In article ,
"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.
Then you blamed the device, figuring that it couldn't be you.

I've never used, or tried to use a Texar. My conclusions about Texars
are based on the results obtained by others in this market.

All I was saying is that it wasn't the device. So it must be you.

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.

But I have no need for self-promotion. I don't so this anymore, because
there's no
money in it, nor creativity, nor sole.

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.

And one of the reasons why is
because, as was
noted elsewhere, PDs think that their "signature sound" is actually what the
audience
wants. I know better. And I quit.

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

I guess it is all a matter of individual ability and fortitude. Sorry
you couldn't cut it.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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!