Coffee Spill Fries Audio Board

[skippertthomas]

Duh? We have a 'to the right and behind' place for the Coffee, Juice and H 2 0.... Or Jack or Jim or Mad Dog...)

 

[michael hagerty]

When my son was about 5, I let him push the shopping cart in Safeway. He pushed the cart into one of those annoying displays sticking out in the aisle that is meant to get customers' attention by being in the way. Probably a hundred dollars worth of cheap jug wine smashed open on the floor and the noise could be heard throughout the store, not to mention the cheap Chablis wine-smell wafting around. It was quite embarrasing, but Safeway did not make me pay.

Same story here, except my son (age 5) managed to take out a single $80 bottle. My wife was reaching for the VISA card, but the store wouldn't accept payment.

 

[DavidKaye]

They're lucky they had a backup studio to move to.

They were off the air for 20 minutes?

Yeah, apparently 20 minutes, though the transition is scoped so it's a little hard to hear the change. Judging by the banter of the hosts, the WBAL zoo sounds like the most awful thing that could have come out of high school radio. And on WBAL, no less. Sheesh!

 

[Tom_KYA1260]

Unions Suck!

If the broadcasting unions were strong there would still be jobs in broadcasting. The great growth in radio and TV happened WITH unionized stations. Every major station you could think of -- KNBR, KGO, KCBS, KNEW, KABL, KEEN, KSJO, KSFO -- were all unionized and paid living wages. The non-union stations also paid better because they were afraid to lose talent to the union stations if they didn't offer at least a somewhat comparable wage.

Today, without unions radio and TV wages suck. That's all there is to it.

They haven't found a way to unionize voice-tracking.

 

[DavidKaye]

They haven't found a way to unionize voice-tracking.

They could if voicetrackers weren't bottom feeders. When I was growing up I went to a union barber shop, was waited on by union waiters/resses even in small diners. The musicians were unionized, as were the clerks at most grocery and department stores. I worked in a cannery in the summers when I was in high school, and they paid enough that I could afford out of the house when I reached college.

Voicetrackers could unionize if they really wanted to. But they're trying to beat each other to the bottom, which is why a station can get someone to do voicetracks for as little as $12 an hour, heck, maybe even less...

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

"Yeah, apparently 20 minutes, though the transition is scoped so it's a little hard to hear the change. Judging by the banter of the hosts, the WBAL zoo sounds like the most awful thing that could have come out of high school radio. And on WBAL, no less. Sheesh!" Actually, it's WBAL's sister, WIYY 98 Rock. Back in the dark ages, it was WBAL-FM, but aside from that it's just it's rock sister station. Short Mick and his sidekicks are terrible in my opinion. Mick is a second-rate stand-up that just knows how to kiss up to the right people to get where he is right now. He was a kiss-up to the the former morning show that was there for years who allowed him on their show for years previously. Then he was able to get on at nights with some other younger talented (but a bit raw) folks that were actually a bit funny, unlike Mick. Then, when the 20 plus year morning show moved on (one guy passed and the other two jumped stations a couple years after that) Mick kissed up some more and slid into mornings. Your comment about them sounding like a high school show is exactly my thoughts. Honestly 98 should be happy he spilled coffee in the console. It's probably the most recognition he's got out of market, and maybe in market ever. He's a dark spot on a legendary rocker in my book and certainly a poor substitute for the former KML show. RIP Lopez.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

I'm a bit surprised the Hearst boys didn't have a way to remotely get into their routing (assuming the whole place is on one) and switch the X-Y points to put them up in the PROD room quicker than that. The console is an older digital board, so maybe that's not an option though. My take-away from all of this is any station of substantial worth probably needs a good way to easily be switched over to another studio or at least the automation system in a bypass mode. For the rich, remote log-in would be best. For the poor a simple Broadcast Tools switch or even a home-made switch or a patchbay (don't like that as much because jocks are scared of it) would do the trick. When hell breaks loose it pays to have some of this kind of stuff thought out a bit...

 

[BarryATL]

... even a home-made switch or a patchbay (don't like that as much because jocks are scared of it) would do the trick. When hell breaks loose it pays to have some of this kind of stuff thought out a bit...

I was always at the other end of the spectrum... the patch bay was a big puzzle and I wanted to play with it. That did not always make the engineer happy.

Actually, in the day, we had to use the patch bay daily. We had more phone lines coming in than we had empty inputs on the board. Since we were in an unmanned central office, the phone company did not do any switching. So, every single program feed had a separate broadcast loop coming to the station.

 

[xmusicmatt]

I'm a bit surprised the Hearst boys didn't have a way to remotely get into their routing (assuming the whole place is on one) and switch the X-Y points to put them up in the PROD room quicker than that. The console is an older digital board, so maybe that's not an option though. My take-away from all of this is any station of substantial worth probably needs a good way to easily be switched over to another studio or at least the automation system in a bypass mode. For the rich, remote log-in would be best. For the poor a simple Broadcast Tools switch or even a home-made switch or a patchbay (don't like that as much because jocks are scared of it) would do the trick. When hell breaks loose it pays to have some of this kind of stuff thought out a bit...

Yeah I am kinda surprised they didn't have a BT Tools switcher or some form of router to switch the automation direct.. they could have at least ran liners / music / ads in auto mode on their automation that way until they got the Prod studio "on air" ...

When I worked at a Clear Channel smaller market station cluster in 1999 even we could by pass the air studio and put the Prophet system on air directly taking the console out of the loop. (in fact out side of "live" shows.. we ran out FM's directly from automation to audio switcher to processing (with the board not live). all it took to take the board out of the loop was to switch the input on our switcher from one source to another. (The Prophet Audio Wizard automation we ran at the time in 1999 made it super easy -- click the mouse on the 2 which was our audio server direct source and turn off the "board" input which we had at the time on source 5.)

Of course, we had a "no coffee/ no drink/ no food in studio policy" so stuff like what happened at 98 Rock never happened while I was there. (we had a small shelf outside the studio door we could keep snacks / drinks on and no one ever really did otherwise).

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

I try to always make sure there's a place like that behind or the side of the operator that's far away or not connected to the rest of the woodworking so they can put their junk over there. There's less temptation for them to put it near the gear. In the case of the "morning zoo" atmosphere like 98 has going it's much harder to figure out how to do that Stuff has a tendency to go where it doesn't belong.

 

[DavidKaye]

I try to always make sure there's a place like that behind or the side of the operator that's far away or not connected to the rest of the woodworking so they can put their junk over there. There's less temptation for them to put it near the gear. In the case of the "morning zoo" atmosphere like 98 has going it's much harder to figure out how to do that Stuff has a tendency to go where it doesn't belong.

Actually, a fairly simple solution that takes into account the human factor of putting beverages where they don't belong would be to simply raise the board by putting something under it, such as maybe a space to store copy or other material. With the board raised people would be unlikely to put a beverage on the board, and if they put it on the desk and spilled it, the beverage wouldn't go into the board but under it.

 

[stewie]

I try to always make sure there's a place like that behind or the side of the operator that's far away or not connected to the rest of the woodworking so they can put their junk over there. There's less temptation for them to put it near the gear. In the case of the "morning zoo" atmosphere like 98 has going it's much harder to figure out how to do that Stuff has a tendency to go where it doesn't belong.

Actually, a fairly simple solution that takes into account the human factor of putting beverages where they don't belong would be to simply raise the board by putting something under it, such as maybe a space to store copy or other material. With the board raised people would be unlikely to put a beverage on the board, and if they put it on the desk and spilled it, the beverage wouldn't go into the board but under it.

In this day and age, a jock would probably take that to HR claiming carpel tunnel from having to stress their wrist to reach the controls.

The question is, does that workers comp case equal less or more than replacing a broken console and the make goods for the ads that didn't air during that 20 minute period. I know, i know, just having fun with you all.

 

[DavidKaye]

In this day and age, a jock would probably take that to HR claiming carpel tunnel from having to stress their wrist to reach the controls.

Actually, carpal tunnel problems would be improved by raising the console because the wrists would point downward (think of paws) rather than be raised upward. This is why so many people suffered carpal from those "ergomically correct" desks that had people lowering their arms so that the wrists were level with their elbows. TERRIBLE. It caused even more wrist bending. My desk is a kitchen table where I reach up to the keyboard. I have been typing and coding for decades with no carpal problem whatsoever.

 

[rricci]

But today's board are built so that they're extremely easy to ruin. This was my whole point in talking about earlier consoles which tended to be upright, not flat as they are today. Little or no damage in the past; much damage today.

Maybe it's teh cynical side of me, but I'm willing to bet the design was PARTLY to save money, but also to MAKE money from, shall we call it "human nature". Just my 2 cents worth.

Since I'm posting, I'd like to add 2 comments to this thread.

1. I'm glad the audio was put up so we could hear it. I liked the way the DJ called the static "crinkly". I wouldn't have use that word myself. "Crinkly" is used to describe the sound paper makes. As I was listening to that, I was placing myself in their shoes and wondering what I would have done. Since I'm not in the radio industry or have any interest other than a listener, I would have panicked, especially at the sight of smoke. Does that piece of equipment have a power button? I would have said on air that old Marcia Brady line "Gotta run. Something suddenly came up (and to myself I would have added: the possibility of getting fired. We'll be back as soon as we can" and turned that thing off to minimize the damage

2. In listening to this, did images of WKRP pop up in anyone's mind??? I could see Johnny Fever saying "Oh booger!!" over and over again and Les Nesman going on the air waarning Cincinnatians that there's a strange odor and he's on top to get to the bottom of it.

 

[BarryATL]

I worked at the real WKRP in Dallas, GA and actually we did have a board start smoking while on the air. Someone switched the power supply from DC to AC. The board did not like that. However, at 17 years old I was a radio nerd and had us on the air from the one cart machine and one turn table production room within sixty seconds.

We ran from that production room with one turn table, one cart machine and two reel-to-reels for a week while waiting for a new board to be shipped. There is nothing like being live and local between every record (yes... record as in 45 rpm). The one hour newscast at 12 noon was fun. Two people sharing one mic and constantly switching inputs around so the two news networks (Georgia Network and AP) could be potted up during the hour. Fun, fun, fun.... actually, it really was fun.

 

[stewie]

Does that piece of equipment have a power button?

Nope, no power button.