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WDVD's audio processing
- Thread starter MarkW
- Start date
I popped this on after reading the post over the weekend and couldn’t agree more. The processing before didn’t sound like a pre-mixed setting but more of a custom sound. Now it feels like someone hit the wrong button accidentally. They have a good group there so this surprised me.
They had aggressive processing for many years, and it sounded darn good.
Not sure why you believe 18-34F wouldn't want aggressive processing. Many CHR stations have aggressive processing.
Even WNIC's processing has more punch and liveliness than WDVD.
A lot of the rhythmic leaning tracks played by the station sound "off" under the current setup.
Not sure why you believe 18-34F wouldn't want aggressive processing. Many CHR stations have aggressive processing.
Even WNIC's processing has more punch and liveliness than WDVD.
A lot of the rhythmic leaning tracks played by the station sound "off" under the current setup.
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But this is 2023. Streaming is the new competitor, and it doesn't use aggressive processing. Actual listeners, not radio nerds or former radio guys prefer less processing not more. Driving an audience to streaming because of an old methodology is a fool's errand.
Again, old school radio thinking.
Research has shown that excessive compression and limiting reduces TSL, especially in women, because it's fatiguing. TSL means everything these days. The goal is to keep the listener through at least two quarter-hour points.
Thats why one of our competiutors in Wyolming, last i saw Tapscan numbers... was suffering a bit in TSL and several females told me they couldnt listen long, that it was aggravating
Townsquare has/had KCGY so crunchy and warm and overprocessed.. and RDS injection rate was so high, I could hear data at 95.0 and 95.2
That's great participants identified fatiguing audio as being the reason they can't listen for long. Usually one needs to dig down via focus groups or other research to dig that issue out. If listeners aren't happy and identify it as such, it must be really bad.
Even I found the audio to be unpleasant.
I spoke directly and pointedly with purpose to a few ladies I knew in Laramie who i knew were KCGY/Y95 listeners because i know they like country.. they all.. every single one told me. .afterawhiole, they got tired of listening, it was unpleasant and just "didnt sound right"
It has to be bad if i could hear the RDS data in between the channel!!
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I happened to get KGCY via Es here and I agree as well. Dreadful audio processing.
Likely not intentional but unskilled engineering or old processing and they don't care to fix it.
In general audio processing is a joke now beyond radio.
Masters of most songs now are horribly compressed garbage smashed to 0dB with no dynamics aka loudness war. Also forgot about the concept of imaging/soundstage
For radio obviously you need to compress it down but when it's already butchered it makes it harder. I guess there is some tricks to try and restore those dynamics but in general, Once it's gone it's gone.
Townsquare would rather forget they own the laramie stations, so much so that KOWB has no local progrmaming and they moved KCGY's studio to cheyenne over a year ago
Hey Paul, there was "group" owner, can't remember his name, who owned a bunch of stations in the Cheyenne and Laramie area. They were looking for someone to clean up their Wyoming operations. I spoke with the owner via phone, and he seemed like a rich crackpot. The operations guy for the group seemed okay, but he was trying to get into station ownership himself, so they were hoping I would consider filling the gap. I visited the area, and had lunch with the (at the time) Chief Engineer (Butch) to follow up after a tour of the studios and transmitter sites. Butch asked: So, what do you think? I replied that honestly, he should be ashamed of the condition of those stations. They were complete poorly installed garbage heaps.
Do you recall who owned that group?
When audio processing crept onto the scene, mostly in the later 40's, it had the sole purpose of avoiding illegal overmodulation.
With the advent of smarter devices, particularly the Audimax and Volumax combos, processing became a way to sound "stronger" than your competitor.
To do that effectively, you have to delay the on-air audio, sample it separately, and send instructions to the air audio to process before the low-or-loud moments occur so that the don't result in "broken" waveforms that sound truly nasty. Then again, some people like the CRLs "set to 11".
That sounds like Steve Silberberg's group of stations.. KRRR 104.9, 103.3 KRAN, 104.5 KIMX, KHAT, 98.7 KRQU
Yes, that's the guy! What a strange dude. Talk about everything bailing-wire and bubble gummed together.
His Ops Mgr, went on to buy some AM station in the Cheyenne area. I mean Cheyenne is one thing, but carrying debt on a derelict AM in that market? Talk about making the wrong fork in the road of life.
Radio nerds, or old crusty engineers from the loudness war days maybe. But certainly not your average listener.
Larry Proetti may have worked for Steve at sometime, he bought KYOY 92.3 and KRAE 1480
Steve does business with another owner, Vic michaels, who bought 1630 in Cheyenne
Unfortunately, it seems Steve does business with nobody on this side of the ground cover. He passed away in 2021.