Q102 - No longer speeding up the music

[nd2023]

I've not listened to Q for a while, but I noticed that the pitch of the music is normal. Anyone else notice that? Or maybe it's just me who is used to the 3% pitch up of 92.3 Now.

 

[aindik]

Don't they have software now that can speed up the music without changing the pitch?

 

[nd2023]

The whole point of speeding up the music is to increase the pitch to make the song sound "hotter"

 

[aindik]

I thought the point of speeding up the music is to increase the BPM to make the song sound hotter (and comparatively slower on other stations), and that increasing the pitch was an annoying side effect. How does increasing the pitch make the song sound hotter?

 

[Fakeem]

If they really starting playing music at it's correct tempo after 20 years of that chimpmunking style that i HATE, I would LOVE to know what FINALLY made them do it. PLEASE, someone fill me in.

 

[geeks-r-us]

I noticed their music changed as the old PD went to Chicago

 

[TonySantiago]

I remember back in the days driving through the region I would turn on Q-102 and everything sounded much faster! And it wasn't just increasing the pitch...the octave went up with it! That was the only station I knew of where every aspect was speeded up, not just time compressing a track where it would sound like the original but sped a notch to save those 24 seconds.

 

[Up_N_Down_The_Dial]

I remember back in the days driving through the region I would turn on Q-102 and everything sounded much faster! And it wasn't just increasing the pitch...the octave went up with it! That was the only station I knew of where every aspect was speeded up, not just time compressing a track where it would sound like the original but sped a notch to save those 24 seconds.

Q did speed the pitch on the turntable or CD Player by +3%. They did have plenty of equipment that could have corrected the pitch/tempo, but did not use it for that. They did it for the reason stated above, to make the other stations sound boring (Eagle 106, Power 99).. at the time they were not all owned by Clear Channel... it is common practice in CHR to speed music, I don't know if it's common to speed by +3 or not, but that's what they did...

 

[justthenumbers]

The whole point of speeding up the music is to increase the pitch to make the song sound "hotter"

I thought it was so that they could squeeze in extra time for commercials?

 

[DanStrassberg]

Q did speed the pitch on the turntable or CD Player by +3%. They did have plenty of equipment that could have corrected the pitch/tempo, but did not use it for that. They did it for the reason stated above, to make the other stations sound boring (Eagle 106, Power 99).. at the time they were not all owned by Clear Channel... it is common practice in CHR to speed music, I don't know if it's common to speed by +3 or not, but that's what they did...

What percentage of the population has absolute pitch? I have a cousin who has it. I think music whose pitch is wrong drives people who have absolute pitch nuts (figuratively). In that case, playing music sped up in pitch as well as tempo would drive away some portion of the potential audience. Speeding up only the tempo would not have that effect.

 

[nd2023]

Q did speed the pitch on the turntable or CD Player by +3%. They did have plenty of equipment that could have corrected the pitch/tempo, but did not use it for that. They did it for the reason stated above, to make the other stations sound boring (Eagle 106, Power 99).. at the time they were not all owned by Clear Channel... it is common practice in CHR to speed music, I don't know if it's common to speed by +3 or not, but that's what they did...

What percentage of the population has absolute pitch? I have a cousin who has it. I think music whose pitch is wrong drives people who have absolute pitch nuts (figuratively). In that case, playing music sped up in pitch as well as tempo would drive away some portion of the potential audience. Speeding up only the tempo would not have that effect.

On the contrary, I first heard some songs on 92.3 Now FM which speeds up 3%, and it drives me nuts to hear it not pitched up on the other stations.

 

[radioskeptic]

I've never understand why a station would shift the speed -- and hence the frequency, as well as the the tempo -- by only three percent instead of six percent. A six-percent increase would shift musical pitch by entire semitone, so that a song recorded in a-flat, for example, would be played back in A-natural, a song recorded in A-natural in B-flat, etc.

Increasing by only three percent raises pitch by only a quarter-tone -- not an interval heard in popular music, or in most Western classical music, and thus very disconcerting to the ear of anyone who, though possesed of a good sense of pitch, is neverthelss not familiar with the sort of deservingly obscure twentieth-century academic music that used quarter tones.

(Note: The equal-tempered scale devised in Bach's day makes the frequency ratio between any two adjacent semitones approximately 1:1.059463 -- or more precisely, one to the 12th root of two. The difference between that and 1.06 is too small to hear.)

Yes, that would speed up the tempo twice as much, but it would be less annoying than having everything a quarter-tone out of tune!

 

[nd2023]

I never paid attention in middle school music class and (thanks to two obnoxious classical stations that interfere with dance stations), don't like classical music.
I like hearing CHR music pitched up enough to make it sound "hotter", but 6% would make it sound like chipmunks. I can tell when a song is pitched up 2%, 3%, or more. Only CHR, especially rhythmic, sounds good pitched up, oldies, most rock, AC sound bad sped up.
I listen most to the CHR station that pitches up 3% than the others that don't speed up at all.

 

[Up_N_Down_The_Dial]

I never paid attention in middle school music class and (thanks to two obnoxious classical stations that interfere with dance stations), don't like classical music.
I like hearing CHR music pitched up enough to make it sound "hotter", but 6% would make it sound like chipmunks. I can tell when a song is pitched up 2%, 3%, or more. Only CHR, especially rhythmic, sounds good pitched up, oldies, most rock, AC sound bad sped up.
I listen most to the CHR station that pitches up 3% than the others that don't speed up at all.

I agree with 99% of what you've said... except that "most rock" stations should not pitch the music... I think it should be "ALL ROCK" stations should never ever ever ever ever ever for any reason pitch their music.... it's rock.... it's not meant to sound "hot"....

 

[radioskeptic]

Nick wrote:

I never paid attention in middle school music class and (thanks to two obnoxious classical stations that interfere with dance stations), don't like classical music.
I like hearing CHR music pitched up enough to make it sound "hotter", but 6% would make it sound like chipmunks. I can tell when a song is pitched up 2%, 3%, or more. Only CHR, especially rhythmic, sounds good pitched up, oldies, most rock, AC sound bad sped up.
I listen most to the CHR station that pitches up 3% than the others that don't speed up at all.

First, Nick, classical stations are not obnoxious, except in the "minds" (and I use the word loosely) of cultural barbarians.

But more important, a 6% speed-up does not yield a "Chipmunks" sound. The voices of the Chipmunks, like those of the Witch Doctor (another David Seville record) and the Purple People Eater (Sheb Wooley) before them (and for that matter, the mice in Disney's 1950 animated feature Cinderella) were created by speeding up a master tape from 7.5 to 15 i.p.s., or from 15 to 30. This raises pitch by an entire octave, and the music is in the original key. (And I hope those pop culture references prove that I'm not a complete cultural snob -- I just get annoyed with people who seem to revel in their ignorance!)

Speeding up 33⅓-rpm records to 45 or 78.26 rpm yield different intervals, changing the key. An LP played at 45 rpm is raised by about a perfect 4th,; played at 78, it's raised by an octave plus about a minor 3rd.

 

[radioskeptic]

Nick, sorry I forgot something in that last post:

I don't think a a semitone transposition would bother you. Since you posted on the thread about WVLT, I'll assume you're familiar with oldies and use a couple of familiar records as an example. Danny and the Juniors' two biggest records, "At the Hop" and "Rock'n'Roll Is Here to Stay," have almost identical piano introductions, but "Rock'n'Roll Is Here to Stay" begins in G-natural, modulates to A-flat and finally to A-natural, while "At the Hop" is in A-flat from start to finish.

Unless you have perfect pitch or very good relative pitch, you're not likely to notice the difference in the first few seconds -- unless, of course, you have perfect rhythm!

 

[nd2023]

Nick wrote:

I never paid attention in middle school music class and (thanks to two obnoxious classical stations that interfere with dance stations), don't like classical music.
I like hearing CHR music pitched up enough to make it sound "hotter", but 6% would make it sound like chipmunks. I can tell when a song is pitched up 2%, 3%, or more. Only CHR, especially rhythmic, sounds good pitched up, oldies, most rock, AC sound bad sped up.
I listen most to the CHR station that pitches up 3% than the others that don't speed up at all.

First, Nick, classical stations are not obnoxious, except in the "minds" (and I use the word loosely) of cultural barbarians.

But more important, a 6% speed-up does not yield a "Chipmunks" sound. The voices of the Chipmunks, like those of the Witch Doctor (another David Seville record) and the Purple People Eater (Sheb Wooley) before them (and for that matter, the mice in Disney's 1950 animated feature Cinderella) were created by speeding up a master tape from 7.5 to 15 i.p.s., or from 15 to 30. This raises pitch by an entire octave, and the music is in the original key. (And I hope those pop culture references prove that I'm not a complete cultural snob -- I just get annoyed with people who seem to revel in their ignorance!)

Speeding up 33⅓-rpm records to 45 or 78.26 rpm yield different intervals, changing the key. An LP played at 45 rpm is raised by about a perfect 4th,; played at 78, it's raised by an octave plus about a minor 3rd.

I'm sorry about saying that all classical stations are obnoxious. It's not the music, it's their frequency. WWFM 89.1's IBUZ interferes with Z88.9, and a 105.3 translator in Connecticut interferes with Party 105 (the main signal is clear in the area of the translator). It's like the same thing with religious stations cluttering up the dial, or most pirate stations with a Caribbean format.

 

[radioskeptic]

Nick, I'm sorry, too, if I seemed to be a little too hard on you.

It seems we have a common enemy in IBUZ. Here in new Jersey, about 20 miles south of the Roxborough antenna farm, I could occasionally pick up WQXR. Not any more, since Beasley turned on the IBUZ on 96.5!

I'll never understand why WWFM, with their dinky little signal, which is far below even the modest maximum permissible power for a Class A station, ever thought that iNiquity's half-baked system would work for them!

But you're getting interference from a translator in Connecticut? And what (and where) is "Party 105"?