Radio's past professional mic standard now fading

[RadioFan2J3]

Caught it. Mine too.

Understood (and no argument here), but I do believe it was criteria for hiring some of the big Top 40 jocks years ago. At the time, I'm sure some PD's (and DJ's too) were drooling over who could consistently do it better than others.

Many photographs of on-air studios show a Graylab darkroom timer, typically tied into the turntable control leads to start the timer.

Being able to walk up the intro of a song was somewhere between an art and a science.

Is it used much today?

 

[Brian Bowers]

Is it used much today?

I realize this topic is now pivoting towards programming, but since this is currently where this thread is, I'll go with the flow.

If the question is: are DJ's (aka air talent) still hitting the post these days; on many music formatted stations, yes, they are, but most times the station is in automation mode, and the art of hitting the post as was manually done live decades ago (before automation, or music on hard drive became the norm in radio stations), is no longer needed as much, as the voice-track can be manipulated with voice-tracking software, so it perfectly fits in and hits the post. If for example a music intensive morning show is live, then yes, the talent is typically still looking at countdown clocks, to guide them when they're approaching the post.

 

[Kelly A]

After 62 years in the biz, never once has any listener to any station I worked at or listened to, ever indicated that they listened to an on air talent because he/she "hit the post".
Yes of course, with voice-tracking you don't have to be good to "hit the post" these days. And apparently, you don't need more than some foam on your spare bedroom wall to fool listeners into believing that you're in a major market broadcast studio.

You probably remember this even better than I, but I believe the whole talking up intro's right up to 'the vocals, or transition post' was part of the whole we play more non-stop music-concept. See, we talk over 25% of the music every hour, but we stop down less than the other guy's. Sigh.... silly radio people!

 

[Kelly A]

Many photographs of on-air studios show a Graylab darkroom timer, typically tied into the turntable control leads to start the timer.

Being able to walk up the intro of a song was somewhere between an art and a science.

Is it used much today?

Those weren't used in most stations. Generally there was a digital timer right in front of the copy stand that went "00:00" when you started the next cart. Maybe back before carts with vinyl, they used to use a lab timer, but that seems silly. When you play the same song two times an hour, you don't need no stinkin' timer to hear when the post is coming.

 

[RadioFan2J3]

Those weren't used in most stations. Generally there was a digital timer right in front of the copy stand that went "00:00" when you started the next cart. Maybe back before carts with vinyl, they used to use a lab timer, but that seems silly. When you play the same song two times an hour, you don't need no stinkin' timer to hear when the post is coming.

Two of the three rockers in Augusta, WBBQ and WAUG, had the lab timers. This was in the 1970s, before digital timers became vogue.

I agree with you, once you learned the music, it was easy to hit the post anyway.

I never worked at a station with one, but I did not do air work after about 1978 or so, so my time references are pretty old.

 

[RadioFan2J3]

You probably remember this even better than I, but I believe the whole talking up intro's right up to 'the vocals, or transition post' was part of the whole we play more non-stop music-concept. See, we talk over 25% of the music every hour, but we stop down less than the other guy's. Sigh.... silly radio people!

I think it was in Orlando, far too many years ago, when I was a young teenager visiting stations, one station had the two turntables on the same pot, with a switch choosing which TT to be on the air. I gathered with their non-stop rock music concept that by outroing one song and talking over the transition post, the switch from one TT to the other was not particularly noticeable.

 

[bossbill]

You probably remember this even better than I, but I believe the whole talking up intro's right up to 'the vocals, or transition post' was part of the whole we play more non-stop music-concept. See, we talk over 25% of the music every hour, but we stop down less than the other guy's. Sigh.... silly radio people!

I don't remember much at my age, except for Burl Barer successfully talking up to Stairway to Heaven "KOL... KOL... KOL..."
We didn't have an expensive timer at KOL. I bought $10 digital clocks and a simple mod made them timers...