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CBS-FM terrible audio!

S

satech

Whoever is currently in charge of CBS-FM's audio processing should be reassigned to cleaning toilets, and banned from ever touching an Optimod again. A few weeks ago they were quieter than Lite FM, but now they are so smashed and overdriven that it makes your radio sound broken. Could we just have a happy medium between these two extremes, please!?
 
On the bright side, someone apparently noticed that what was previously on the air sounded awful. ::)

But, the station is indeed louder... and more distorted. And still kinda awful.

This leads me to ask a serious question: How are engineers hired? Especially in market #1, you'd think that whoever was hiring these people would have some kind of audio "test" or ask them to provide a sample of their previous work with references. Whoever is currently up there clearly does not know their way around audio processing.
 
luperm said:
It's not always fair to blame the engineer.
They usually make the station sound the way programming wants it.
Click to expand...

Interesting thought... I always thought Lite FM sounded way too smashed when Jim Ryan was programming it a couple years ago.

I admit I don't listen to CBS-FM nearly as much as I used to simply because the processing went wayward after Mike Erickson left. When he was there, the music and the DJs had a certain sparkle and clarity that made listening pleasurable. It truly sounded great. Now it is a mess.
 
collegeDJ86 said:
Interesting thought... I always thought Lite FM sounded way too smashed when Jim Ryan was programming it a couple years ago.
Click to expand...
Lite FM is actually very lightly processed right now (at least by NYC standards!) -- but if you turn up your volume that one extra notch compared to the other stations, they are much cleaner and more open sounding.
 
I agree. I was in town yesterday after about six weeks and when I punched up CBS-FM I was amazed at how bad it sounded. Talk about going from first to worst! Even the HD sounds funky.

What's particularly frustrating for me is that as an engineer with over 30 years experience (and a processing guru) I know that if I could spend an hour there doing some adjusting I could make them sound SO good - yet it will never happen!
 
In some cases, the Chief Engineer can't even touch the processing. I have been part of this scenario many times. Sure, he may install and maintain all of it, but the adjustment duty may be given to someone else. Sometimes corporate leaves that up to an outside consultant (for example Jim Lupas). The decision of who adjusts it, varies from station to station, and cluster to cluster. It also depends on who is ultimately calling the shots. Is it the PD, GM, Corporate PD, Corporate Engineer, local Chief Engineer, etc.? Sometimes the Chief Engineer is happy to leave this job to an outside source, so he doesn't have so many people breathing down his neck, regarding the particular sound of the station. One of the problems is, is that there are so many opinions to what the processing should sound like. In my opinion, he takes more time and effort to make a station sound louder and cleaner, than it does to make it sound louder and grungier, or more dense. One of the reasons I now prefer listening to the audio webstreams, over the OTA signals (for home listening), is they seem to be processed much more lightly (since no one seems to put as much attention to them, and most stations will only spend so much on processing equipment for them - usually the Orban card - which is a fine card), as compared to the OTA (over the air) signal.
 
The strange thing with CBS-FM's processing right now is that they seem to be using massive amounts of multiband compression, but not much final clipping. The result is the bass is a distorted grungy mess and the treble is smashed to hell -- but neither causes distortion to spill over into the midrange that much, unlike the famous "NYC Omnia" sound. A very different sound to be sure -- but definitely not pleasant to listen to!
 
I live in Staten island and have trouble with wcbsfm sometimes :( I thought it was my radio, but hearing this, I guess it is not. My Husband said the other morning, It was bad, yes, Mike was great, I wish he would come back!!! Mike did a Awesome job!!! :) I hope they can get it sounding better.
 
collegeDJ86 said:
luperm said:
It's not always fair to blame the engineer.
They usually make the station sound the way programming wants it.
Click to expand...

Interesting thought... I always thought Lite FM sounded way too smashed when Jim Ryan was programming it a couple years ago.
Click to expand...

Yet Fresh sounds decent, so I wonder if it's just the fact that the engineer at Lite wasn't up to snuff on his processing. Same goes to the engineer at CBS-FM. (If the same engineer oversees both CBS and Fresh, then you can discount my theory!)

It all gets back to the point that some people are making - it would be interesting to know who is actually calling the shots for the processing.
 
Maybe it's me, but it sounds like they tweaked it again, and now it is even muddier and a bit softer than last weekend. Nasty. But, I have a theory: maybe they want to make the station sound JUST like it did when it signed on in '72 for their 40th anniversary weekend! ::)
 
LenoxAve said:
Maybe it's me, but it sounds like they tweaked it again, and now it is even muddier and a bit softer than last weekend. Nasty. But, I have a theory: maybe they want to make the station sound JUST like it did when it signed on in '72 for their 40th anniversary weekend! ::)
Click to expand...

It sound like the processor is in bypass mode at the moment.... ::)

P.s. it sounds like an old Inovonics processor, not like a typical optimod sound.
 
Last I heard a few months ago from a very reliable source is that the O.6 is on 102.7 and the 8500 is on CBS-FM. Perhaps they upgraded the 8500 to the 8600 with the upgrade card?
 
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