Bill Thompson wrote in message ...

snip


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!

Idiots who know nothing about sound or electronics get to run radio
stations, no news there. WKRP wasn't real life exagerated for comic
effect, it was real life dialed back to make it believable for the
viewing audience who had no idea about what life in real small to
medium market stations was like.


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.

Wouldn't switching between program and air just show the difference
made by the post-board mix processing chain? Wouldn't proper head
cleaning and alignment make both sound better?

"Eric C. Weaver" wrote in message ...
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...

Think back a minute:

Herb Oscar Anderson (HOA) did not scream
Ron Lundy did not scream
Chuck Leonard did not scream
Dan Ingram did not scream
Cousin Brucie--does voice cracking constitute screaming???

Howerver:

SuperMax bellowed
Dick Biondi was frantic
Joey Reynolds was nuts
Gary Stevens pushed
Wolfman Jack howled

I could go on and on...I miss 'em all

unitron wrote:
Bill Thompson wrote in message ...
snip...
Idiots who know nothing about sound or electronics get to run radio
stations, no news there.

But it wasn't always that way!!!

WKRP wasn't real life exagerated for comic
effect, it was real life dialed back to make it believable for the
viewing audience who had no idea about what life in real small to
medium market stations was like.

I would have to agree with that...

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.

Wouldn't switching between program and air just show the difference
made by the post-board mix processing chain?

Absolutely! But we had bigger fish to fillet... the board, or more
accurately the way the board was configured and used, was a big part of
the problem. This was my introduction to the importance of proper gain
staging!

Wouldn't proper head cleaning and alignment make both sound better?

That's what I thought... but when all the tape decks and cart machines
were set up they really made the rest of the system choke. And of course
once you start you're pretty much stuck, so we then tackled the console,
and once that was set up the difference between the output of the
console and the output from the transmitter was so dramatic...

Bill Thompson wrote in message ...
unitron wrote:
Bill Thompson wrote in message ...
snip...
Idiots who know nothing about sound or electronics get to run radio
stations, no news there.

But it wasn't always that way!!!

WKRP wasn't real life exagerated for comic
effect, it was real life dialed back to make it believable for the
viewing audience who had no idea about what life in real small to
medium market stations was like.

I would have to agree with that...

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.

Wouldn't switching between program and air just show the difference
made by the post-board mix processing chain?

Absolutely! But we had bigger fish to fillet... the board, or more
accurately the way the board was configured and used, was a big part of
the problem. This was my introduction to the importance of proper gain
staging!

Wouldn't proper head cleaning and alignment make both sound better?

That's what I thought... but when all the tape decks and cart machines
were set up they really made the rest of the system choke. And of course
once you start you're pretty much stuck, so we then tackled the console,
and once that was set up the difference between the output of the
console and the output from the transmitter was so dramatic...

So the stuff between the board and the xmtr was making the board
signal worse, but the board signal sucked so bad that the additional
suckage wasn't particularly noticable until you started improving the
source and then any improvements in the board signal just made the
deliterious effects of the processing chain that much more noticable?

unitron wrote:

So the stuff between the board and the xmtr was making the board
signal worse, but the board signal sucked so bad that the additional
suckage wasn't particularly noticable until you started improving the
source and then any improvements in the board signal just made the
deliterious effects of the processing chain that much more noticable?

You said it better than I couldG!