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KRTY audio is THE WORST I've ever heard

J

joewo

I grew up in a very small town surrounded by small FM stations. There was a definite difference between the sound of the small market stations and those in neighbiring Chicago. The audio for the Chicago stations had more punch...sounded louder...better equalized better separation and just overall sounded better. I'm not talking programming...just sound quality.
The FMs in San Francisco likewise sound good...some are loud like KMAX some are more natural like KDFC. So they all sound good with acceptable variations on what a quality sounding station should sound like.

THEN there is KRTY.

Why is it that KRTY sounds like they are transmitting their audio via a string and two tin cans? The programming is fine but the sound quality is atrocious and cannot be much beyond a normal POTS line. I tune from the new WOLF country station and KRTY and hear the same song and they sound completely different due to KRTY not having any low end and their high end sounds painfully tinny. I thought it wa sa signal issue but even when I drive to San Jose the sound quality does not improve. I have heard that when they play Jeff Foxworthy their audio quality improves but I have only heard them as they were live and the sound quality there is just possibly the worst sounding FM I have ever heard.

So what is the deal with KRTY's sound?
 
Exactly, and the right budgeting for Processors as well. I agree on KRTY. I remember in the mid 90's you could tell the diffrence between KYLD which had more punch, sounded clearer, and KMEL was poorer, less energy, not as loud. They oviously both sound great right now including KDON bommin from down South which used to be really bad quality a few years ago. Oviously it all depends on your format but I know that you can set processors a bunch of diffrent ways to better fit your formats music, imaging, and jocks. What you would do for Rhythmic or Urban you would'nt for Classical, or Country. On some stations you can tell the mic quality is poor too, not level with the music, levels droping down when jocks talk then slowly buidling back up. This along with poor processing, bad edits of songs (poor mp3's) makes for bad qaulity of radio. Makes me wonder why this is not a priority to some Programmers, or companies.
 
I know one of my pet peeves is when talking up or down a song, the mic is so low that the music kills the jock. I hear that on Sirius a lot. Are jocks just not messing with the levels? Are PD's or Engineers telling them not to touch? I would think the music level would stay at the same level, but the Mic would need to be higher to "overcome" the music. Just my thoughts.

-Timmy
 
There is a simple reason for the level disparity you mention. In the "old" days (talking analog radio) jocks could listen off-air and they'd actually "mix" on the console so that they would sound good (level wise) compared to the music. In the case of Sirius, and indeed many terrestrial stations, you can't do that because the long delays (8 seconds in the case of HD-and longer when you have a profanity delay built in) prevent you from hearing what the listening audience is actually hearing. So in many cases we "fake" a processor for headphones only that allows the jocks to hear some processing while they talk. Unfortunately this "fake" processor doesn't always react the same way the on-air one that you hear does. I don't know how Sirius addresses this issue, but from what you are saying, it could be nothing.
 
I assume some of this is automation-based. Isn't all that configurable? I am not in radio and haven't been for more than 10 years so all this stuff about Prophet or Scott I am ignorant of. In the case of VoiceTracking, I know Sirius uses it a lot, can't the automation system maintain levels? And of course, same with terrestrial applications, same thing, right?

-Timmy
 
That can exacerbate the problem. If Sirius has wideband AGC after the mix (where music and voicetracks are added together) then "ducking" can occur if the voicetracks are recorded relatively low (level-wise) with respect to the music. The music can have a tendency to overpower the voice then. Having used Prophet (I think that's what Sirius uses if I'm not mistaken-or is it XM? Not sure.) I can tell you that if the voicetracks don't get recorded loudly enough then you'll get exactly the effect you are describing. The levels need to be adjusted in every studio where tracking is done, too; so some studios may be right, and some may be wrong-which leads to inconsistencies in what you hear.
 
Thanks Uncle...

This makes me think of the other thing that sounds odd to me. If a DJ's mike is pretty loud and is taking priority over the bed music or the intro of the song, the DJ will talk and when he pauses, you hear the music come up and then get pushed down when the DJ speaks again.

I think that even that is still better than the DJ or traffic person talking way under the music element. Processing is very important and I imagine, quite complex. I'd love to learn more about it all.

-Timmy
 
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