Sounds in AR/MO-My Thoughts

[pobryan]

My my... I see that I started something here. Well, you might as well say goodbye to the old days. It's a lost art...or it will be very soon! But it is good to dream about the past. You were talking about all of the effects needed for a morning show before we had hot keys. I was working at B-97 in New Orleans back in 1985 when we brought Cajun Ken Cooper back to town for his 7 figure, 5 year contract!!! That's right... ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!! We already had 6 cart decks in the control room. They brought 3 more in, for a total of 9 decks!! The entire back wall of the control room were morning show bits and effects. They were all carted up and ready to go when he needed them. Naturally, I have a big reel somewhere with most of that stuff on it. I couldn't resist. The problem is, where am I going to find a reel to reel to play them back? With currents, oldies, commercials and bits all on cart, we must have had well over a thousand carts in the control room!!! I'll say it again, those were the days! Hey, Music Radio... did you every land a new gig?

 

[Media Mogul]

This aircheck speaks for itself!

http://www.stanradio.com/raylincoln.htm

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Well folks, it's more than just radio that has changed. I'm not going to exactly give my age, but the first time I pushed that lever switch to turn on my mic was the first week in June 1956.... and it was 690 in Benton.

Today we have e-mail, and when I read what my co-workers have typed up, I call them drive-by shootings. Very short. No sentences.

And when I reply.... they call them epistles, encyclopedias, and book-length. Working at the radio station is different today, and truth be told.... the ears that are listening are different.

I guess we can't go back home, but it is fun to think about.

 

[donttouchthatdial]

I prefer to embrace the future and not return to the good ole days. Radio has always changed and evolved, have you?

 

[robgrayson]

When I go back and listen to all the sound effects that people like Rick Dees and Ray Lincoln used on their shows, my gosh they must have prepared for six hours to get the laughter and just the right track where they wanted it.

Radiosaur was right. Having seen Mr. Dees in action back in "the day", I got a chuckle out of the thought of "show prep". Rick would blow in about 6:05 to 6:10-ish, grab three or four drop-in carts, and deliver a bit off the top of his head, complete with multiple characters, that would have you rotf-lol-ing years before we even knew what rotf or lol meant. At WHBQ we had three 6-foot-tall cart carousels in the control room... one for spots, one for music, and one for Mr. Dees and Bob Landree's drop in carts.
The Q had an elaborate but efficient show prep system for the rest of the jocks (Rick had a "producer" doing his basic music sheets, and making sure the log was followed, but Rick ran his own board). We would spend the hour before our airshift prepping the music log for the show. First, you would plot out the "power" songs, then the other currents, then fill in recurrents and oldies, paying attention to balance of artists, tempo flow, and avoiding cold end songs going into cold open songs. Dickie Edwards was primarily in charge of carting the music, so there was consistency in the feel and levels. Dickie also provided us with not only intro and post times, but an "execution" point near the end of the song, so we would have a consistent mark at which we would begin our rap over the end, or make the segue into the next song.
As we say, those things are all done by a computer now, though the better ones still have a human looking it over and saying yay or nay. Having done a show in both eras, I agree with some of our earlier contributors. I could run a much tighter show with carts (if they were carted right) than with a mouse. One of my biggest gripes with the computer thing is the "built-in" fade envelope from element to element, making it difficult to go from A to B to C without losing A and B in the process. And I do miss stacking a hours worth of music and spots (and as mentioned, trying to carry it without spilling it all over creation!)

 

[kudzooter]

Reading some of this, might have to change my user name to Don't Euthanise Me Just Yet. Danoinark, when I went to AOR K94 in 1981, our logs were hand-written...and color coded: green meant it had to played first in that break; blue, it had to stay in that break; red, must stay in that hour; and black, could go any time in that daypart. Lotta fun trying to balance all that out, with the full-length LP cuts to always at least double-play...and frequently, two (or more) greenies in the same break. ((No wonder we smoked that stuff..)) Rich Moellers, take it back to the little-records/big-holes days--when we also did newscasts with at least three actualities in each, every hour (and after 9PM, the jock did that cast himself)...and Marty Robbins' El Paso was the bathroom break biggie. Yeayerrite, they DID invert the streets, so that after walking six miles uphill to do that minimum-wage break-into-radio allnighter, we then had to walk the same six miles, again uphill, to get home to milk the chickens and plant the eggs. Hell yes, I miss it. Hell no, I don't want to go back to those days.
But like someone else on this page, I'm wondering where the next generations of air talent will come from.

 

[Danoinark]

Heck, I remember working late day on my first am'er, and tracking an album of obscure pop music / easy listening, going out and mowing some of the lawn, then 25 minutes or so later, going back in and flipping it over so I could mow somemore.
Believe it or not I first started working with wire recorders....so there.... ;D

Dan S.

 

[txradiochick]

How about the first times you got to actually say the ID late at night on the RADIO!! LOL! I remember having to write everything down and practice it. Luckily, I don't still do that but then again everything I do is recorded.

And, nooooo, I wouldn't go back to the good old days. That was WORK! Today's radio is fun and really pretty easy. If you can talk and punch a space bar you too can be a DJ. But, there was something more fulfilling back in the day when you had to sit on the edge of your seat the entire shift and think of what was coming up next.

t

 

[Musicradio]

I think the first spot I ever recorded was for Everybody's Furniture in Mt. Pleasant, Texas back in 1978. It was a :60 -- and we recorded them straight to cart........yeah, I did it about 30 times before finally getting the whole thing right! (ha)

When a record needle would break in the middle of your shift and you didn't have or couldn't find another one -- it usually was a very long shift with one turntable.

Oh, the fun!!! But I'm glad I got to do it.

Yo Phil -- Call all your friends in Texarkana -- I need a job. Thanks!!

 

[u-j]

My first job in radio was in Pine Bluff working for the legendary Buddy Deane. And, regardless of how long you've been in radio, if you don't know who Buddy Deane is you should look him up. At one point in his career he was one of the biggest 'jocks' in the country. But I digress, we had a beautiful music FM (which is now Power 92 in Little Rock) and I recorded news and weather to replay later. I can remember going home and listening to myself and thinking how cool that was. Now it's old hat. Having said that, I don't want to go back either. These are the good old days. Not because it was more work back then because, I think, if you're doing it right it's still hard work.