An
Internet radio station is now on the air
Offshore Music Radio
playing all those great records the pirates played in the 60's and 70's
The station can be found HERE
On the
Classic FM page on this site I
asked for visitors to write in with their views
regarding audio processing and recently I received a very interesting e-mail
on the
subject and with the full permission of the writer, it's below in full.
I have worked in commercial radio broadcasting in the UK as
a sound engineer and SM for the past 20 years
and am now at the BBC, and remember the days when processing of "pre-compressed"
material was not permitted.
Before I nail my colours to the mast and hold up my hand in favour of processing,
can I pre-empt the heckles by saying
"in context with programme material". I do believe there is a need for processing
of some description on all broadcasts
whether popular music or classical, speech or drama. The reason is simple
- all radio has to be accessible to the greatest audience, and the majority
of the potential audience to any service is listening in an unsuitable environment
-
ambient noise means the wide dynamic range that classical music provides,
for example, is not practical.
Even when I worked at Classic FM driving programmes, there were times in the
studio
when I'd have to turn the monitoring up to hear the programme material.
Sadly to the listener, this would appear as bursts of music with long periods
of silence in-between.
The processing used in the analogue days of Classic FM (at the old Camden
studios) were Inovonics 250FM processors,
and they were unfortunately left on the factory default setting - which I
have to say on my Roberts radio in my kitchen
didn't sound offensive at all. I hadn't used to listen on my Hi-Fi as the
signal strength was not good enough
and there was too much noise, even in mono, which goes to prove my point.
In the age of DAB you might argue that the signal is capable of very high
quality and therefore shouldn't be processed.... again,
I refer the honourable gentleman to the above answer.... the fact that most
digital radios so far have been Hi-Fi components
lead many to forget that when the "big switch" to digital gets dragged through,
kicking and screaming on the way, people
will not suddenly be listening to their radios on full bandwidth systems in
acoustically treated soundproof rooms.
There will be those that do, but in percentage terms of the total audience
are they really worth worrying about?
I think a lot of the argument against processing is based on the inability
of most stations to set them up properly.
Capital FM in London makes your ears bleed if you listen for more than 30
seconds, Talk Sport are determined that the
breaths should be louder than the words, and Classic FM is a shining example
of how you can use Mozart as line-up tone....
but as the proud owner of two Optimod 6200 digital processors, I can assure
disillusioned station management and
annoyed listeners that the problem can be solved with several minutes tweaking
by someone who knows what they're doing
and knows how to listen. You'd be amazed how many engineering departments
let their programme director set up the station processor when his Hi-Fi at
home has the Bass and Treble wound full up....
Management need to realise a few facts of life to achieve a sound that is
the best compromise
between what they want and their listeners want. The main one is
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE THE LOUDEST THING ON THE DIAL TO GET THE BIGGEST AUDIENCE.
People don't listen to a station because it's loud, they listen because they
like the content.
Research in the USA has demonstrated stations that process the living crap
out of their programming
have very low listening hours. Interestingly many of these stations "back
off" the processing during survey periods
to try to get their hours up a bit.
Commercial radio will always be after the maximum audience to sell advertising
- the BBC will always be after the maximum audience to justify their existence....
the only way they can appeal to a mass audience is to make the signal more
listenable
in general domestic environments.
Maybe one day stations who play music with a high dynamic range will have
two streams
on DAB (or whatever superceeds it) - the "popular" processed channel and the
"purist" clean channel....
but then someone will have to teach the jocks about levels, and the concept
of processors will suddenly seem very appealing....
Robin Simpkins
Studio Manager
