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Chicago's Finest Processing

B

Brian Bowers

For decades, Chicago's Finest Rock (WXRT/93XRT), had some of Chicago's finest FM audio processing. There is no doubt in my mind that that existed because of Norm Winer. I'm betting that Norm had a great ear for processing, knew when to keep the lid on it, and probably instructed his engineers to get it where he wanted it, and keep it there. Now that he has exited the station, someone just couldn't wait to get their hands on it, and blow it out of control. I heard a Led Zeppelin cut the other day, and the noise floor was so sucked up, it should have been embarrassing for even the littlest FM station in nowhere land. I can't even listen to the station anymore, and I've been a listener for over 40 years. Such a shame. Norm and his engineers had it right all along. No doubt it has crept up a bit over the years (probably do to CBS Radio owning the place), but even after that, it's still usually remained a high quality FM signal. Yuk.
 
On the other hand, the compression on the first two Led Zep records was so high, that it sounds bad without processing. I understand Jimmy Page tried to fix it in his recent remixes.
 
WXRT always had simple, quiet, clean processing. They've jacked it up since. A lot of the overall sound quality changed when they moved from the old building to the new studio. That's to be expected. Digital boards and equipment are not going to sound the same as analog. Now they simply upped it so it can compete with other stations in the market like WKQX.

Actually 101.1 just recently turned down their processing a bit. The 2009-2011 era Q101 always had quieter processing. Rock and Alternativemusic sounds better when it's not heavily processed. At least to me.
 
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