In the age of the computer based music system, do any stations still use vinyl records or tapes to play music, alongside OR instead of computers? Bet it would have to be a fully staffed station or partially staffed with computer automation during off hours. I take the formats that would use records would be traditional jazz, classic rock and college stations. Perhaps there are some urbans that have on air DJs do mix shows with vinyl as well.
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Any stations still spin vinyl or use tapes?
- Thread starter sdh483
- Start date
sdh483 said:
The only place I have seen vinyl still used is in dance or regaetpon mix shows.
I have not seen a tape deck in a station for about a decade. I have seen cart machines, generally used as doorstops or dead weights for some last minute project. I have not seen many turntables lately, either... although a few of those USB ones intended for dubbing to digital show up.
sdh483 said:
...when I played jazz and blues there, WLSU La Crosse had just installed brand new turntables; they have an extensive jazz library on vinyl dating back to a few Stan Kenton, Woody Herman and Jazz At The Philharmonic 10-inch LPs. Unfortunately, the station is operated by Wisconsin Public Radio, and WPR only originates web feeds from Madison and Superior...
I've used LPs and cassette tapes within the last year, at two different stations. One a college station, one a commercial.
The only station I know that used cart machines and reel to reel tapes was WILM newsradio in Wilmington DE. About three years ago WILM was sold to Clear Channel. A year and a half ago WILM moved from their antiquated facility to a new state of the art one with state of the art equipment. I remember the engineer complaining about how difficult it was to find parts to repair the equipment. He had gone on the internet to find old equipment to buy for parts. As you might imagine, he's glad to be rid of all that old junk.
...I just recalled this one -- as late as its final week in the Summer of 2000 (during which I was a guest on two of their shows), WMAQ Chicago was still using carts...
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WTUX
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As recently as last summer, Pierre Robert on WMMR played an old Kinks vinyl lp on the air.
sdh483 said:
The stations I work at use CD's, but no vinyl or tape, alongside Wireready on one station and DCS on the other. We used tapes occasionally for sound effects when we had Cartready a couple years ago, but those have been shelved since we got Wireready. With Wireready, we can assign the sound effects hot keys if we need them. We run satellite automation in the night and overnight hours as no music is on the hard drive. Our sister stations about 60 miles away use Maestro for pretty much everything and only use CD's as backup.
I know KTXR 101.3 in Sprinfield, MO uses vinyl when Wayne Glenn "The Old Record Collector" does his show. They also use CD's and tapes during his show as well as Prophet NexGen. They have some very nice turntables, in by the way. They had some problems, though, with one of the jocks using the turntables as a shelf for her purse!
Kent said:
Four years ago I was driving into Alabama for an appointment and came across a small town station "out in a pasture" so just for kicks I pulled in. It looked like it had been build circa 1955, and not much of anything EVER changed. Maybe not even the exterior paint.
I walked in an introduced myself to a young lady, emphasis on young, and in VERY young, and she allowed as how I indeed could "see the place". In the control room there were about six PC's sitting on the floor, on crates, where ever, and the most amazing set of Rube Goldberg wires playing tag between them.
There was a traditional console and desk still in the control room with mail and un-opened mail stacked about 21 inches deep. The delightful YOUNG, VERY YOUNG lady said: "We even have some of those record thingy-dingys under here." {exact quote!!!} She brushed away 18 inches or so of paper and sure enough, a turn table complete with what had become a sway-back tone arm from all the paper weighing it down.
I think we can say THIS STATION was NOT still using any vinyl. I regret not getting a picture of that scene.
The only time we use records is when our local oldies host does his show Saturday nights on our oldies station. The rest of the time we use the satellite. They are from his own collection and he is in the process of converting them to CD. Other than that we have all our music on hard drive (Smartcaster). We keep CD's as back ups. I have not used a cart in years. We still have a reel to reel machine in one of our studios but I think the last time we received a spot on reel was 2002.
The oldies station in the building where I work runs ABC's Pure Gold/Classic Hits pretty much 24/7 with DCS automation. However, we are live on occasion. Given that it's the number one station in the market, we do get a fair share of remotes, especially in the summer. We run a library of TM Century Gold Discs when we run live. We actually don't have any bumpers for when the station is live. It's pretty much me opening the mic and talking between every song. I've wondered if, maybe, we should take those old cart machines for the Hot AC out of the prod room and move them to the oldies station, but it's not likely to happen since we're not live very often at all. In fact, when we run satellite on the oldies, or I guess I should get into the habit of saying "classic hits" now, station, the DCS and the satellite are run through a switcher while the board is left completely dead. We use that studio as an alternate production studio since we can put the mic in program and never go out over the air! If you're even more curious, we record those spots on minidisc, use CD's for the background music and import them into the audio server in the main prod room.
By the way, I've been told I've also worked for the first station in the world to run 100% of its music on hard drive. That was KOQL in Columbia, MO. While I didn't work there until after they got AudioVault installed, I was told they had about the Rube Goldberg setup you describe, Goat Rodeo Cowboy, when they first went to an all hard drive setup! I was told there were about 6 hard drives cabled together.
By the way, I've been told I've also worked for the first station in the world to run 100% of its music on hard drive. That was KOQL in Columbia, MO. While I didn't work there until after they got AudioVault installed, I was told they had about the Rube Goldberg setup you describe, Goat Rodeo Cowboy, when they first went to an all hard drive setup! I was told there were about 6 hard drives cabled together.
It seems only stations that have local oldies shows on weekend nights still use vinyl and since converting to MP3 is so easy, you have to assume they just love that retro feeling. Of course, those pops and cracks can come through loud and clear on CD too if recorded off the record!
This brought to mind the old Tuesday Afternoon Run whereby I'd make the rounds in the station van and trade "Dubs" with about five different stations in five towns. It was about a 150 mile round trip and got me out of the building on Tuesday afternoons. Email has taken care of that!
On a recent trip, I locked onto a real hometown station.
I have KYW 1060 on a preset, and out of habit, punched it up while in Mt. Vernon, IL. I picked up WMCL, McLeansboro, IL. The midday fellow was ad-libbing a 90-second "minute" spot for a local NAPA outlet. He then introduced Hank Williams (Sr.) and dropped the stylus on the record "Hey, Good Lookin'", live!
Pops, clicks, cue burns...It was like listening in a time warp. Beautiful! Real, local, live radio. And quite a spot load to boot.
You could not wipe the grin off my face.
I have KYW 1060 on a preset, and out of habit, punched it up while in Mt. Vernon, IL. I picked up WMCL, McLeansboro, IL. The midday fellow was ad-libbing a 90-second "minute" spot for a local NAPA outlet. He then introduced Hank Williams (Sr.) and dropped the stylus on the record "Hey, Good Lookin'", live!
Pops, clicks, cue burns...It was like listening in a time warp. Beautiful! Real, local, live radio. And quite a spot load to boot.
You could not wipe the grin off my face.
WIRY Plattsburgh, NY studios are a time warp with modern conveniences. Click "station tour" http://www.wiry.com/. It's a good sounding small town radio station.
I had read on the tubes of the internets WGN's Wally Phillips loved using records for his bits. WGN had a disc cutting machine on premise for Wally long after the technology became obsolete.
I had read on the tubes of the internets WGN's Wally Phillips loved using records for his bits. WGN had a disc cutting machine on premise for Wally long after the technology became obsolete.
Oldbones said:
Look like it to me, I love that old Gates board in their production room. Also those classic Gates Cart machines and turntables. WIRY has a nice mix of old and new gear.
I remember visiting a small FM station in Palestine TX in the early 90's. At the time it was 3K and running a CHR format. The DJ was playing "cassingles" from two realistic cassette decks.
I worked in AM christian radio back in the late 80's, and cassettes were the dominant media for religious talk programming.
David Marsden still uses a lot of his personal [and extensive] collection of vinyl on his Thursday and Friday nite shows on CKGE in Ontario. www.therock.fm...7to midnite eastern. Well worth a listen!
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