CBS-FM's Seven Day Weekend

[radio124]

I'm also greatly enjoying this countdown from Southern California. I've got my Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits 1955-2003 open to the back where all the songs are listed in alphabetical order as I try to guess the next song coming up.

 

[andreajesus]

I gave up on trying to guess the next song...but instead ENJOYING all these surprises that they're pleasing my musical ears with.... 8)

 

[oldies76]

Human (#1 1986), one of the best from the 80's!! CBS-FM Rocks!

 

[andreajesus]

andreajesus That's one that I missed...but i've heard MOST of it since like it started Monday morning - AWE-SOME!! Right now, I'm hearing "Hotel California" by the Eagles....

They played it at 4:30 am ET..I have a funny feeling that they will not be finished by Sunday. They are only in the H's and they are TONS of titles in the I's, M's, S's and T's..even the W's are lengthy. We'll see!

Nice to hear two Bee Gees songs in a row..How Can You Mend a Broken Heart & How Deep is Your Love.

Thanks for the "time" update - reminds me of two months ago when I met Sue O'Neal down in Paramus at the Mall, she says to me at one point (quietly, of course) that SHE had heard that I stay up 24-7 and LISTEN TO THE STATION! (that's not true - it just seems that way.... )

I don't think they'll be finished by Sunday, I don't care if they're NOT finished by Sunday, I'm just having SUCH A BALL hearing all these songs - some I've requested, but all have been unmistakably tested

And the Bee Gees thing? COOL!! 8)

 

[andreajesus]

CBS-FM Rocks!

I agree 101.1% with that They are back, they are living, they are breathing, and THEY ARE ROCKING!! BRAVO 101 FM!!

 

[oldies76]

andreajesus I don't think they'll be finished by Sunday, I don't care if they're NOT finished by Sunday, I'm just having SUCH A BALL hearing all these songs - some I've requested, but all have been unmistakably tested

It took another station (KDZA) nearly 20 hours, just to play the letter S songs recently. It'll probably take CBS-FM nearly as long, or longer to do the S's. Yeah..Sunday would be pushing it.

Hurdy Gurdy Man, awesome psychadelics from '68

 

[andreajesus]

andreajesus I don't think they'll be finished by Sunday, I don't care if they're NOT finished by Sunday, I'm just having SUCH A BALL hearing all these songs - some I've requested, but all have been unmistakably tested

It took another station (KDZA) nearly 20 hours, just to play the letter S songs recently. It'll probably take CBS-FM nearly as long, or longer to do the S's. Yeah..Sunday would be pushing it.

that's ok, i'm hearing such GOOD STUFF the ENTIRE week so far that IT DON'T MATTER TO ME at this point WHEN this thing ends - it's AWE-SOME!!

 

[KathyClningMyHseNYnkrs]

My only regret is that I have to go bed, and miss some of the "I'm" songs! :'(

 

[RADIO TRUTH]

This board should be more than a groupie board. I thought that this board was supposed to encourage intelligent discourse about the business of radio and not the mental diarrhea of the phone jammers who have called and annoyed dj for decades.

 

[adma]

You don't think CBS-FM is selling 55+, do you?
They're selling 25-54.

No, they're selling the *idea* of 25-54 to cover up for their still 55+ demo. Kind of like the programming equivalent of hair dye and a bad toupee.

Or, they're 25-54 in the same sense that Archie + Edith Bunker were 25-54 in 1971.

And are they faking the Arbitron data, too?

Ah, but consider the kinds of people who'd respond to the Arbitron diary pitch (or for that matter, radio advertising) in 2008. They're the "Archie & Edith" kinds of 25-54-year-olds...or maybe Spuckler types "Hey, Brandine, they gave us two fresh dollar bills to fill out this here radio diary"

 

[Gerryr]

[/quote]

And are they faking the Arbitron data, too?
[/quote]

Ah, but consider the kinds of people who'd respond to the Arbitron diary pitch (or for that matter, radio advertising) in 2008. They're the "Archie & Edith" kinds of 25-54-year-olds...or maybe Spuckler types "Hey, Brandine, they gave us two fresh dollar bills to fill out this here radio diary"
[/quote]

And your point is that our commercial radio business is a sham and only pay radio should be viable?

 

[RJJ-RADIO]

This board should be more than a groupie board. I thought that this board was supposed to encourage intelligent discourse about the business of radio and not the mental diarrhea of the phone jammers who have called and annoyed dj for decades.

With an attitude like this maybe this board is not for you, I think you belong on Sniffens board were he has a knack for knocking the wind out of peoples sails.

 

[oldies76]

RADIO TRUTH This board should be more than a groupie board. I thought that this board was supposed to encourage intelligent discourse about the business of radio and not the mental diarrhea of the phone jammers who have called and annoyed dj for decades.

??? huh?

It's a discussion on the 7 day countdown, everything associated with it. There are hundreds of other posts you can give your "intelligent discourse" on.

 

[wmgcbs]

Couple it with some much needed improvements and tweaks to the station's airchain, it's awesome!!!

Kudos to the CBS-FM engineering department for making the station sound the way it should. Let's just hope they leave it where it is... Both the music and the airchain are sounding great this morning!

And again we begin another audio processing adventure on CBS-FM . Right in the middle of "Hot, Hot, Hot" last night, they did something. It's amazing. Yesterday, I barely had a chance to listen to the station, but when I did, they tweak again.

Some songs sound decent, but some don't. Just when it seemed they found the perfect sound, they tweak it... again. Yikes. I'll give it some time, but those Motown songs just aren't sounding as good. On top of that, the DJs sound somewhat muffled when they open up the mic. It sounds a bit harsh overall - nothing like what was airing earlier this week into last night, which sounded just right for a station like CBS-FM. It's hard to explain what the difference is, but it's certainly noticeable and obvious. Just not as clean and crisp and easy on the ears. Hopefully, it's just temporary.

If it ain't broken (and, for once in this case, it wasn't) DON'T FIX IT!

[Steps down off of audio complaint soapbox]

On the bright side, their HD issue seems to be fixed. It used to skip when it blended from analog to HD. Not so now. So one thing's better and the other's worse. Oh, well.

Of course, the countdown continues to be extremely enjoyable, audio issues aside.

 

[RadioFixerCLE]

And again we begin another audio processing adventure on CBS-FM . Right in the middle of "Hot, Hot, Hot" last night, they did something. It's amazing. Yesterday, I barely had a chance to listen to the station, but when I did, they tweak again.

Some songs sound decent, but some don't. Just when it seemed they found the perfect sound, they tweak it... again. Yikes. I'll give it some time, but those Motown songs just aren't sounding as good. On top of that, the DJs sound somewhat muffled when they open up the mic. It sounds a bit harsh overall - nothing like what was airing earlier this week into last night, which sounded just right for a station like CBS-FM. It's hard to explain what the difference is, but it's certainly noticeable and obvious. Just not as clean and crisp and easy on the ears. Hopefully, it's just temporary.

If it ain't broken (and, for once in this case, it wasn't) DON'T FIX IT!

[Steps down off of audio complaint soapbox]

On the bright side, their HD issue seems to be fixed. It used to skip when it blended from analog to HD. Not so now. So one thing's better and the other's worse. Oh, well.

Of course, the countdown continues to be extremely enjoyable, audio issues aside.

Tweaking a processor takes time. With oldies, it's a challenge because (I'm not a processing authority, so take what I say here with a grain of salt):

1) The songs themselves can sound "rough around the edges" sometimes. A lot of songs were overprocessed to begin with (Motown was famous for cutting very "hot" sounding disks). So imagine running processed audio through even more processing. You see what I mean?

2) Since one song may sound perfect, and another one..not so good......the idea is to look for a compromise that will work for everything.

One question, are you listening to the analog FM signal or the HD side? I'd recommend sticking to the analog side....it has a LOT more punch to it. I don't know how much you can do to an HD signal before it starts sounding all nasty, with artifacts.

There's still some work to be done. Give it some time, you'll like what you'll eventually hear.

 

[wmgcbs]

Tweaking a processor takes time. With oldies, it's a challenge because (I'm not a processing authority, so take what I say here with a grain of salt):

1) The songs themselves can sound "rough around the edges" sometimes. A lot of songs were overprocessed to begin with (Motown was famous for cutting very "hot" sounding disks). So imagine running processed audio through even more processing. You see what I mean?

2) Since one song may sound perfect, and another one..not so good......the idea is to look for a compromise that will work for everything.

One question, are you listening to the analog FM signal or the HD side? I'd recommend sticking to the analog side....it has a LOT more punch to it. I don't know how much you can do to an HD signal before it starts sounding all nasty, with artifacts.

There's still some work to be done. Give it some time, you'll like what you'll eventually hear.

First of all, I thank you for your responses. I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass (although it may come across that way); I'm genuinely interested in what is going on. I truly have no clue as to how this is going on, and I'm SURE it is a lot harder than it seems. I just get frustrated when it sounded amazing yesterday and today, it's just so-so. The fact that the mics and jingles are not matched up with the music hasn't helped much either. The previous "sound" seemed to blend everything well together, but now, the music doesn't flow as nicely from song to song. I always listen for a Motown song to compare, and today, hearing a few, I was disappointed in the lack of crispness. It seems like something is missing from the high ends. Additionally, just as previously, the jocks sounded like they were in your living room, now, they sound muffled.

I am now listening on the analog signal; I tried the HD for a short while, but I wasn't impressed. And that's not a bash on CBS-FM specifically, but on HD-1's in general. WLTW's has always sounded terrible. And, with regards to HD-2s, right now, I think that 101.1-2 sounds the best it ever has.

I first noticed the change on the analog signal last night during Parker's show. As slight as it was, my ears immediately perked up. There's the downside to having such sensitive hearing .

I trust you when you say that the station finally has a competent engineer. God only knows what the previous guy(s) did that screwed up the station to begin with. It was terrible, and even now, the station doesn't sound as bad as it did about a month ago. I'll just keep on waitin' and, I guess the best advice I can give myself is the same advice Journey gave their listeners in '81: "Don't Stop Believin'"

Once again, thanks for your patience and information. I truly appreciate it, and hopefully, CBS-FM will be sounding better, crisper, and cleaner in no time.

 

[wgliradio]

I can tell you nothing happened during Hot Hot Hot. I was in the studio while it was on working on an issue with a headphone jack.

The Ariane was installed in line Monday, my first day in. I do not have rights access YET to the processor since the passwords are at Empire and I haven't been able to get access. Next week we should have connectivity from Empire to the studio with the processor so I can make the needed adjustments (remember, some things there are still pointing to 1515 Broadway on the Network). On top of that, the processor is using an old version of software which we will upgrade.

Kudos to Eric Barklow who fixed the HD time alignment issue.

I agree I am not 100% happy with it, but I do feel it is better than it was, but it will be even better still. The changes made to the Ariane yesterday happened around 4pm when we adjusted the stereo imaging. I felt it was over enhanced causing multipath issues, so we tailored it in a little.

All I can say is stay tuned. We are working very hard and in a systematic fashion to take care of everything in order so we don't end up doing a million things at once and lose track of where we are. If you know of my posts on audio processing, you know I am not yet satisfied!!!

 

[wmgcbs]

I can tell you nothing happened during Hot Hot Hot. I was in the studio while it was on working on an issue with a headphone jack.

The Ariane was installed in line Monday, my first day in. I do not have rights access YET to the processor since the passwords are at Empire and I haven't been able to get access. Next week we should have connectivity from Empire to the studio with the processor so I can make the needed adjustments (remember, some things there are still pointing to 1515 Broadway on the Network). On top of that, the processor is using an old version of software which we will upgrade.

Kudos to Eric Barklow who fixed the HD time alignment.

I agree I am not 100% happy with it, but I do feel it is better than it was, but it will be even better still. The changes made to the Ariane yesterday happened around 4pm when we adjusted the stereo imaging. I felt it was over enhanced causing multipath issues, so we tailored it in a little.

All I can say is stay tuned.

Thanks for the update! When you say the stereo imaging was adjusted, is that why currently, when I change from Stereo to Mono on my home radio system, there is very little difference?

I don't know then, what happened during "Hot, Hot, Hot," but I actually noticed a difference in Ron Parker's voice before the song and after (before being during the weather and after talking up "Hot Rod Lincoln"). Before it seemed to be crisper and cleaner. Don't know if something else could have caused that, but I'm pretty sure something happened during his show yesterday.

I also notice that the jocks seem to be having some feedback issues. I'm sure that, with all of this new equipment and need for new software, it may just take a while to work all of the bugs out.

My .02: CBS-FM sounded its best when the A-Z kicked off on Monday through Tuesday. I don't know if the Ariane was in use at that time, but that's when, for me, everything seemed to be perfectly fine. I guess this is before stereo imaging was adjusted.

It's nice to know that someone is working on it though, after months of issues.

 

[lalumia]

great; now go play some more Marvelettes!

 

[adma]

And are they faking the Arbitron data, too?

Ah, but consider the kinds of people who'd respond to the Arbitron diary pitch (or for that matter, radio advertising) in 2008. They're the "Archie & Edith" kinds of 25-54-year-olds...or maybe Spuckler types "Hey, Brandine, they gave us two fresh dollar bills to fill out this here radio diary"

And your point is that our commercial radio business is a sham and only pay radio should be viable?

Well, look at it this way, Leisure Suit Larry. You want the stoopidest specimens of 25-54dom, the spam pigeons and telemarketers' easy marks? You've got'em. And of course, "your commercial radio business" adores them, because they "don't talk back"...