the stations that
Bill Drake consulted personally. He understood listener fatigue and tune-out
quite well. It was usually the imitators who thought every jock had to scream.

  #29   Report Post  
Old April 25th 04, 04:52 PM
Michael Hyman
 
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On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 05:22:55 +0000, Eric C. Weaver wrote:

John Higdon wrote:
In article ,
"Eric C. Weaver" wrote:


Is anybody still using reverb on the microphone channels?



Few, thankfully. However, at least some mic processing is nearly
ubiquitous at major market stations.


Compression and EQ, certainly, but I'm referring to the old WABC trademark
reverb-on-screaming-boss-jock sound...


Can someone explain terms like the "air stream" or recommend a good web
site for the lay-folk like myself. I am interested in following
discussions like this, but I have no technical background in audio.

Thanks...Michael


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