[BC] Audio proofing time

[Broadcast List USER]

Well, it may have been artificial, but it often took more than an hour.

Audio proofs at stations where I was CE were nearly always fairly
quick.  However, audio proofs at other stations can take a while.
When I was called in to fix the audio processing on stations, I would
always run an audio proof first.  Often, fixing the problems would fix
the audio.  I don't care what fantastic processor you have, if the
audio presented to the processor is noise free, distortion free, flat,
and in general, very clean, no processor can fix it.

Fixing the noise or whatever problem first usually made setting up the
processing very easy.

I recall being brought into a station where a PD I had worked with
before was very unhappy.  He wanted the CE to be gone.  He just
couldn't give the PD the sound he wanted.  I flew in, we met,
discussed the issues between the GM, CE, PD and me.  Then a short
private meeting with the GM and the new PD, the guy I worked with.  I
then had a discussion with the CE.

The GM went home, then the CE and I ran a proof with the PD present.
It was one of the best stations I had ever measured.  The PD was not
pleased as he wanted the CE gone.

We installed a Yamaha REV-7 (yep, the PD wanted reverb), and I twisted
the knobs on the processing.  The PD was happy, the CE was OK with
it.  The next day I met with the GM and told him I could not find a
single issue with the plant, and that he had a great CE.

Later, the GM flew from the smaller market to mine, and tried to hire
me.  I told him my old friend was the problem, not his CE.  The CE
moved on, and the PD was fired.

Back to the issue, if you don't have a clean plant, with low noise,
and low distortion source, the station will never sound good.

I believe the Barix boxes to be good for what they are.  They are NOT
STLs!  They are OK for voice remotes, but not music.  They are great
listen line devices.  They are better than being off the air for STLs,
but you cannot use them as primary, for both the issue of reliability
on the public Internet, and audio quality.  On this issue, Richard is
right.

--chip

On Sep 30, 2009, at 8:07 PM, broadcast-request at radiolists.net wrote:

>Message: 32
>From: Sid Schweiger <sid at wrko.com>
>
>Richard wrote: "I do not care if the FCC allows one to skip an audio
>proof-of-performance because they have been bamboozled by
>broadcasters who claim that the tests are too expensive..."
>
>That's a new one on me.  I've never heard anyone claim that an audio
>proof was too expensive, especially since a good engineer could
>knock one off in an hour.  Unrealistic, certainly.  Making audio
>measurements with all processing disabled or bypassed and injecting
>the audio signals into the main microphone input was the way the FCC
>wanted it, never mind the fact that no station I was aware of,
>except for a classical music operation here and there, ever went
>without processing, and no station that played music derived most of
>its program audio from the main microphone, at least not since the
>death of studio orchestras.
>
>Sid Schweiger