Older automation systems

[bobdavcav]

I was thinking about this a while ago, and again last night. How did older automation systems work? Here's how I invision a system from the 70s, I imagine it in one of several ways,
1. PD is at the reel-to-reel decks winding tape, then when a song is over he has to press a key on the cart machine to play the sounder, then goes back to winding tape into the reel-to-reel machine.
2. Similar to 1 above, except PD winds both machines with audio tape, sounders and commercials on one, music on the other. Cross-fading was determined by how much blank tape was wound into the second machine.
3. This one probably requires the most work, PD programs the system remotely. Have 4 reel-to-reel systems in a room, 2 that record audio onto the third, then played by the fourth. Say PD has one machine running music on the left, and one with sounders and commercials on the right, feeding into the middle one. I should probably mention that it would make sense that these 3 machines should be about 3% faster than the other machine, which is putting the audio out on the air. Am I even close? Then, when CDs were being used, how was cross-fading controlled? Even in some computer automation systems today I don't see how it can sound so seemless, seems as if cross-fading is when one song fades out and the next one fades in. How close am I on this? With an audio editor, I can manage to get things to sound like over the radio, but how does it do it today and how did it work in the past?

 

[amfmsw]

I've worked several, including Harris System 90. We used Drake-Chenault on AM, and Live Assist Bonneville E-Z on FM. AM was Basic rotation was pre programmed into computer PROM, and clock guided. All re-set with CBS News override at top of the hour. Top 15 hit out of news (Reel#1), re-current (Reel #2), Bottom 30 hit (Reel #3), Oldie (within 10 years) (Reel #4), Top 15 hit (Reel #1) Re-current (Reel #2) clock update @:17 after, and if time allowed, another Optional '60's Oldie from Reel #5. Stop down for commercial break.

Most reels had about 20 cuts. all with 25Hz tones in the left channel over a FF so it could seque into the next event flawlessly. There was a Liner or Jingle between each event. Each of those had a terciary tone on a seperate track, not audible to the audience, that would trigger the next event. When AM Stereo (CQuam) came along, it was funny to watch the Stereo indicator lamp come on and the IF Bandwidth open up on the GM Delco radios everytime the 25 Hz tone would slip through. That was the frequency they used for the pilot tone. Anyway, GOOD operators insisted those reels get played to the end so all cuts get cycled and rotated. Crappy jocks would change all the reels before their shifts regarless so they wouldn't be bothered during the FM shift, and many cuts at the end of reels never saw light of day, causing terrible repetition. New Top hits came UPS weekly, new recurrents bi-monthly, new oldies 2 reels a month. A library contained about 30 active reels. The old "Currents" went home, or got erased for production tape.

The spotload was loaded on a cassette daily, then 'played' into the computer, which had about 64k ram memory. A lot for 1971.

 

[Jay Walker]

During the mid 70's we were not satisfied with the "tightness" using reel to reel for the music delivery so we used the Cart Carousels. We had eight Carousels in use on the SMC automation system. Each music cart had between two and three songs on each depending what would fit on a 10.5m cart. Some carousels held carts with music with a front announce, other carousels held carted music with a back announce for use into stop-sets. The current carousels held 2 to 3 different front sell versions of the same song on a cart to keep it semi-fresh sounding during a day. We had two people to handle voicing an automated 12 hour shift.

Other carousels held Gold and re-currents. Each carousel held 24 carts, 5 for music, 3 for spots. A separate single play cart deck held the TOH ID's. The final single play cart deck held generic back-sells into stop-sets as needed.
The system had a total of 2047 available program steps which would get us through 24 hours.

It worked out to be real tight and had a good live feel with the variety of front and back sells.
Not bad for the 70's...

 

[bobdavcav]

During the mid 70's we were not satisfied with the "tightness" using reel to reel for the music delivery so we used the Cart Carousels. We had eight Carousels in use on the SMC automation system. Each music cart had between two and three songs on each depending what would fit on a 10.5m cart. Some carousels held carts with music with a front announce, other carousels held carted music with a back announce for use into stop-sets. The current carousels held 2 to 3 different front sell versions of the same song on a cart to keep it semi-fresh sounding during a day. We had two people to handle voicing an automated 12 hour shift.

Other carousels held Gold and re-currents. Each carousel held 24 carts, 5 for music, 3 for spots. A separate single play cart deck held the TOH ID's. The final single play cart deck held generic back-sells into stop-sets as needed.
The system had a total of 2047 available program steps which would get us through 24 hours.

It worked out to be real tight and had a good live feel with the variety of front and back sells.
Not bad for the 70's...

How did one event transition to another? Seems as if you would need someone to hit play on each cart, except if you had the tones described in the post above. Having never worked with any of this, I really wouldn't know, though. Was I even close in my description of a system?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

How did one event transition to another? Seems as if you would need someone to hit play on each cart, except if you had the tones described in the post above. Having never worked with any of this, I really wouldn't know, though. Was I even close in my description of a system?

Your description of what a 1970s system might have been like left me scratching my head and reaching for a legal pad to start sketching your complelxity.

At that time period my memory is that metro dj/personality hits stations were not automating yet. Automation was big in Easy Listening. Small market stations were jumping in more than large market stations.

First automation system I ever saw was the Gates NiteWatch which consisted of one reel-to-reel machine for chatter, breaks and commercials coupled with a Seeburg "jukebox" guts to hold 100 45 rpm records. Producing the tape was very linear. It went onto the 10-1/2 inch reel exactly in the order is was going to play back. Target market was regional stations with good talent in the daytime, and someone building the tape tracks for night-time play out... the the name "NiteWatch".

The most complex system I saw a few months later out in western Oklahoma was a Schaeffer. Multiple big reels of tape. Between each song on the music tapes they spliced in a transparent bit of leader tape. When the song ended and the "electric eye" could see through the tape it caused a relay to click which would start the next source. These music decks could be programmed to spin back and forth, counting the little transparent windows between songs so the "brain" could find the next song it was to play.

In all of the early systems there was a feature that in your effort to figure this out you are overlooking. Each device had some way of recognizing the end of a song, end of a commercial, end of a promo, end of a station ID. A relay (do you know what a relay is? If not, this conversation may have to sit still while we bring you up to speed.) ... a relay would click which was the equivalent of a person sitting there and pushing a start button. In your original post, take out the part about people pushing start buttons on the next device. That would be non-automated voice tracking which we sometimes did.

Those early machines had some hardware that looked like it came from the Maytag factory. Mechanical timing devices that advanced much like the control knob on your washing machine or dryer. These things could be set to "click" or push-the-button if you please every five minutes or every 10 minutes, every quarter hour, half hour or on-the-hour. Sometimes the timer would cause something to start RIGHT NOW no matter what was happening on the air. (Think join the network for top of the hour news.) Usually the timer would cause a device to "go to the head of the line". When whatever is on the air now has a relay click which signals: "I'm finished now" the device at "the head of the line" would play next. If it is 8 minutes past the half hour and no one is at the head of the line, the default is to simply play the next track of music.

Circa 1970 everything in automation tended to be a bit clunky, a bit mechanical. The micro-computer, the PC and the availability of little electronic circuits that look like dominoes with a lot of legs were not readily available yet.

When computers, hard drives, micro-circuits and computer programmers became available, the world began to move in the direction you now see when you look at today's automation machines. You have to remember that in 1970 stations were just beginning to get copiers (Xerox). In 1970 I worked for the first radio station with any kind of computer that I had seen in a radio station. It was one of those IBM punched card systems with a SORTER and a TAB machine printer to produce the program log and to produce billing at the end of the month.

 

[Jay Walker]

During the mid 70's we were not satisfied with the "tightness" using reel to reel for the music delivery so we used the Cart Carousels. We had eight Carousels in use on the SMC automation system. Each music cart had between two and three songs on each depending what would fit on a 10.5m cart. Some carousels held carts with music with a front announce, other carousels held carted music with a back announce for use into stop-sets. The current carousels held 2 to 3 different front sell versions of the same song on a cart to keep it semi-fresh sounding during a day. We had two people to handle voicing an automated 12 hour shift.

Other carousels held Gold and re-currents. Each carousel held 24 carts, 5 for music, 3 for spots. A separate single play cart deck held the TOH ID's. The final single play cart deck held generic back-sells into stop-sets as needed.
The system had a total of 2047 available program steps which would get us through 24 hours.

It worked out to be real tight and had a good live feel with the variety of front and back sells.
Not bad for the 70's...

How did one event transition to another? Seems as if you would need someone to hit play on each cart, except if you had the tones described in the post above. Having never worked with any of this, I really wouldn't know, though. Was I even close in my description of a system?

Automation by design used secondary tones to fire the next event in sequence as determined by the automation controler/computer. All automation whether reel to reel or cart based had tones.

Automation systems consisted of the delivery portion Cart/Reel tape and a program sequencer/computer. The recorded audio had tones at the beginning of each to cue or position it in a ready to play state. At the end or close to the end of recorded audio there were tones used to advance to the next to play event.

The sequence/computer used specific language to control the system. An example of a short segment would look like this:

2100 (program step) 00 (event flag time specific) 0100 (machine 1 ID cart)
2101 (program step) 01 (event flag next to play) 0424 (carousel 4 deck 24)
2102 (program step) 01 (event flag next to play) 0321 (carousel 3 deck 21)

In this example carousel 4 and carousel 3 held music. You could never play the same carousel back to back as it required re-cue and eject the cart tray and move and position the next cart to play from that carousel.

Again all events were triggered by sub audible-tones on the audio source and were sequenced to play by the on-board sequencer/computer...hence the lack of need for human intervention in a 24 hour period.

Think of it this way. The tones took the place of the human start finger, the sequencer/computer took the place of the human brain in determining what played next.

Hope this explanation helps, I'm a bit rusty since it's been over 40 yearswhen I last dealt with the system..

Jay Walker

 

[Jay Walker]

When I referred to "computer" in my posts above understand this was more of a sequencer that ran in "event" steps from "0000" to "2047" in other words a glorified clock/counter.

When event step "000" was complete. it would advance to event step "0001" continuing across 24 hours all the way through to event step "2047" where it would then start over at "0000".

This was the first use of a non-peg board programming interface in automation.
The program input interface resembled a ten key calculator pad. No alpha characters only numbers 0-9.
Our system was built by SMC which was an acronym for Sono-Mag-Corporation.
It was considered top of the line in it's time.

 

[bobdavcav]

So, now jumping ahead 15 or 20 years, I assume a CD automation system worked the same way? two disk changers, one with the playlist on it, and one with the sounders and commercials, with a relay telling when to switch to what?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

So, now jumping ahead 15 or 20 years, I assume a CD automation system worked the same way? two disk changers, one with the playlist on it, and one with the sounders and commercials, with a relay telling when to switch to what?

You are making an assumption that for some reason any new automation system had to always be one media. I have seen one automation system that used CDs to play music. But only music. By the time consumers (or in this case radio stations) had the ability to create their own CD with sounders and commercials, it was because they had the ability to put sound on a hard drive, and play sound from a hard drive. Why would they ever go to the trouble to put sounders and commercials on a CD when triggering them and managing them on a hard drive is so much easier. Capturing the equivalent of "trigger tones" and billing and logging data is much easier when using a hard drive.

[ .....
I fully expect someone to come up with an example of some engineer or program director created a one-of-a-kind automation machine for a station that was all CD player based. I will be amazed if it turns out that any company actually built any significant quantity of automation machines using strictly CD players.
..... ]

 

[Groove1670]

The wonderful Harris 90. Remember snapping reels. Newbies cutting hands trying to stop reels, and snapping tapes with machines that had bad brakes, and the occasional tape on the reel backwards.


Tm century had a CD system with Pioneer decks. Each deck had a magazine that held six CDs. THe TM discs has a silent tone to trigger the next deck. The pioneer decks did stutter and skip.


Mr Freeman at WKLG rock harbor/Florida Keys actually made a operation video for the sonomag. If you contact him, he probably will sell you a copy. I think it was the official training tape.

 

[bobdavcav]

So, now jumping ahead 15 or 20 years, I assume a CD automation system worked the same way? two disk changers, one with the playlist on it, and one with the sounders and commercials, with a relay telling when to switch to what?

You are making an assumption that for some reason any new automation system had to always be one media. I have seen one automation system that used CDs to play music. But only music. By the time consumers (or in this case radio stations) had the ability to create their own CD with sounders and commercials, it was because they had the ability to put sound on a hard drive, and play sound from a hard drive. Why would they ever go to the trouble to put sounders and commercials on a CD when triggering them and managing them on a hard drive is so much easier. Capturing the equivalent of "trigger tones" and billing and logging data is much easier when using a hard drive.

[ .....
I fully expect someone to come up with an example of some engineer or program director created a one-of-a-kind automation machine for a station that was all CD player based. I will be amazed if it turns out that any company actually built any significant quantity of automation machines using strictly CD players.
..... ]

You are right, you can't just go from recording to CD, kinda forgot about that when I posted that, of course the commercials would be on a computer. Are trigger tones still used in automation systems today? When editing audio together, I know how to cross-fade like radio stations do, but am not sure how that is regulated by the system. The only way I can figure is that the PD edits the audio together using an editor, then puts it into the queue to be played, but I have not heard of any programs like this. Usually, I would imagine, it is a list of songs and a list of sweepers that the computer picks to play.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Are trigger tones still used in automation systems today? When editing audio together, I know how to cross-fade like radio stations do, but am not sure how that is regulated by the system.

In digital audio it is possible to set "markers" which are data based rather than "audio tones". The one place where "trigger tones" are apparently still alive and healthy are some of the satellite systems that distribute networks and programming. But even there, when I read in forums where engineers are exchanging tips on how to make use of the "trigger tones" in a satellite receiver, I don't know when actual audio tones signal time for a commercial or end of show, and when a data-based "marker" is in the stream but out of habit they still say trigger tones. Maybe someone with current hands-on experience can speak to that issue.

Cross fades and other similar techniques are a feature of the automation software. Audio recordings on the hard drive can have various "markers" embedded in the CART CHUNK that indicate how much into instrumental is there which can be "talked over" and one that indicates when it would be appropriate at the end of the music to "talk over" or begin a cross fade.

When you read some of the forums in the technical side of broadcasting, it will become clear that each maker of automation hardware and software builds in features that fit their view of how the machine will be used and what the programmer will want to do when it comes to cross fades, setting up music that will end just as it is time to join a network feed (does anyone do that anymore?) and other techniques. The other thing that keeps people arguing over which system is the best has to do with the "human interface", the G-U-I, what happens if you want the machine to do "live assist" during some time periods.

 

[RadioFan2J3]

Even in some computer automation systems today I don't see how it can sound so seemless, seems as if cross-fading is when one song fades out and the next one fades in. How close am I on this? With an audio editor, I can manage to get things to sound like over the radio, but how does it do it today and how did it work in the past?

I once worked at a station with an automation system for the FM, running a beautiful music format, with most of the music canned on reel to reel tapes, music sweeps roughly 14 minute sweeps. So, from that perspective, there were no fades run by the automation system.

The system was not one of the major name brands, but seemed to be one of a few prototypes made by a company trying to enter the automation market. One interesting aspect of the system was that the automation controller was a DEC PDP-11 computer.

There were either three or four Revox B77 tape decks for the music tapes, two or three carousel tape decks for the spots and other carted programming and an ITC 3-deck for jingles and the ID.

As discussed in other posts, the music tape trip cues were a 25 Hz tone on one of the channels and a tone detector on the audio from that deck. The trip tones for carted material were the secondary tones on the cart machines.

When I first started working with this system, I thought the secondary tones on the cart machines simply triggered the controller to start the next event and switch audio. Correct to a point, but I found out the length of the trip tone also controller the overlap of audio.

Our normal spot set break consisted of spots, a voiced community announcement, a jingle and back to the taped music. Once I learned the trip tones allowed audio overlapped, I could play the trip tone record as the start of the next event and hold it to allow the jingle to roll under the last few words of the community announcement.

 

[bobdavcav]

Hmm this is actually quite interesting. I never actually knew how all this worked.

 

[PirateJohnny]

You should see the automation system in use in TV today. No tapes, all hard drive based. I describe it to tours as a combination Tivo (to record) and iTunes (to playback).

 

[davideduardo]

I ran and programmed two stations in a Top 15 market from 1975 to 1980. The FM signed on in '75 doing Beautiful Music using a Harris System 90, and then when the product matured into the System 9000, we automated the personality AM A/C station as well.

The AM system used a combination of Insta-Carts and GoCarts and cart machines to have individualized intros for all current songs, contest call in invites, time, weather and complex 7 category rotations.

Here is the brochure for the System 9000:

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Harris 9000 Brochure.pdf

A picture of the system is at http://www.davidgleason.com/Archive PR Pueblo/PR-11-Q-Automation1.jpg

Jocks recorded all the individual daily elements on carts, which matched the song they were to proceed or used as backsells or sweepers. The jocks then spent most of their time doing promotions and appearances, as well as recording the voice carts for weekends as well.

Time, as was common with most automation systems of that era, was recorded on 30 minute carts with odd minutes on one and even on another... over 350 cuts on each cart. The computer... which in the System 9000 was an early Zylog IIRC, automatically advanced each cut so that, even if not aired, the right minute would be ready. We had dozens of weather carts, handling all but extreme conditions. A board op would take contest calls, and then produce a winner cart that simply had the person saying something about winning. Mornings were live-assist, with even news being pre-recorded and run precisely off the automation.

When the FM changed format to a high energy rhythmic variant in 1978, it went on fully automated and followed the same system as the AM; in a 30 station market it got as high as a 42 share and there were never any "it sounds recorded" comments.

In these cases, staff was not reduced... we had a full complement of talent on both signals, but they spent most of their time doing appearances, production, and other functions as well as polishing the voice tracks on cart.

 

[Jay Walker]

Jocks recorded all the individual daily elements on carts, which matched the song they were to proceed or used as backsells or sweepers. The jocks then spent most of their time doing promotions and appearances, as well as recording the voice carts for weekends as well.

Time, as was common with most automation systems of that era, was recorded on 30 minute carts with odd minutes on one and even on another... over 350 cuts on each cart.

David, that is the "correct" way to use automation in my opinion. It allows a station to maximize the performance of the staff. I'd even add that in addition to allowing the talent to be "high profile, on the street" it would also give them the opportunity to even do a little sales work ;D

You mentioned the "horror" of the even odd time carts. Rather than record all 300 plus tracks, we elected to only record the 10 minute block around the times of the stopsets. Using time flags in the automation allowed us to get away with doing that. We still had to leave blanks so to speak to keep it in sequence but it was a heck of a lot easier than getting to the next to the last cut, blowing the read and have to start over. Been there...

It was amazing how well the old systems could sound..

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

In these cases, staff was not reduced... we had a full complement of talent on both signals, but they spent most of their time doing appearances, production, and other functions as well as polishing the voice tracks on cart.

Most of my broadcasting years were spent in SMALL markets and when I first heard of automation being on the horizon, I embraced the idea.... being young and naive I thought EVERYONE would do what you did: Keep the staff and use them for important things, rather than sitting in a studio, wasting precious minutes watching a record "grind itself" and then spend 10 to 30 seconds with the mic open... being a human presence. Then, repeat as necessary 13 to 16 times per hour.

I was not blessed with the ability to see the machine as being what it became through the years... a machine to get rid of human creativity more than a machine to empower human creativity. ***

Looking at the TOTAL changes in our society, our economy and the industry, it is today necessary for people in the industry to balance the people empowerment vs the necessary expense controls. Many of the "very visible" broadcasters make me sad when they lean too much on the expense controls. But time after time I run across members of the "unknown army of broadcasters" who are doing the hard work today of trying to make the balancing act work. May their tribe increase.

*** Actually... there are some humans getting to be
quite creative. One of the things I did after my
broadcasting years was in the world of computer
administration and programming. Very few of us
can fully appreciate the creativity of the people who
create the programming "machines" and those who
feed and groom them every day at the station level.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

I don't think anyone mentioned this but the tones were put on backwards on the Drake tapes so they could time them consistently and perfect every time. The leading edge of the tone starts the next event and the previous event stays on till the trailing edge of the tone.

I worked with a few systems and that's how I got into radio, feeding the beast! WAXY in Fort Lauderdale had an AR-1000 and later and AR-2000 both made by Broadcast Products. Then at WGLO it was beautiful music on a very refined Shafer 903E, finally a System 90 Harris that was mostly run as live assist at WNGS in West Palm Beach. At Wings (WNGS) we got creative and recorded our breaks on reel and used carts played in audition to simulate talking up the intro of the reel that followed the stop set. It worked well, doing it this way you always knew how it was going to sound on the air. Today with computers it's easier and not as much fun, the challenge is gone!

 

[Jay Walker]

I worked with a few systems and that's how I got into radio, feeding the beast! WAXY in Fort Lauderdale had an AR-1000 and later and AR-2000 both made by Broadcast Products.

I remember listening to WAXY back around 1976 or so and hearing the automation. It had a nice "feel" and flow.

On the subject of automation, my favorite syndicated service was Drake Chenault's "Hit Parade '68". In today's definition it would be best desribed as a Hot A/C rather than a CHR/Top 40. Smooth sound and since it was stereo quite a listening treat after listening to AM mono.