[BC] Making music worth listening to

[Broadcast List]

I recall some famous guy stating, "We don't shoot the guns, we only  
build them."  Do you recall who said that, Bob?

<ggg>

I just made the guns bigger, and shot them.  However, I still contend  
you try to educate the PD (or the producer, or the record company  
executives) but you do what they tell you.  As the engineer, your job  
is not on the line if the ratings fall (or the CDs don't sell).  You  
do your best, then give them what they want.

I wrote this a few months ago, so I will make it the short version;  
at a joint AES / SBE meeting a few decades ago in DC we had a panel  
of "audio experts" including he CE of a station that not only wasn't  
that loud, but it just sounded awful.  Still, he wasn't asked about  
it, but one AES self appointed "audiophile" asked why the records the  
radio stations got sounded so much better than those he bought at the  
store.  At the time, polystyrene advance 45s were the norm.


A number of months ago I found Regina Spektor.  OK, I was late to the  
party, but her latest album, _Begin_To_Hope_, is pretty fantastic.   
The first two cuts are worth the price of admission, "Fidelity" and  
"Better."  The third cut "Samson" is also very cool, and very  
different from the first two.  I drive people in the office nuts  
because I play it over and over.  I also played it during some drive  
testing on a test transmitter at a site where we have a CP.  HOWEVER,  
it is one of the worst recorded products since Men At Work recorded  
_Business_As_Usual_, which was only second to the song _Go_Now_ by  
the Moody Blues; and you would have thought that when that became a  
hit they would have gone back into the studio and fixed it.

Ms. Spektor's CD has overly boosted bass, and she is more folk than  
anything else, though hard to quantify.  The bass modulates the rest  
of the audio like Disco through an 8000 (no offense, Bob).  IM  
distortion is the norm, and you can hear the mics getting hit from  
time to time throughout.  Still, I love the music.  It is great when  
someone can make something compelling, interesting, and worth  
listening to even if it isn't well recorded.

--chip

On Oct 22, 2007, at 6:32 PM, broadcast-request at radiolists.net wrote:

> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:21:09 -0700
> From: Robert Orban <rorban at earthlink.net>
> Subject: [BC] Making music worth listening to
> To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20071022132004.03cc5f50 at oldradio.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> [...]
> I know from hanging out at some of the mastering discussion groups
> that mastering engineers are well aware of how they are damaging the
> material and do so because the labels require them to. For label
> executives, "loud" still means "competitive." It's the same abnormal
> psychology that has infected radio for 30-some years.
>
> Bob Orban