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Processing

What do you think about the processing on South Louisiana stations? I have had a few conversations about WFMF-FM and KNEK-FM. Whats the best sounding station? worst sounding station?
 
WFMF's levels are a little low—though it's much more listenable now than it was a couple of years ago, when it was overcompressed crap with an out-of-whack EQ. WDGL is having a loudness war with someone (Who? Certainly not WFMF!), WYPY sounds pretty much like WFMF did before the fix, and there's something weird about WDVW's audio that I can't quite put my finger on.

In Lafayette, KSMB sounds okay, but kind of dull for a CHR. I wish that I could find my old recordings of KRBE in Houston when they were owned by Susquehanna in the early 2000s—I haven't heard audio processed like that since then. It was bright and clear with just a touch of exaggerated bass.
 
My two cents:

WFMF is under-compressed a little too much for a CHR. I kinda liked the 'balls-to-the-wall' sound they used to have C Murder.... I miss it! Maybe instead of staying under modulated like they are right now, they can find an in-between. Somewhere between the mega loud and cute n' quiet; a middle ground. Kinda like B-97 is now....

WYPY is nice. I like that compressed sound sometimes.

I don't know what they used to use on WFMF, WYNK, and 96.1 The River to give it that 'expanded stereo' sound, but I think they need to put on again, just not so exaggerated. That had an interesting flare to it.

And I know EXACTLY what's up with WDVW. Every three or four weeks, they make some type of audio processing adjustments and it's never the same as it was before the previous adjustment. Put it on and listen to it now. They turned up the noise gate a little too high, so when quiet parts of songs pass through, the gain doesn't recover and the noise gate starts to close. The audio nearly disappears! ::) :p I had it on in the car the other day. A station liner passed through with decent levels, but when the liner ended and the song came on, my girlfriend turned the radio up to see what happened. We thought it went dead air, but no! The song was there, it was so low that the static and signal impurities were louder than the actual broadcasted audio.

At low volume levels on your radio, you'd think the station went dead air. You turn it up to compensate for loudness loss, but be ready to turn the radio down when the audio starts to gain loudness. Crazy!

They also need to do what WABB in Mobile, AL did. They need to come up on the high end of the audio spectrum. The station targets listeners a good ways away from the transmitter. Because of the distance factor, you get fidelity loss, so coming up on the high end would help with that problem around the metro's.

Anyone on here know about more about audio processing? What do they need to do to fix that (besides backing off on the noise gate)? I think they're still using analog audio processing for WDVW at the Vacherie stick.

Jeremy
 
I too miss WFMFs vibrant processing, their current processing sounds like something you'd here on an AC formated station. The best processing in the area currently in my opinion is on KFTE in Lafayette. They are using some sort of stereo widening and eq'ing that actually makes some tracks sound like a different mix. For example Switchfoot's 'Dare You To Move' has a total different sonic presentation on their processing. However on some songs the stereo widening amplifies the guitars so much it causes the vocals to be lost in the mix. Incubus' 'Wish You Were Here' has this pronounced effect.
 
OK from me air checking here is what I have to say.
91.1 KLSU--sounds ok
92.3 WDVW--Too low but stereo seperation is good
93.3--dont listen more than a split second :)
93.7--Rock 93.7--Over modulated mud pie
94.1--same as 93.3
94.3 --OK It sounds great as far as processing
95.7--Sounds clear to me
96.1--cant figure it out but highs are distorted
97.1--sounds clear to me
98.1--Jesus whats up with them. Its a classic rock station not a chr! horrible!
98.5 sounds clear as 97.1
100.7--overmodulated to the point that I cant listen
101.1 volume is too low but clear
101.5--same as 96.1
101.9--perfect!
102.5--too low but clear
103.3--HOLY CRAP THIS IS AWFUL!
104.1--overmodulated
104.5--sounds like AM on FM.
104.9--horrible
105.3 --perfect
106.1---perfect
106.5 muddy
106.7--ok
107.3--sounds good to me
107.5--better than 101.1 or 101.5
107.9--1 second rule..listen 1 second and change immediatly! :)


OK thats most of the whole dial on FM :)
 
smashedcd said:
104.9--horrible

When KNXX and WNXX were simulcasting, it sounded like 104.9 was simply picking up 104.5's off-air signal and rebroadcasting it instead of taking a direct microwave or IP feed from the studio—even when you were close to the tower (say, in the parking lot of the Donaldsonville Walmart), you'd hear a significant amount of static. On top of that, it sounded like they were adding even more processing to the WNXX signal at the KNXX site, so you were getting processing on top of processing, along with what sounded like a low-but-constant square wave noise in the background.

I haven't had the chance to hear them since 104.5 went ESPN to see if any of this cleared up, so while I assume that the double processing issue has been addressed, I don't know if the background noise is still present or not. It's not like I can pick them up in Baton Rouge or anything.
 
104.5 ESPN/Baton Rouge has one of the sorriest signals I've ever heard on an FM station. But it's a sports talk format, so I suppose they figure it doesn't matter.
 
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