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LEGENDS 102.7: NOW THAT'S VARIETY FOR YOU!!
- Thread starter Savage
- Start date
Ah YES! fm 102.7 IS IN GOOD SHAPE!! People that enjoy it listen because They like it, People that don't like listen to get more ammo for this page! COOL! kinda nice to get a suprise every 3 or 4 min ain't it. They have a staff that is as good as any in the market and heading into a summer book that seems to favor oldie stations summer nostalgia and all that stuff. As for the jingles well I am sure people would want to have a job insread of new jingles. Its a toss-up. face it there were alot of people let go in the past few months from bigger more lucrative operations, BUT, they have good jingles!
D
Desert Pete
Guest
Yeah, but what if you get the greatest call in creation and the level is low cuz it was called in on a bad phone. Gotta air it, right? You bet.
VoxPro is even easier, Q. It is already recording you in one channel and the caller in the other, so, after you hit stop, highlight the entire bit, scroll the options on the top of the screen until you find the one that gives you options for muting and volume control (etc), then increase the volume of the side where the caller is (on the latest upgrades, it's the right channel) by 1 - 15%. Hit "back to beginning", pot up, and roll.
Remember, there's nothing you can do that can't be done, there's nothing you can know that isn't known, etc. It's easy.
And then it becomes like med school ... SEE an operation, DO an operation, TEACH an operation. Once you've mastered this, teach it to K.B. Cooper. She puts a lot of callers on the air and needs to know this.
VoxPro is even easier, Q. It is already recording you in one channel and the caller in the other, so, after you hit stop, highlight the entire bit, scroll the options on the top of the screen until you find the one that gives you options for muting and volume control (etc), then increase the volume of the side where the caller is (on the latest upgrades, it's the right channel) by 1 - 15%. Hit "back to beginning", pot up, and roll.
Remember, there's nothing you can do that can't be done, there's nothing you can know that isn't known, etc. It's easy.
And then it becomes like med school ... SEE an operation, DO an operation, TEACH an operation. Once you've mastered this, teach it to K.B. Cooper. She puts a lot of callers on the air and needs to know this.
I'm not going into the techie stuff here. Back in the day, you were lucky to get a reasonable call off the Ampex machines. The item for discussion is the " greatest call in creation". ??? I believe all are still waiting for that. It ain't gonna happen, so what's the difference? I've heard some calls that are entertaining (isn't that the point?), but you have to go way back to find those relics. Time to work on the content, not so much the technical (as riot control gear is applied in the background as personal protection).Desert Pete said:
Curious: don't you think See, Do, Teach also requires a bit of finesse? Everyone can See, some can DO, and even fewer can Teach.
I hereby toss my hat in the ring in a bid for the Geezer Award on this board.
I'll bet I'm the only poster here whose radio career with studio recording spans technology ranging from the Presto 6N transcription cutter, through tape and cart (Ampex, Presto, Scully, ATC Criterion, ITC) and ending with CEP.
Centanni, another safety tip: don't smoke around the acetate shavings! They're flammable....(talk about HOT HITS.....)
I'll bet I'm the only poster here whose radio career with studio recording spans technology ranging from the Presto 6N transcription cutter, through tape and cart (Ampex, Presto, Scully, ATC Criterion, ITC) and ending with CEP.
Centanni, another safety tip: don't smoke around the acetate shavings! They're flammable....(talk about HOT HITS.....)
Savage said:
RCS, winner of two certificates for the Early Bird...
Well, if the shoe..... ;D However, having spent my early days (some called it interning), winding those carts from bulk tape - so they could play in the ITC machines...you've only got me by a decade or two (rofl). I can tell you that splicing those puppies can make a master splicer out of anyone (which is better than the "master fisherman"- tongue in cheek). Somewhere along the way, they did start to purchase "pre-wound" by length carts, which meant I had to move on to production & board op stuff (hence the need for Element 9...and lets not go there again). So needless to say I was hit by more than a few projectile Audiopaks that "died" when fired and screwed up an on-air bit!! AND, I'll vote your way for the Geezer Award.Savage said:
Yeah, "rolling tape" on an Ampex or Maggie PT6J was a "breath of fresh air" compared with recording network feeds or whatever with the 6N. You had to make sure the "chip" (waste material) was brushed off the surface of the rotating disc, or it would collect under the stylus. Once it accumulated a big glob of acetate, the cutter head would hop over it, poking a hole in the surface of the AudioDisc (same company as AudioPak carts & AudioTape) and ruining both the stylus and the record. And you got yelled at by the CE.
You could use a thing called the Chip Chaser, which looked like a windshield wiper blade with a suction cup base. It would (theoretically) push the chip towards the center of the spinning record, but you still had to keep an eye on it, especially at 78rpm. The shavings would accumulate and if you didn't clear them they'd start to slow the turntable down, so the resulting playback would get faster and faster, eventually sounding like Mickey Mouse. Also, if you tried to record at too high a volume, the cutting stylus would cut over into adjacent grooves, so the record would skip/repat on playback. Most guys kept a soft-bristle 1" paint brush on the turntable chassis so you could gently get the chip out of the way of the cutter without affecting speed.
And of course you had ONE take to get it right. You couldn't bulk-erase an acetate disc if you screwed up.
All this rigamarole produced a recording roughly equivalent to what you'd get from a $15 GPX cassette recorder from CVS these days - and the discs didn't last. The typical GE VR-2 cartridge wore the records sufficiently they were only good for 25 or 30 playbacks before they started getting noisy or skipping.
So every time you open CEP/Audition or Audicy, just think how EASY you've got it. Wait, gotta go...I think I hear the Viagra delivery truck outside....
You could use a thing called the Chip Chaser, which looked like a windshield wiper blade with a suction cup base. It would (theoretically) push the chip towards the center of the spinning record, but you still had to keep an eye on it, especially at 78rpm. The shavings would accumulate and if you didn't clear them they'd start to slow the turntable down, so the resulting playback would get faster and faster, eventually sounding like Mickey Mouse. Also, if you tried to record at too high a volume, the cutting stylus would cut over into adjacent grooves, so the record would skip/repat on playback. Most guys kept a soft-bristle 1" paint brush on the turntable chassis so you could gently get the chip out of the way of the cutter without affecting speed.
And of course you had ONE take to get it right. You couldn't bulk-erase an acetate disc if you screwed up.
All this rigamarole produced a recording roughly equivalent to what you'd get from a $15 GPX cassette recorder from CVS these days - and the discs didn't last. The typical GE VR-2 cartridge wore the records sufficiently they were only good for 25 or 30 playbacks before they started getting noisy or skipping.
So every time you open CEP/Audition or Audicy, just think how EASY you've got it. Wait, gotta go...I think I hear the Viagra delivery truck outside....
B
Bob1370
Guest
Bob Savage comments, "I hereby toss my hat in the ring in a bid for the Geezer Award on this board. I'll bet I'm the only poster here whose radio career with studio recording spans technology ranging from the Presto 6N transcription cutter, through tape and cart (Ampex, Presto, Scully, ATC Criterion, ITC) and ending with CEP. Centanni, another safety tip: don't smoke around the acetate shavings! They're flammable....(talk about HOT HITS.....)"
The Presto cutter definitely retires the award.
I've seen and worked with some antique stuff in my time (16" turntables that needed to be slip-cued because of their slow buildup to speed; the original tube-amp Ampex 350 reel to reel machines; 1958-vintage tube-type ATC single-deck mono cart machines as big as a Chevy small-block engine, allegedly bought very used from WABC; the old tube-type RCA air board-turned-news production board at KB, not to mention that 1956-vintage RCA BT5-H transmitter we're using as a backup these days at 'XXI). But transcription disc recorders? Wow, whoever you were working for back in the late '60s must have had a love of all the old stuff to keep something like that in service...
The Presto cutter definitely retires the award.
I've seen and worked with some antique stuff in my time (16" turntables that needed to be slip-cued because of their slow buildup to speed; the original tube-amp Ampex 350 reel to reel machines; 1958-vintage tube-type ATC single-deck mono cart machines as big as a Chevy small-block engine, allegedly bought very used from WABC; the old tube-type RCA air board-turned-news production board at KB, not to mention that 1956-vintage RCA BT5-H transmitter we're using as a backup these days at 'XXI). But transcription disc recorders? Wow, whoever you were working for back in the late '60s must have had a love of all the old stuff to keep something like that in service...
J
JustPastBuffalo
Guest
Bob1520 said:
Pshaww! It was one of the Radio 201 course offerings at Ithaca College.
Now, those were WIRE recorders at IC. (Siriusly, I had at WNOX a news guy who was actually the voice of the Pell Mell commercials, "outstanding....AND THEY ARE MILD." Ron Ashburn had the last line. He used to tell me about splicing/editing with the Webster-Chicago wire recorder...you had to tie little tiny square knots. Not kidding!)
Anyway...IIRC (24 stations, 42 years....?) it was WLEA. There was a NYS political show we did (station was owned by Assemblyman Charlie Henderson) that used to be distributed around the Southern Tier and it got played back at a station - I think it was WFSR (Friendly Steuben Radio) in Bath, which for some reason didn't have a tape deck in the control room, so they had to get the show on disc. Also there was a church show that we would transcribe; the church would pick up the record and distribute it around to shut-ins (back then almost nobody had a home tape recorder.) In any case the Presto was retired mere months after I started; apparently a big stack of surplus blank discs had been acquired as everyone stopped using their disc cutters and the supply ran out.
In any case: at WLEA there was definitely still a big alphabetical transcription rack behind the console. Most recorded spots were still on discs then. Remember that in 1967, carts had only been in widespread use outside of major markets for maybe five years or so. And the cart machines of 1967 were certainly not the ITCs most radio-types recall from the 70s and 80s. They often wouldn't start, wouldn't stop, and had trouble pulling carts longer than 2.5 minutes. The lubricated tape was still being perfected and cart life was limited, so after too many plays the tape pack would seize up as you might on an all-cheese diet. (Of course Murphy's Law dictated this ONLY happened when the cart was on-air.) For this reason, advertisers supplied transcription discs often with the notation on the label, DO NOT DUB OR TRANSFER TO TAPE CARTRIDGE. They spent a lot of money on elaborate production and didn't want their spots warbling and dragging.
So the operating procedure at LEA (also at WBTA where I would hang out visiting relatives) was, most spots were live-read from the copy book - and, occasionally, there was no actual copy as such, but just a newspaper ad taped to a blank sheet. You AD-LIBBED the spot from the print ad - sometimes filling a jingle doughnut which, of course, was played off disc - without the benefit of digital (or even analog) timers. You glanced at the sweep second hand on the Sessions wall clock, started blabbing, and wrapped up at :59.
There would also be a smattering of commercials on big-hub 5-inch reels of tape, which laboriously had to be cued up on the rack-mounted Magnecord on the far side of the control room. Discs were easier. Many, if not most, recorded commercials on disc or tape required some kind of live announcer involvement, either live reads over a jingle or a live tag.
Yes, WLEA had cart machines - two in the control room plus an R/P in the little production studio, the first-generation tube-type desktop Spotmasters. They were not what you might call superb pieces of gear. More often than not one, if not both, had "INOP" notes taped to them waiting for the part-time engineer. I don't think that the station owned more than 40 carts, and they all contained essential pieces of station production like the sign-on, sign-off, community bulletin board intro, EBS intro and so forth. There were almost NO commercials on cart.
Back to Ron Ashburn - his compensation for reading the famous cigarette commercial line: free Pell Mells for life. The man could barely breathe.
And a footnote on transcription cutters. Reportedly Wally Phillips morning show at WGN used transcription discs for bits and so forth until his retirement in the mid 80s. I dimly recall reading articles about how the WGN engineers retrofitted the chassis with solid-state electronics, etc.
Anyway...IIRC (24 stations, 42 years....?) it was WLEA. There was a NYS political show we did (station was owned by Assemblyman Charlie Henderson) that used to be distributed around the Southern Tier and it got played back at a station - I think it was WFSR (Friendly Steuben Radio) in Bath, which for some reason didn't have a tape deck in the control room, so they had to get the show on disc. Also there was a church show that we would transcribe; the church would pick up the record and distribute it around to shut-ins (back then almost nobody had a home tape recorder.) In any case the Presto was retired mere months after I started; apparently a big stack of surplus blank discs had been acquired as everyone stopped using their disc cutters and the supply ran out.
In any case: at WLEA there was definitely still a big alphabetical transcription rack behind the console. Most recorded spots were still on discs then. Remember that in 1967, carts had only been in widespread use outside of major markets for maybe five years or so. And the cart machines of 1967 were certainly not the ITCs most radio-types recall from the 70s and 80s. They often wouldn't start, wouldn't stop, and had trouble pulling carts longer than 2.5 minutes. The lubricated tape was still being perfected and cart life was limited, so after too many plays the tape pack would seize up as you might on an all-cheese diet. (Of course Murphy's Law dictated this ONLY happened when the cart was on-air.) For this reason, advertisers supplied transcription discs often with the notation on the label, DO NOT DUB OR TRANSFER TO TAPE CARTRIDGE. They spent a lot of money on elaborate production and didn't want their spots warbling and dragging.
So the operating procedure at LEA (also at WBTA where I would hang out visiting relatives) was, most spots were live-read from the copy book - and, occasionally, there was no actual copy as such, but just a newspaper ad taped to a blank sheet. You AD-LIBBED the spot from the print ad - sometimes filling a jingle doughnut which, of course, was played off disc - without the benefit of digital (or even analog) timers. You glanced at the sweep second hand on the Sessions wall clock, started blabbing, and wrapped up at :59.
There would also be a smattering of commercials on big-hub 5-inch reels of tape, which laboriously had to be cued up on the rack-mounted Magnecord on the far side of the control room. Discs were easier. Many, if not most, recorded commercials on disc or tape required some kind of live announcer involvement, either live reads over a jingle or a live tag.
Yes, WLEA had cart machines - two in the control room plus an R/P in the little production studio, the first-generation tube-type desktop Spotmasters. They were not what you might call superb pieces of gear. More often than not one, if not both, had "INOP" notes taped to them waiting for the part-time engineer. I don't think that the station owned more than 40 carts, and they all contained essential pieces of station production like the sign-on, sign-off, community bulletin board intro, EBS intro and so forth. There were almost NO commercials on cart.
Back to Ron Ashburn - his compensation for reading the famous cigarette commercial line: free Pell Mells for life. The man could barely breathe.
And a footnote on transcription cutters. Reportedly Wally Phillips morning show at WGN used transcription discs for bits and so forth until his retirement in the mid 80s. I dimly recall reading articles about how the WGN engineers retrofitted the chassis with solid-state electronics, etc.
Scottsoid Fybush gets the "response time" award in commenting a lengthy walk down Memory Lane. I must confess I didn't see this particular issue of NERW but I would comment, that ain't no Presto record amplifier on that cutter chassis.
What I read was more like a guest column in an engineering publication, detailing at length how they retrofitted the 1940s lathe chassis with modern electronics.
Nice return, Scott!
What I read was more like a guest column in an engineering publication, detailing at length how they retrofitted the 1940s lathe chassis with modern electronics.
Nice return, Scott!
The ironic turn of this thread, "Legends..." The preceding posts attest to the knowledge, experience and zeal of so many posters on this board. They are truly informative and entertaining. Makes me embarrassed for some of the banalities I've submitted here.
Actually, to expound and reflect, Fybush, Savage and so many others recall an era of radio known by thos ewho listened and worked in it, perhaps lived it and would like it to remain. That era is over.
No disrespect to RCS and WYSL or those who remember being part of a grand concept in better days, but reading of Wally Phillips, Savage's 42 years and contemplating Fybush's rich historic contributions recalls the halcyon days of WKBW, WHAM, WPTR, WGY, WBEN, WGR, WHEC-WAXC and WBBF, and the reality hits hard.
Buehlman, Neaverth, Roberts and so many others.
It's over. Done for.
The country is bankrupt, essentially living on loans from China. The TV-newspaper-radio business is in shambles, largely due to the greed and excess of the Fast Times at Clear Channel High cabal and the cataclysmic changes in the way information and entertainment are disseminated and the glutony in which that product is consumed. Perhaps with the exception of NPR and a few other offerings, that information no longer is savored, but guzzled until the consumer is satiated, if not drunk with information at the same time having little knowledge of the product being consumed.
To those of you still working in the business, congratulations. Continued success. You've survived. To those who didn't quite make it, bailed out or were forced out, my condolences. To those of you who changed careers years ago because you saw the light at the end of the tunnel and knew it was an on-coming frieght train, you are to be commended you for your foresight and stamina.
Radio is experiencing a sea change that goes well beyond the transition of studio orchestras being replaced by transcription discs, replaced by reel to reel and cartridge tape; LPs and 45 RPM records, replaced by CDs, zeroes and ones. From tubes to transistors to integrated circuits to chips, the beat goes on. The only constant in life, especially today, is change.
Now it's Jack and Fickle; morning shows if any; the Seacresting of America, Delilah and Kim Iverson on music radio and Rush, Hannity and Schultz on talk radio.
It's done for. Over. It will never be the same, nor should it be expected to remain the same. Time to turn the page and accept what cannot be changed.
Goodnight and good luck.
Actually, to expound and reflect, Fybush, Savage and so many others recall an era of radio known by thos ewho listened and worked in it, perhaps lived it and would like it to remain. That era is over.
No disrespect to RCS and WYSL or those who remember being part of a grand concept in better days, but reading of Wally Phillips, Savage's 42 years and contemplating Fybush's rich historic contributions recalls the halcyon days of WKBW, WHAM, WPTR, WGY, WBEN, WGR, WHEC-WAXC and WBBF, and the reality hits hard.
Buehlman, Neaverth, Roberts and so many others.
It's over. Done for.
The country is bankrupt, essentially living on loans from China. The TV-newspaper-radio business is in shambles, largely due to the greed and excess of the Fast Times at Clear Channel High cabal and the cataclysmic changes in the way information and entertainment are disseminated and the glutony in which that product is consumed. Perhaps with the exception of NPR and a few other offerings, that information no longer is savored, but guzzled until the consumer is satiated, if not drunk with information at the same time having little knowledge of the product being consumed.
To those of you still working in the business, congratulations. Continued success. You've survived. To those who didn't quite make it, bailed out or were forced out, my condolences. To those of you who changed careers years ago because you saw the light at the end of the tunnel and knew it was an on-coming frieght train, you are to be commended you for your foresight and stamina.
Radio is experiencing a sea change that goes well beyond the transition of studio orchestras being replaced by transcription discs, replaced by reel to reel and cartridge tape; LPs and 45 RPM records, replaced by CDs, zeroes and ones. From tubes to transistors to integrated circuits to chips, the beat goes on. The only constant in life, especially today, is change.
Now it's Jack and Fickle; morning shows if any; the Seacresting of America, Delilah and Kim Iverson on music radio and Rush, Hannity and Schultz on talk radio.
It's done for. Over. It will never be the same, nor should it be expected to remain the same. Time to turn the page and accept what cannot be changed.
Goodnight and good luck.
Wow, I believe THAT glass is half empty!! Alot of what is stated is true/fact. However, I'm one of those that lived and worked the business (20+years worth) and saw the light (career change with a little help from a BIG shark, which in turn was eaten by a BIGGER whale). Your points still cause ME frustration after all these years! Ironically, watching from the sidelines recently, I see the glass as half full. You have eloquently written your own "full circle" adventure. The present day situation is not immune from the same demise the "heyday" encountered. There will be a day Ryan et al. will be has beens also. Creative ingenuity will continue the cycle. I think (as this thread has "offered up") that the revival is just around the corner. The "old" will become the new "new", and so it goes. Who would have thought of refreshing oldies being referred to as HITS not oldiesagain (like it's the first time around). This is just a silly example - point being - closed minds hamper innovation. We'll see.
I never got to use a disc cutter or wire recorder, but I do remember the Maggies at WBTA. Did those things have brakes at all?
The mention of radio's transition from studio orchestras to recorded music reminds me that there were plenty of old broadcasters in the '50s who were living in the past, and the Top-40 era pretty much just ran them over as they stood mired, calf-deep, in the mud of nostalgia.
Maybe radio's rebirth is once again waiting for the old guys all die off or otherwise get out of the way, only this time...it's us!
The mention of radio's transition from studio orchestras to recorded music reminds me that there were plenty of old broadcasters in the '50s who were living in the past, and the Top-40 era pretty much just ran them over as they stood mired, calf-deep, in the mud of nostalgia.
Maybe radio's rebirth is once again waiting for the old guys all die off or otherwise get out of the way, only this time...it's us!
From the Pulpit Of Stubborn Optimism, Pastor RCS preaches:
I think the history related here, and the comments from a wide variety of highly perceptive and educated perspectives, bolsters the case for radio's incredible resilience - rather than the contrary. In 1948 the radio industry consisted of about 800 AM stations and a handful of massively unprofitable FMs. Today we are more than 13 thousand (and HD pushers would really like to see that number boosted by about 80 percent with HD-2 and HD-3 subs.)
Ask yourself: what other industry has ever seen an increase in competition of 1600% and survived, let alone thrived? Detroit automakers long ago would have put bullets in their collective brains over a competitive marketplace like ours.
"We can light a candle. Or we can curse the darkness."
I must observe: the real problems facing radio these days are entirely self-imposed. If we unplug the jukeboxes and start having people talk to people again, and boot the Wall Street bean-counters, the listeners will come back. That's why talk radio is the industry's biggest success story over the past 20 years.
I think the history related here, and the comments from a wide variety of highly perceptive and educated perspectives, bolsters the case for radio's incredible resilience - rather than the contrary. In 1948 the radio industry consisted of about 800 AM stations and a handful of massively unprofitable FMs. Today we are more than 13 thousand (and HD pushers would really like to see that number boosted by about 80 percent with HD-2 and HD-3 subs.)
Ask yourself: what other industry has ever seen an increase in competition of 1600% and survived, let alone thrived? Detroit automakers long ago would have put bullets in their collective brains over a competitive marketplace like ours.
"We can light a candle. Or we can curse the darkness."
I must observe: the real problems facing radio these days are entirely self-imposed. If we unplug the jukeboxes and start having people talk to people again, and boot the Wall Street bean-counters, the listeners will come back. That's why talk radio is the industry's biggest success story over the past 20 years.
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