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Adjusting music

R

ringfinger

Guest
I was reading an interview with a PD in an old issue of R&R, and the PD was talking about how he would do some magic tweaking on songs before loading them into the automation. (I think the quote was "talent never has to adjust the music pots.") Has anyone else ever done this or know of anybody who has? It's been a bit of a frustration with my AC station, where unless we sit and ride the pot as we dub, there are some pretty wild volume swings. I've been thinking about hard limiting everything, but the songs don't always sound good to my admittedly tin ear when I've tried it.

Anyone have ideas for this production newb?
 
at my old station we used to pitch all our songs before loading them in. ups the tempo and brightens it up a little bit. not sure if that's what he was talking about, but if done right, it can really help the tempo of the station.

rM
 
For oldies stations (Top 40 back in the day) pitching the music 1.5 % was common.

We did it at WMJI/Cleveland. All of the cd players were locked pitched to 1.5. In Raleigh, with Prophet, we had all songs for WTRG pitched up 1.5%.

Some people used to run all music thru compellors before carting or dubbing....but then that may negatively work against your processing. At WMJI ALL spots, imaging, etc were run through either UREI 1176LN's, or thru compellors.... or both.

ALL jingles went thru a compellor first.

This was all before DAW's. Everything was still on tape.

When dubbing songs.....find the peak. Set your pot, then dub. If there are low spots, so be it. Your on air processing should take care of it.

As for local spots... Hard limiting, either with a plug in or with an outboard processor, like a Aphex 320A compellor, isn't a bad idea as long as you know what you are doing.

Agency spots should be fine as most have been produced in a production house with some sort of post.
 
VODood said:
Agency spots should be fine as most have been produced in a production house with some sort of post.
Click to expand...

They should. I'm amazed at how many aren't even normalized. I came across an agency spot today that was apparently a donut, and the insert was only in one channel! I had to convert it to mono before I dubbed it in.

Sigh.

Sometimes I think I should start my own agency.
 
Another idea (which I prefer) is how WPST does it. Raise the tempo without changin' the pitch.
As a guy with perfect pitch, i am not a fan of the +2% (40 cents) or even the +25 cents that some stations imploi.
John
Bensalem, PA
 
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