Poor copies of songs played on the air

[MarcB]

A pet peeve of mine is when radio stations play a poor copy of a song.

KOOL Radio, which is a network of 3 stations in Southern New England that features a Classic Hits format and has "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis Presley in its playlist. Every time they play it, it sounds like there's a skip in it.

For those outside of Southern New England KOOL Radio is:

WACM 1270 Springfield, Mass
WNTY 990/96.1 Southington/Meriden, Connecticut
WSKP 1180/104.3 Westerly RI/Groton Connecticut

 

[Groove1670]

Sometimes a transfer issue will cause this or a corrupt file. My issue is poor sound quality. Hard drive space is cheap and music should be in .wav. Also check to see if you are playing the original single.

 

[TheFonz]

Also check to see if you are playing the original single.

This is a great point. Singles in the '50s and early '60s were issued in mono. Over the years many of those songs have been re-dubbed in "fake" stereo. Some have even been re-recorded in stereo. Listeners who remember the original singles can tell the difference.

 

[oldies76]

This is a great point. Singles in the '50s and early '60s were issued in mono. Over the years many of those songs have been re-dubbed in "fake" stereo. Some have even been re-recorded in stereo. Listeners who remember the original singles can tell the difference.

There's NO excuse for a classic hits radio station today to ever play a re-record of a song, or some stereo re-recorded version of a classic that K-Tel type catalogs use. Obviously if this is occurring, the music programmer has never heard the original. Chubby Checker music is vulnerable. There are so many "fake" versions out there on the internet, it's laughable. The only real version should be the original 45 or a Parkway release on CD.

 

[oldies76]

Sometimes a transfer issue will cause this or a corrupt file. My issue is poor sound quality. Hard drive space is cheap and music should be in .wav. Also check to see if you are playing the original single.

Kind of makes some of us long for the days of simply playing music off CD players, broadcast carts or turntables, like it used to be. Technology obviously has it's disadvantages in radio.

 

[TheBigA]

There's NO excuse for a classic hits radio station today to ever play a re-record of a song, or some stereo re-recorded version of a classic that K-Tel type catalogs use.

Radio stations have to play licensed music, or they get sued. The music has to be licensed for broadcast. That means they can't play music off the internet. They have to be authorized by the copyright holder.

 

[TheFonz]

There's NO excuse for a classic hits radio station today to ever play a re-record of a song, or some stereo re-recorded version of a classic that K-Tel type catalogs use. Obviously if this is occurring, the music programmer has never heard the original. Chubby Checker music is vulnerable. There are so many "fake" versions out there on the internet, it's laughable. The only real version should be the original 45 or a Parkway release on CD.

Unfortunately Cameo-Parkway was very late in issuing its catalog on CD. So early on, re-makes had to be used. Or songs played from vinyl, of course.

 

[davideduardo]

Kind of makes some of us long for the days of simply playing music off CD players, broadcast carts or turntables, like it used to be. Technology obviously has it's disadvantages in radio.

Yeah, we certainly wish for a return to tape skew, wobble and flutter and cure burn. Even the PE TomCat could not avoid the skew and wobble issues inherent to a Mobius loop of tape. And no kind of vinyl could stand up to repeated back cuing.

CDs were better, but often were a bitch to cue perfectly and they could stutter and do other odd things... even the good Denons with the CD cases.

 

[CTListener]

Radio stations have to play licensed music, or they get sued. The music has to be licensed for broadcast. That means they can't play music off the internet. They have to be authorized by the copyright holder.

Aren't re-recordings (by the original artists, although in the case of bands, some members may have changed) licensed and authorized for airplay? I remember pre-merger XM playing re-recorded versions of several songs by the country band Shenandoah for quite a while. When I wrote them about it, I was told the recordings were part of a "bulk" music purchase at start-up and would be replaced when originals could be obtained, as would other re-recordings in the library at the time. I can't imagine that XM launched playing music it wasn't authorized to play.

 

[davideduardo]

That should have been "cue" burn, of course.

 

[TheBigA]

Aren't re-recordings (by the original artists, although in the case of bands, some members may have changed) licensed and authorized for airplay?

It depends. When we're talking about pre-1972 songs, they're not covered by federal copyright laws. But a court just ruled that re-mastered versions can be covered.

 

[oldies76]

CDs were better, but often were a bitch to cue perfectly and they could stutter and do other odd things... even the good Denons with the CD cases.

I suppose the stuttering / skipping was due to excessive fingerprints and particles on the playing side of the CD and I've heard that cue burn on the 45's before. But didn't noise reduction type equipment back then eliminate the noise from 45's, such as cue-burn or scratches? It seemed rare to hear scratches, listening to the radio back then. What I really disliked was off-centered & badly pressed 45's on the spindle. That wavy sound was awful.

 

[Groove1670]

Yeah, we certainly wish for a return to tape skew, wobble and flutter and cure burn. Even the PE TomCat could not avoid the skew and wobble issues inherent to a Mobius loop of tape. And no kind of vinyl could stand up to repeated back cuing.

CDs were better, but often were a bitch to cue perfectly and they could stutter and do other odd things... even the good Denons with the CD cases.

Cue burn was below the frequency of AM. So I didn't remember hearing it on our AM. The best CD players we ever had was the cheap Technics SPL series. About $159. They has auto cue, very friendly display (countdown, time elapsed, etc), and they would stop after a single track played in auto cue. They would last about 18-24 months. Great for our low budget station at the time.

 

[davideduardo]

Cue burn was below the frequency of AM. So I didn't remember hearing it on our AM. The best CD players we ever had was the cheap Technics SPL series. About $159. They has auto cue, very friendly display (countdown, time elapsed, etc), and they would stop after a single track played in auto cue. They would last about 18-24 months. Great for our low budget station at the time.

Cue burn was a lot like white noise, not low frequency. It was very noticeable on AM or FM as anyone who played from 45's or back in the 50's and pre-carted music 60's knew all too well.

Stations that got good record company service would ask for multiple copies each time they added a song. They'd replace the scratchy intro ones when they got too noisy.

 

[TheBigA]

Stations that got good record company service would ask for multiple copies each time they added a song

Some labels put the hit on both sides of the single to provide two copies of the same song.

 

[Kelly A]

Back in the early 90's, TM Century was selling various format music libraries to stations on CD. The PD at a particular oldies station was complaining that they were getting complaints from listeners with mono radios, or car radios driving through terrain-challenged areas where multipath was an issue, because some radios would go into mono-blend mode. They were sure it was an audio processing or transmission system issue. After I spent some time looking at the audio in XY mode on an oscilloscope, it became obvious that TM Century had done some sort of stereo enhancement to the songs on their CD's, causing weird phase misalignment. The way I determined the problem was a side-by-side comparison with another recording of several songs. The problem was, many of the songs recorded into the station automation system, were ripped from these TM CD's. The solution, was to dig around my basement to uncover an old Howe Phase Chaser, and stick it into the program chain ahead of the station audio processing. Ultimately, the final solution was to replace songs from other, not manipulated audio. I then took my Phase Chaser out of the chain.

 

[Groove1670]

As I said, I didn't notice it on our AM. FM was another story. Yes we would request multiple copies of singles (we got decent service as a Gavin Reporter). We didn't have the budget for many carts, but certain records would cue burn immediately (REM's Stand was one that came to mind). We gave up, and just carted it. It seemd like certain singles was more prone to cue burn early.

 

[PirateJohnny]

#1 How does a record know if it's going forward or backwards - why does cue burn happen when spinning a record backwards? Is it because the tone arm / stylus angle is wrong? I can adjust the pivot height (and stylus angle) of my Gray Research tone arms.

#2 when going through my personal home library in iTunes, I've noticed that multiple copies of the same song from different sources (CDs) are very different. I have to open them in an audio editor to compare waveforms to pick the best copy to play and mark the others as "do not play".

 

[frankberry]

Cue burn occurs because the stylus has a 15 degree angle (in the forward direction).
When back-cueing the record, the stylus "digs" into the vinyl.
Conical styli cause less damage than elliptical styli.

 

[davideduardo]

#1 How does a record know if it's going forward or backwards - why does cue burn happen when spinning a record backwards? Is it because the tone arm / stylus angle is wrong? I can adjust the pivot height (and stylus angle) of my Gray Research tone arms.

When you spin the record back and forth several times each time you cue it, and you play the record every two to three hours for weeks on end, the start of the song becomes very worn compared to the rest of it.

And the damage done to the stylus on 50's and 60's type phono cartridges made it worse. A stylus pushed backwards against its natural position becomes a chisel, which hits the disk at a different angle and causes even more damage.