Speeding up songs...?

[pianorox]

A while back I heard Kanye West's "Golddigger" on the radio (it was either Wired 96.5 or 100.3 The Beat). You couldn't get away from it a few months ago. Anyway, I remember hearing two versions, one of which was pitched higher than the other and ran faster. It sounded like someone took the regular version and cranked up the tape speed just a smidgen. You could definitely hear the difference. It was a little Alvin and the Chipmunks-esque.

I have no experience with the sound equipment used in radio studios, but in the digital age, speeding up a song doesn't seem like something you can do by accident. It's not like someone bumped into the 33 1/3 knob and accidently set it to 45. It seems like it was done on purpose

This faster version wasn't a remix. It was identical to the normal speed version.

My question is this: are songs ever sped up to make them faster for radio? To make them fit better? What was I hearing when I heard that faster version? I'm 90% certain it wasn't a remix.

 

[elevator_opratr]

A number of stations I am familiar with purposely speed up their music. It's done for various reasons. To make it sound "brighter" or more "upbeat" than the competition (even though it's the same darn song as the other station, just 2 percent faster) or to save time. If you speed up all of your music in an ordinary hour just a percent or two, it is barely noticable to the ear (unless an audio geek is listening, like most of us here on radio-info) or you're a big fan of the artist, but it can save up to several minutes an hour to squeeze in more music or commercials, therefore saying that you play more music in one hour than your competition. Sounds silly, but from my experience, it's true in some places. I'm not saying that's what you heard or what was happening, but it's possible.<P ID="signature">______________

http://weatherwindow.blogspot.com</P>

 

[PrepMonster]

Elevator_Operator Is Correct

Back when .45's were played on turntables, PDs would routinely speed up the turntables a whisker for the reasons he mentioned: making a station sound brighter than their competition, squeezing in an extra tune or two in an hour so they could say "we play more music than station X" and because of the number of button-pushers, mostly teens with a limited attention span, who would push the channel button to the other station(s). Play a tune faster and the teens had less chance to tune out, even if they didn't like that tune. At 2:30-3:00 each, the tune would zip by in 2:20-2:45 or so.

Low-tech methods of speeding up records included adding tape to the spindle of the machine, making it bigger, hence faster and also recording the record onto a tape recorder with a variable speed control. When you dubbed the tape back to a cart, you engaged the varispeed and whammo! a speeded-up tune. (That's also about the time that records were being transferred to carts: less cue-burn, fewer broken records and an opportunity to edit a tune any way you'd like before airing it.)

Best examples: Carpenter's "Goodbye To Love". PD's of AC stations hated the fuzz-guitar lick in the middle and would routinely edit that part out. Second, Paul Simon's "Kodachrome". Believe it or not, some PDs had the Music Directors edit out the words "the crap" out of the first line: "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high-school". Really!

 

[Imdkewlest1009]

Re: Elevator_Operator Is Correct

Q102 Has admitted on air a few years back that they play the songs 2% faster than what you get in the stores and hear on other stations

 

[nd2023]

Re: Elevator_Operator Is Correct

> Q102 Has admitted on air a few years back that they play the
> songs 2% faster than what you get in the stores and hear on
> other stations
>
Wired 96.5 has admitted earlier that they don't speed up the music, and they still don't. I notice the difference with a few songs.<P ID="signature">______________
17-year-old radio geek
Location: Princeton Junction, NJ
AIM: KewlDude471
WWPH 107.9 FM: http://wwph1079fm.no-ip.org</P>

 

[elevator_opratr]

Re: Elevator_Operator Is Correct

> (That's also about the time that records
> were being transferred to carts: less cue-burn, fewer broken
> records and an opportunity to edit a tune any way you'd like
> before airing it.)
>
> Best examples: Carpenter's "Goodbye To Love". PD's of AC
> stations hated the fuzz-guitar lick in the middle and would
> routinely edit that part out. Second, Paul Simon's
> "Kodachrome". Believe it or not, some PDs had the Music
> Directors edit out the words "the crap" out of the first
> line: "When I think back on all the crap I learned in
> high-school". Really!

Good one! I have another funny edit story. Legendary and long-gone Allentown, PA beautiful music station WFMZ used to occasionally play Tony Orlando's vocal version of "Tie A Yellow Ribbon," and they edited the word "damn" out of the end where he says "now the whole damn bus is cheering." You could almost hear the cut out. It was a poor job. "Now the whole *snip* bus is cheering." Dick Dean and his crew up at WFMZ were a very conservative bunch. I'm surprised he even allowed the vocal version to be part of the mix if they were going to do that to it.
<P ID="signature">______________

http://weatherwindow.blogspot.com</P>

 

[Imdkewlest1009]

Re: Elevator_Operator Is Correct

> Good one! I have another funny edit story. Legendary and
> long-gone Allentown, PA beautiful music station WFMZ used to
> occasionally play Tony Orlando's vocal version of "Tie A
> Yellow Ribbon," and they edited the word "damn" out of the
> end where he says "now the whole damn bus is cheering." You
> could almost hear the cut out. It was a poor job. "Now the
> whole *snip* bus is cheering." Dick Dean and his crew up at
> WFMZ were a very conservative bunch. I'm surprised he even
> allowed the vocal version to be part of the mix if they were
> going to do that to it.
>
kind of unrelated to the subject, or radio for that matter, but does dick dean own WFMZ-TV? he has some sort of comentary on there...

 

[billjacobs]

Re: Elevator_Operator Is Correct

I have very good relative pitch. When I was a kid downashore in the summertime, about 30 years ago, I thought I heard the same thing. I wrote a letter to the Chief Engineer of the station (which will go nameless here) and said he should check his turntable speeds.

He actually wrote back and said they played 45's at 47 rpm. Said it made the music "better". More correctly, it made the songs shorter, giving them another 2 minutes of spots an hour.

Yes, I was a geek even then.


Bill

 

[TheRealDerek]

Re: Elevator_Operator Is Correct

> Q102 Has admitted on air a few years back that they play the
> songs 2% faster than what you get in the stores and hear on
> other stations
>
More like 3% (yeah, like that makes a difference, lol). I had tested it a while ago, compareing two songs together, then speeding the one being played on my comp to 3% and got an exact, identical play with the radio version.

I remember being fascinated by how and why Q102 (and later, other stations) would speed up thier songs and make them sound different. Like, I had these thoeries that they played all of thier music on cassette tapes, and the player that was playing them sped them up, by mistake (???, lol). I also remember listening to commercials, to see if THEY were sped up too....I could go on and on. But now, I know the reasons, and how I can achieve the sped up quality of the song on my comp, so the mystery has vanished.

I'm I the only one who PREFERS some songs to be sped up, to get that higher pitch-sounding vocals or whatever?

 

[John1]

Re: Elevator_Operator Is Correct

Yes. He reportedly sold WFMZ radio about 1997 to help pay for the upgrade of WFMZ-TV to digital when that became a requirement. Dean does a nightly conservative-leaning commentary on the 10 pm news, usually with Donald Barnhouse, who was a commentator on WCAU-TV back in the John Facenda era.


> kind of unrelated to the subject, or radio for that matter,
> but does dick dean own WFMZ-TV? he has some sort of
> comentary on there...
>

 

[John1]

Re: WFIL-WIBG

The story has always been that one of the reasons WFIL easily took over the WIBG audience in 1966 (besides better signal) was they speeded up the music so the same songs sounded s-l-o-w on Wibbage!


> I have very good relative pitch. When I was a kid
> downashore in the summertime, about 30 years ago, I thought
> I heard the same thing. I wrote a letter to the Chief
> Engineer of the station (which will go nameless here) and
> said he should check his turntable speeds.
>
> He actually wrote back and said they played 45's at 47
> rpm. Said it made the music "better". More correctly, it
> made the songs shorter, giving them another 2 minutes of
> spots an hour.
>
> Yes, I was a geek even then.
>
>
> Bill
>

 

[billjacobs]

Re: WFIL-WIBG

> The story has always been that one of the reasons WFIL
> easily took over the WIBG audience in 1966 (besides better
> signal) was they speeded up the music so the same songs
> sounded s-l-o-w on Wibbage!

I don't think WFIL did that, except maybe in the VERY early going. I listened to both stations from time to time (horrors! a two-timer!) throughout my misspent childhood, beginning in the late '60's, and I'm sure I would have noticed.

 

[billjacobs]

Re: Elevator_Operator Is Correct

> Am I the only one who PREFERS some songs to be sped up, to
> get that higher pitch-sounding vocals or whatever?
>

Preferences aside, when some program director decides to speed up songs, isn't that kind of line an art store owner telling DaVinci that his paintings were too drab, and that he should have used more pink paint?

Bill

 

[MegaMediaMaven]

Re: WFIL-WIBG

WFIL never practiced speeding up records. It was WIBG. I still recall how terrible Paul Simon's "Love Me Like a Rock" sounded on WIBBAGE. The song was backed by the Dixie Chipmonks, not the Dixie Hummingbirds. WIBG even had a slogan at one point saying something like "This Hour, WIBG will play 65 minutes worth of music!" At a programming conference years ago, I was talking with Jay Cook (former WFIL PD) about the crazy things TOP 40 stations did to try to get audience. Jay felt strongly that super promotions, super talent and a well-executed "light, bright and tight" format would be perfect ammunition a station that felt speeding up records would gain an audience. One of the first TOP 40 stations I worked for in the early 70s did just that. It was unreal. The PD would wrap some scotch tape around the capstan of the turntables once a week to get the speeded up sound. Of course, the station audio was heavily compressed and when a record with soft audio was aired (I remember Roberta Flack's "First Time Ever I saw Your Face" as an example)the turntable "rumble" was totally outrageous. Ah the good old days....and how I miss "cue-scratched" records!!!!

 

[mcmannors]

Re: Elevator_Operator Is Correct

Speaking of "Downashore", WAYV in Atlantic City currently tempo enhamces all of the songs during their all 80's weekends. It sounds great (especially out of one of their sonovox jingles)!






> I have very good relative pitch. When I was a kid
> downashore in the summertime, about 30 years ago, I thought
> I heard the same thing. I wrote a letter to the Chief
> Engineer of the station (which will go nameless here) and
> said he should check his turntable speeds.
>
> He actually wrote back and said they played 45's at 47
> rpm. Said it made the music "better". More correctly, it
> made the songs shorter, giving them another 2 minutes of
> spots an hour.
>
> Yes, I was a geek even then.
>
>
> Bill
>