scoping airchecks

[bobdavcav]

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when an aircheck isn't scoped properly? What I consider properly scoped is the first few seconds of the song after an element, then the last few seconds into the next element, and so on. If I hear the beginning of one song into the end of another, I usually assume there was a cold segue between those two songs. My advice to PDs or DJs who only have airchecks of their mic breaks is to try to avoid sending these to sites primarily aimed at collectors unless the site operator asks for them, then I guess it's up to the site operator what they want to do with them.
As for commercials, I really don't care whether they're taken out or left in, that's why I usually retain the unscoped version of my recordings in case either that's what's wanted or I can do a scope with commercials left in. This is on my mind because I just got two airchecks in a trade this morning that I had downloaded scoped versions of off of a now defunct aircheck site and both of them had stuff missing. One of them had two songs completely cut, while the other one was so chopped up there wasn't really any way to get an idea of what the station actually sounded like, plus it had been cut with about 20 minutes left. Am I the only one who gets annoyed by this?

 

[lanceventa]

You cannot compare airchecks made by talent for work purposes and those made for collectors/archivists.

I agree with you when it comes to the latter, but if a talent is making an aircheck for a job application or show review there is absolutely ZERO reason to keep imaging/content that has nothing to do with their breaks.

Also with personal disk storage what it is now, collectors really have no need to scope unless publishing for online consumption to avoid paying music royalties.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Also with personal disk storage what it is now, collectors really have no need to scope unless publishing for online consumption to avoid paying music royalties.

That said, archivists prefer formats with lossless compression - if compressed at all - and those files get really big. I find anything more than 4 GB in size can be hard to work with, even on a device optimized for Linux development, and I've run out of space on several backups now.

 

[bobdavcav]

You cannot compare airchecks made by talent for work purposes and those made for collectors/archivists.

I agree with you when it comes to the latter, but if a talent is making an aircheck for a job application or show review there is absolutely ZERO reason to keep imaging/content that has nothing to do with their breaks.

Also with personal disk storage what it is now, collectors really have no need to scope unless publishing for online consumption to avoid paying music royalties.

I think we can agree on both of those points. What I don't quite understand is why some of those airchecks do make their way onto sites primarily for collectors. In the case of both the airchecks that got this thread started though, they were clearly recorded by collectors. The first one, WBEB/Philadelphia from October 2002, you could clearly hear stereo hiss, and the way it was scoped was just strange. It's almost like whoever scoped it just wanted the jingles, mic breaks, and legal out of it.
The other was maybe a bit stranger, as the only things that were cut out of it were the third new music alert and the song after that. This was KBKS/Seattle from September 21, 2005.
I've also heard some really weird scopes, some of the ones I've heard start out leaving everything in and then at some point you don't hear imaging anymore.

 

[michael hagerty]

I think we can agree on both of those points. What I don't quite understand is why some of those airchecks do make their way onto sites primarily for collectors. In the case of both the airchecks that got this thread started though, they were clearly recorded by collectors. The first one, WBEB/Philadelphia from October 2002, you could clearly hear stereo hiss, and the way it was scoped was just strange. It's almost like whoever scoped it just wanted the jingles, mic breaks, and legal out of it.
The other was maybe a bit stranger, as the only things that were cut out of it were the third new music alert and the song after that. This was KBKS/Seattle from September 21, 2005.
I've also heard some really weird scopes, some of the ones I've heard start out leaving everything in and then at some point you don't hear imaging anymore.

Bob, different people had different motives, skills and equipment when they recorded airchecks. Some folks just wanted the music. Some were jingle and ID freaks and some were fans of the talent.

And there's no telling where along the line additional alterations and degradations were made (really a problem back in the day when we were dubbing dubs of reels and cassettes).

I've been somewhat involved in the aircheck community for 28 years, and what I've learned is that the differences between the people who rolled tape years---decades---ago are roughly mirrored among collectors.

Some are extremely particular about the material, including nailing down the correct date to the extent that's possible. Others really don't care and will take (and post online) borderline unlistenable stuff just to say they have it.

I know at least one online collector who reposts the same airchecks every few months. The previous postings are still there---it's just his way of appearing to never run out of material.

Even the late Richard Irwin at REELRADIO, who was obsessed with quality and precision, had his quirks. In any unscoped aircheck from the period when The Beatles' "Hey Jude" was in a power rotation, if there was a second play, he always scoped it.

And, paradoxically, the more rare audio of a particular station is, the more likely that it was recorded by someone who "just wanted the music" and scoped everything else out---usually by pressing "pause" until the music started again. The vast majority of unscoped California beautiful music FMs were recorded by someone's mom doing just that.

 

[bobdavcav]

That makes sense. I have a friend who like me leaves everything in, but insists on scoping live. When I am listening to a scoped aircheck, I think of it like a summary of a station. That means I need to be able to identify every song I can within five seconds, and I don't want anything taken out. The only exceptions are as follows:
1. I usually scope out the commercials, but if they are left in I don't mind, I know of some people who insist they be removed.
2. The only time I will accept hearing the beginning of one song into the end of another is when the station cold segues between those two songs.
My site isn't old enough to be posting duplicated content yet, but I would think that regular readers of a site that posted the same things every few months would get tired of the same things over and over again. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I run out of material yet, but as I only post once a week, that'll be about four years away.