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MikaelaArsenault
Guest
96.1 WSRS does this now, but they never used to before.
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Stations with slightly higher pitched/faster songs?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
I remember that the old WNOX of Knoxville, TN, used to "pitch up" their music back in the '70s. I had a stereo system at the time that also did that, but it definitely was NOT intentional.
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MikaelaArsenault
Guest
95.7 WZID plays a slightly different pitched version of So What by Pink.
Don't know why 'ZID has to play the "loudness war"!!!!
Not too long ago WZID was one of the area's foremost FM stations when it came to audio quality....Same with WHOM.....
Sad to say I can't say that about EITHER station today.......the current (management?) philosophy seems to be "Louder is BETTER!"
So....."pitched" music or not....to me, it still sounds BAD from a technical standpoint....
Run an audio check with a mod monitor/analyzer (like an Inovonics 531) and you'll "see" what's going on.....!
Do FM stereo stations pay any attention to pilot injection levels anymore????!!!
(Rant over.....dismounts soap box.....returns to listening to WEVO/HD2 Classical......
)In the 1970s as rock songs became longer and longer, it was somewhat common for the 45 RPM single release of a song to not only be edited down to a shorter length, but also sped-up as well, such as Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street": https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/why-does-my-baker-street-45-sound-sped-up.280149/
The only record label speed up I knew about was the one you just mentioned. That was not a common practice, as labels knew that it would make the album version sound "slow" and even generate returns.
Can you name any other "promo version" that was sped up?
Any station that does this, is an automatic tune out for me. Not only does it grossly alter the song, it sounds unprofessional. I just realized over Labor Day Weekend 2018, that all this time, "Baker Street" has been played on many classic hits stations at a higher pitch. The original 1978 album version release sounds a tad slower, and correct and is the one I now play.
Bryan Adams' first single was sped-up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Me_Take_You_Dancing
Wikipedia said:
Thanks. I did not know about that one.
I don't know if it was sped up, but AC WBT did not play the guitar solo at the end.
Annoying, yes....but with big-bucks ads......it's really just a "legal C.Y.A"!!!
Like the "fine print" at the end of some TV ads.....it's too small to read, and passes so fast you wouldn't have time,anyway....
BUT...if someone challenges something in that ad, the sales dept. simply says: "Hey, it's RIGHT THERE IN THE FINE PRINT!"
I've also noticed that also with Gerry Rafferty's "Right Down the Line"
95.1 WAYV (Atlantic City, NJ) has been doing this for years.
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MikaelaArsenault
Guest
Radio 9 WCME, which is 900 AM in Brunswick, Maine pitches their music.
Get more advert time . Its been going on for ages on radio and even the Tele. I remember Entertainment Tonight back in the late 1980's did a report on Lexicon equipment that speeds up or slows down videos without audio pitch change .Also agree on making the tune brighter.
I thought the theory that it's done to squeeze in more ads had been proven pure BS by now. I don't think the amount of time saved by pitching every song in a given hour up would create room for even one addtional ad, not even a :30. The one and only purpose was to make your station's music sound brighter than your competition's, especially if the other station and yours were playing many of the same songs. Mr. Eduardo? Mr. Hagerty? Mr. BigA? Any clarification on this?
In my experience, speeding up the songs without pitch correction has always been done to make songs sound a tiny bit brighter than the same songs played on competitive stations.
I always thought it was mostly an AM radio thing, given the fact that a bit more brightness would enhance listening if not exaggerated.
On FM, I only experienced a useful outcome once and it was with a station playing mostly 70's and 80's songs that could be quickly sweetened by a tiny speed increase.
When songs are sped up with compensating pitch correction, the gain in time is barely enough to fit in about half of a very short song and that is with an annoying 3% speed increase.
Music radio stations that want to increase commercial load just add units. They don't have to speed up songs; there is no connection.
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