Re: [ARSCLIST] Classical Radio, was [ARSCLIST] Mercury co-founder Irving Green passes

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Actually I was referring to telephone audio on classical music stations (incredible to think that any
program director would allow this for a second, but they do..in Toronto on CFMX, which is an
unlistenable station for a variety of other reasons, you get it in morning contests and you get it in
the commercials, and on Buffalo's WNED-FM you got it on a series of promos done by BPO conductor JoAnn
Faletta..you mean somebody couldn't get her in front of a microphone somewhere, even if it was on a
cassette recorder?). Talk shows have their own sound and their own audience.

And you're right..back in the 70s when I was PD of an FM station in Oshawa, with a staff of 3 and
managerial and sales services provided by the sister AM station, we had occasion to pick up entire
programs by just patching into the "Toronto line". The quality was just fine. One Monday night I
pre-empted my own Showcase on Comedy to carry Nixon's resignation live (I'm sure I don't have to explain
my reasoning). Sounded perfect.

Anyone (I was about to quote Freberg and say "Anyone here remember radio?") recall Bob and Ray's "World
News Roundup"?

Mumble mumble fade whistle whine screech static don't know what to do or what to say..the people are all
aghast.

dl

Tom Fine wrote:

> Hi David:
>
> I'm with you again!
>
> WMNR is what gets listened to most around here but their signal is awful. It's processed like WPLJ,
> circa 1978. Why???? I can't listen to classical music that way, but NPR talk stuff is OK because
> it's usually on in the background. Their jazz shows are usually less interesting than my own
> collection, so I don't listen much. I tried recording "Riverwalk Jazz" from their broadcast for a
> while but found -- believe it or not -- I get more acceptable sound quality by streaming their
> highish-resolution WMA webcast, processing it in my console (adjust EQ to take out some of the
> digi-harshness and make it a little more lively) and recording it onto CD.
>
> As for phone patches, back when phones were made by WECO and phone lines weren't going over the
> Internet to save money, sound quality was much better. As you probably know, most old radio network
> programs went to the local station over phone lines (albeit dedicated and high quality patches). My
> own pet peeve is a news broadcast where they're talking to someone on a satellite phone. The
> information is so inaudible as to be not worth hearing live. Why not have a producer get the salient
> details and then read them over the air? Videophones are one step worse, but cable news channels are
> the bottom dwellers in the brackish pond of broadcast journalism.
>
> Cellphones have introduced a whole new level of inaudibility to phone conversations. I try to avoid
> them whenever possible.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Lennick" <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 11:13 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Classical Radio, was [ARSCLIST] Mercury co-founder Irving Green passes
>
> >I think I'd said compression at some point in the discussion but used limiter later on, but
> >compression
> > is what I meant. And this particular station is a public one, not owned by a big bad fat cat
> > megacorp,
> > so someone there should be receptive to listener input..the fact that they keep airing older
> > performances and not getting their heads handed to them could indicate that nobody's listening or
> > that
> > their audience is brain dead. This wasn't a concert program (although the Concertgebouw broadcasts
> > also
> > have their share of ghastly sounding transfers from old recordings), it was a commercial CD
> > someone
> > programmed and aired at 6:40 in the evening. Ever heard the phrase "tune-out factor"?
> >
> > The other thing I'll ban forever from the airwaves when I take over the world* is anything derived
> > from
> > a telephone call. No contest winners, no requests, no listener comments....obits and emergency
> > messages
> > should be the only telephone material broadcast.
> >
> > * And the Meditation from Thais.
> >
> > dl
> >
> > Tom Fine wrote:
> >
> >> Hi David:
> >>
> >> I think you're talking about compression, not limiting. Compression -- the bane of commercial
> >> radio -- brings up what should be low-volume stuff like surface noise, rumble and tape hiss to
> >> intolerable levels, until it smacks down levels any time a peak comes along. End fidelity is
> >> worse
> >> than a bad cellphone. Hard limiting, which used to be more the norm of broadcasters, prevents
> >> exceeding FCC standards for the signal. Something like a classical station should stick to hard
> >> limiting, and set levels so it's used sparingly. Back in the OTR days, broadcasters would use
> >> tasteful amounts of compression (really, more driving the system and then having a limiter at the
> >> end so effective dynamic range was compressed from the harder-driven minimum to the limited
> >> maximum)
> >> to make voices and effects more intelligable. This also worked with live music in many cases,
> >> because true technical professionals were running the equipment and didn't push anything over
> >> reasonable levels. This pumping, super-compression came later -- I think it probably traces to
> >> 70's
> >> album-oriented-rock stations and was then taken to insane extremes by just about all formats.
> >> Someone sold the FM crowd a bill of goods that this "improves" the signal and "louder is better"
> >> because people gravitate toward the loudest thing on their dial. This is debatable and Robert
> >> Orban
> >> has a very good white paper online about why super-compression going into his FM processor is a
> >> very
> >> bad thing. But, the crunch-meisters seem to have won this debate for now. I can't stand most new
> >> music because of this, aside from the fact that I find a lot of it talentless crap. And the
> >> super-crunchers have even invaded the jazz arena, with some truly terrible remasters put out in
> >> recent times. Hint to mastering engineers -- just because you have a new digi-compressor toy
> >> doesn't
> >> mean it's appropriate to older music formats and recordings. What I consider a very good blend of
> >> being truthful to the old tapes and yet adding some improvements through modern technology are
> >> what
> >> Malcolm Addey and Ellen Fitton do with Mosaic's recent box sets. They're able to take a variety
> >> of
> >> tapes made at a variety of times and places in a variety of conditions and craft enough of a
> >> uniform
> >> sound that the box holds together and levels are consistent. But, each session's unique
> >> properties
> >> shine through and they're not heavy-handed to try and "fix" technical or acoustic conditions of
> >> the
> >> original sessions to suit modern tastes. Some specific examples are the new Dizzy Gillespie box
> >> set,
> >> the Johnny Hodges set from a couple of years ago and the Count Basie Verve set. Also all of the
> >> new,
> >> great "singles" album reissues. Special kudos to reissuing "The Brothers" sax-fest and "JJ" by JJ
> >> Johnson. Since I wore those records out a long time ago, I was thrilled to have better-sounding
> >> CD's
> >> to play.
> >>
> >> Anyway, bottom line is I totally agree with David -- modern FM processing techniques are totally
> >> inappropriate for older music recordings. Our words fall on totally deaf mega-glomerate ears,
> >> however.