FM in the 80's and now

[frankberry]

FM loudness was really BIG and LOUD in the mid 80's.
Back then, I worked for one of the major radio groups. Perhaps the biggest.
Their FM station in the market was really loud.
The previous CE had made modifications to their Optimod and the XT chassis to increase the release speed on all of the frequency bands.
He had also set up the "dub station" with a Spectrum Analyzer which had a hold function.
Every recording was transferred to cart by equalizing the track so as to follow a special loudness curve.
The curve looked like an inverted "smiley face" with a big peak between 1 and 4 kilohertz.
The station sounded loud. It was also the most fatiguing and unnatural sound on the dial.
Try as I might, I couldn't get the PD or Station Management to understand the importance of transmitting a clean, non-fatiguing signal.
After a few years, the Arbitron numbers tumbled and the format failed badly.

Unfortunately, I'm still hearing stations with the same mindset.
Where was it ever written that the LOUDEST signal wins?

Anyone have thoughts on this subject?

 

[radiorob2.0]

FM loudness was really BIG and LOUD in the mid 80's.
Back then, I worked for one of the major radio groups. Perhaps the biggest.
Their FM station in the market was really loud.
The previous CE had made modifications to their Optimod and the XT chassis to increase the release speed on all of the frequency bands.
He had also set up the "dub station" with a Spectrum Analyzer which had a hold function.
Every recording was transferred to cart by equalizing the track so as to follow a special loudness curve.
The curve looked like an inverted "smiley face" with a big peak between 1 and 4 kilohertz.
The station sounded loud. It was also the most fatiguing and unnatural sound on the dial.
Try as I might, I couldn't get the PD or Station Management to understand the importance of transmitting a clean, non-fatiguing signal.
After a few years, the Arbitron numbers tumbled and the format failed badly.

Unfortunately, I'm still hearing stations with the same mindset.
Where was it ever written that the LOUDEST signal wins?

Anyone have thoughts on this subject?

It still happens today, case in point.

There is this station in an unranked market that hired a PD who convinced management and staff he was the alpha and omega of radio. Actually, he reminded me of Peter Boyle's character in "Taxi Driver" so I will call him Wizard. Wizard convinced management his concept of processing, smashing everything and shelving the bass and treble frequencies all the way to 11, was major market. So every point that had a processor or EQ (production, microphone and anywhere else) was smashed as were the bass and treble frequencies. The on-air sound was everything you could imagine, everyone sounded like Darth Vader while the bass frequencies floated from the excessive settings. The staff was very proud of their major market audio as suggested by Wizard. I, along with anyone with an ear, thought it was garbage; but we weren't Wizard so our opinions didn't matter. Even after Wizard left the station, they kept the sound because that is what big market radio sounds like.

Before Wizard got a hold of the processing, this 100,000 watt FM had a nice audio signature. For what it is worth, there is a station down the road in another unranked market using the same on-air processing stack (Compellor into an Omnia FM) that sounds up front and clean because it was set up by someone who had a clue.

Processing is all subjective and sometimes you have to smash. A 1970's vintage 500 watt AM Top 40 smashed the audio as to squeeze every mile they could in coverage. But when you have a 100,000 watt FM radiating from atop an 1100 foot tower there is no need for the mod monitor meter to stand erect at 100 percent. Again, it's all a matter of perspective but sometimes I wonder.

 

[frankberry]

Thank you. You are exactly on point. In my case, this was a 100,000 watt station at 1350 feet in a major market.
I can understand why a little AM station might want to squeeze as much out of their transmitter as possible.
Not so much for an FM station with a big coverage area.

 

[GeneSavage]

I remember a CHR in Joplin, Missouri in the late 80s or early 90s (I think there were several, so this info doesn't giveaway anything) that sounded like they had a couple of Audio Prisms but had set the balance of the bands to the exact opposite in the other channel.

In other words, heavy bass in the left channel while thin in the right, lots of warmth in the right while hollow in the left, lots of mid-range "honk" in the left while muffled in the right, brittle crispness in the right while dull in the left...

I was listening on my car stereo as I drove through town, and had a hard time keeping it between the lines as voices and instruments swirled from one speaker to the other as the melody lines went up and down!

I couldn't help but think that some late night test tones to balance the two Audio Prisms would have done WONDERS for that station's sound... do you suppose the processing was set up listening to program material on a mono radio? Wowza...

I think a major difference between 80s processing vs today is that at the time, before the clarity of digital sources and the peak control of today's digital processors, processors tended to "pump" more... whether that was because there was no other way to get the loudness, or perhaps it was for effect, or because many the engineers who grew up on the 60s were used to that gain-riding sound, it was fairly common.

These days, you rarely hear a station truly pumping and breathing... but we've limited the #@!! out of it. The instruments don't "move" within the mix, but everything is slammed up against the speaker, and to my ears that can be more fatiguing than the up/down/up/down sound of yesteryear's settings.

As far as who decided squashed audio was the way to go: as previously mentioned, AMs were trying to squeeze every last inch out of their coverage, and FMs felt that if you were tuning across an analog dial, you'd stop if a signal "jumped out" at you. There is, to my knowledge, NO scientific research to back up the theory that screeching audio = higher cume but since so few stations run anything approaching "open," it's a hard theory to test.

When all of the top stations in the top markets are squashing the audio, and you're not winning with an open sound, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that stomping on your signal will put you where the big boys are in the ratings.

I occasionally get frustrated with a local talk AM that has their gate set so high that it sounds like somebody threw a blanket over the speaker, and our local NPR affiliate that seems to have a similar issue with some sort of noise reduction that sucks away the beginnings and ends of words... but a nearby college has a VERY transparent sound (I think it might be a barefoot Optimod 8100, not sure) it is is plenty processed and sounds great. I'd only like a little more processing because they're only 1,500 watts and I'm often driving on their fringe and could use a little boost over the noise... get in their signal area, and they sound great.

 

[jefflaurence]

There are so many different discussions about processing that is can get really blurry..some CEs set their stations up on scopes..and never listen to them..some are dictated to by "wizards" who say they know what it takes to win..some CEs will refuse to run any processing at all..saying that "if you were programming music people liked they would listen anyway"

The truth is that time spent listening is achieved by the best balance of programming and technical smarts..and that about it.

These days the music is recorded digitally, so there is less noise to try and eliminate as we did in the old days with Audimaxes and Volumaxes.

Most car radios have big time AGCs in them so a loudness war turns into a distortion buffet pretty quick. Now there is a push to enhancing the upper midrange to take advantage of the acoustics of the inside of a vehicle..it is apparent loudness and the best sounding station IMHO are those that depend less on the actual loudness as opposed to the apparent loudness.

I remember those spectrum analyzers and eq carting stations..I think Randy Michaels started that idea for AM operations run by Taft Broadcasting. For AM it worked quite well..FM..not so much.

 

[Studio1]

I started back in radio in the early 90s and the PD of the station I was with came to me and said "Make us LOUD! I wanna hear LOUD, and nothing but".

I protested, stating that LOUD meant a trade-off in terms of quality and he said "To hell with quality, I want it LOUD!"

So I did. I made it LOUD, and it sounded like sh*t.

The PD was rapt. I kept my job. I hated the sound.

I came in one weekend and cranked it back, til it sounded natural again.

PD came in first thing Monday morning and said "Jeez, we sound great don't we? Love that LOUD sound!"


The whole idea behind the LOUD thing was that if your station was the dominant one on the band, the one that jumped out
at you while you were tuning around, it would be the one that the listener stopped at.
These days, I don't think it's relevant any more.
There are so many formats, and everyone likes something different, that regardless of how loud or crappy it sounds, everyone
will choose their own station based on personal listening preference - ie the format that you most like.

It is eminently noticeable here, among the network stations, that listener fatigue is high and people are tuning out.
I'd sooner have a station that was a little quieter, had good harmonious sound, and a program that people wanted to
listen to than a station that blows the doors off your car but has few listeners.

 

[Kent T]

Where I work, I get to make the processing decisions. I run the best signal I can run and keep processing just compressed enough for people to hear in the car. We are quality minded here.

 

[littlejohn]

I think I may be repeating myself. Someone - I believe Mr Orban, and he'll surely correct me if I'm wrong - pointed out once during the Loud Wars the fallacy of being the loudest at all costs. The sound is fatigueing and drives away listeners. Watch women 18 -34 and if that demo sags, you're overdoing it... women have much better hearing than men.

At any rate, the guru's take on loud was (assunming your station is competitively processed and clean) you attract listeners vis promotion and keep them via product. The only thing the loyud attracts is the passer - by travellign through your market who isn't exposed to yuor promotion. The two things this traveller >doesn't< do are fill out a diary in the market and buy from your advertisers. Why lose the locals to attract him?

Modern boxes go amazingly lousd while maintaining quality. There's certainly no reason to overdo it. And given the perfect shower of schiess coming from some 'prodcuers', you're probably better off to err on the nice side if you play any of this.

 

[rorban]

I think I may be repeating myself. Someone - I believe Mr Orban, and he'll surely correct me if I'm wrong - pointed out once during the Loud Wars the fallacy of being the loudest at all costs. The sound is fatiguing and drives away listeners. Watch women 18 -34 and if that demo sags, you're overdoing it... women have much better hearing than men.

I wrote the following text many years ago and have reproduced it in all of our Optimod-FM manuals since then:


In FM processing, there is a direct trade-off between loudness, brightness, and distortion. You can improve one only at the expense of one or both of the others. Perhaps the most difficult part of adjusting a processor is determining the best trade-off for a given situation. We feel that it is usually wiser to give up ultimate loudness to achieve low distortion. A listener can compensate for loudness by simply adjusting the volume control. However, there is nothing the listener can do to make an excessively compressed or peak-limited signal sound clean again.

If processing for high quality is done carefully, the sound will also be excellent on small radios. Although such a signal might fall slightly short of ultimate loudness, it will tend to compensate with an openness, depth, and punch (even on small radios) that cannot be obtained when the signal is excessively squashed.

If women form a significant portion of the station’s audience, bear in mind that women are more sensitive to distortion and listening fatigue than men are. In any format requiring long-term listening to achieve market share, great care should be taken not to alienate women by excessive stridency, harshness, or distortion.

A dense, loud setup will make the audio seem to jump out of car and table radios, but may be fatiguing and invite tune-outs on higher quality home receivers. The loudness/distortion trade-off explained above applies.

You will achieve best results if Engineering, Programming, and Management go out of their way to communicate and cooperate with each other. It is important that Engineering understand the sound that Programming desires, and that Management fully understands the trade-offs involved in optimizing one parameter (such as loudness) at the expense of others (such as distortion or excessive density).

Never lose sight of the fact that, while the listener can easily control loudness, he or she cannot make a distorted signal clean again. If such excessive processing is permitted to audibly degrade the sound of the original program material, the signal is irrevocably contaminated and the original quality can never be recovered.

Bob Orban

 

[FFoti1]

Interesting thread...

There seems to be this connotation with the word L-O-U-D. I sense when it gets brought up, the age-old processing debate begins once again. LOUD processing can take on a few forms: punchy-loud where the allusion of dynamics exist, or dense-smashed loud where the buildup of processor induced IMD predominates the signature.

Cornelius Gould and I have spent considerable time researching the annoyances of LOUD processing. We've learned, and have now implemented, methods to monitor and control the IMD generating mechanisms. The result is audio that is perceived LOUD, yet is devoid of the annoyances associated with loud processing.

I believe what we perceived as quality loudness back in the 1980's was the result of audio processors that were able to achieve that desired affected sound, which worked at that time. As broadcasters desired more and more on the competitive side, the algorithms that worked well in the 1980's/1990's were pushed beyond their limits, and audio became 'over-the-top.' Hopefully, our new efforts will show we can generate a quality, yet competitive, on-air signature.

-Frank Foti