Still more music tweaking at DRC-FM

[GlennO]

A DRC alum update... Jack Carney returns to the CT airwaves after a six-month hiatus filling in at Clear Channel's Country 92.5 WWYZ. As for the previous DRC night guy (me), I get my radio fix doing voiceovers, fill-ins and remotes at Soft Rock 106.5 WBMW in the New London market. DRC was a kick, but life goes on! (Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da!)

 

[RadioMan203]

It appears that DRC-FM is backpedeling in an attempt to improve things. Personally, I think they've already become damaged goods and need to be taken out back of the woodshed and shot! Between the mismagement and the utter crap for audio I don't see how they can maintain any sort of TSL with all the inconsistancies. The station is either ripe for a big change or a fire sale!

I actually got an email from a former DRC-FM listener stating that the audio on my webcast is 1000% better than DRC-FM's ... and I only have a 64k mp3Pro stream!

On a note to GlennO, best of luck to you. Hopefully you'll be able to sit back and enjoy your current gigs.

Bill
CapitalRadio.us

 

[RadioMan203]

I was chatting with a jock for another major market station in CT and he was saying he caught the Saturday night show on DRC-FM. While Ron was doing some great programming, the audio was "horrendous" to quote him. I caught them in the car earlier on Saturday one song I heard (Chad & Jeremy's Yesterday's Gone) sounded quite great ... at least until the next song, where the audio returned to its normal "crappiness" sound. It's pretty sad!

I also hear them touting their HD signal, but if it sounds as bad as their main channel they just better crawl back under the rock they call home!

 

[CTListener]

I was chatting with a jock for another major market station in CT and he was saying he caught the Saturday night show on DRC-FM. While Ron was doing some great programming, the audio was "horrendous" to quote him. I caught them in the car earlier on Saturday one song I heard (Chad & Jeremy's Yesterday's Gone) sounded quite great ... at least until the next song, where the audio returned to its normal "crappiness" sound. It's pretty sad!

I also hear them touting their HD signal, but if it sounds as bad as their main channel they just better crawl back under the rock they call home!

Does anyone on this board have an HD receiver? I'm curious to see whether the huge differences in audio quality between songs are present on HD as well. I wish HD would make it to Wal-Mart or the big-box electronics stores -- I'd love to give a demonstrator model a listen, the way I did with XM and Sirius before deciding which satellite radio service to go with.

To give DRC-FM the benefit of the doubt, some of the source material they play is pretty poor quality to begin with. The Moody Blues' "Go Now" was recorded horribly and has never sounded good on any station, including the AMs I listened to it on as a kid. Tonight, Gay Johnson took a request for the Beatles' version of "Long Tall Sally," which sounded just the way you'd expect it to sound -- shrill and harsh. Of course, the Little Richard version wouldn't have come across much better.

 

[RadioMan203]

To give DRC-FM the benefit of the doubt, some of the source material they play is pretty poor quality to begin with. The Moody Blues' "Go Now" was recorded horribly and has never sounded good on any station, including the AMs I listened to it on as a kid. Tonight, Gay Johnson took a request for the Beatles' version of "Long Tall Sally," which sounded just the way you'd expect it to sound -- shrill and harsh. Of course, the Little Richard version wouldn't have come across much better.

I'll give them a little ... but not too much! Where do you draw the line?

You brought up two very good examples, but what about more modern music? I heard them play Abba's "Dancing Queen" and it sounded like a 32Kbps mp3 file played over the telephone! There's no excuse for that! I've been engineering stations for decades and have a good background with music on hard drive automation systems and there are times it sounds like DRC-FM is using nothing better than Real player for their on-air music. They either have a high school kid doing their I.T. and automation or the program director is nothing short of hearing impaired!

I'd say DRC-FM should win an award for the worst audio in the state! I've heard the reading services for the blind on a subcarrier and they have better audio that DRC-FM!

 

[CTListener]

To give DRC-FM the benefit of the doubt, some of the source material they play is pretty poor quality to begin with. The Moody Blues' "Go Now" was recorded horribly and has never sounded good on any station, including the AMs I listened to it on as a kid. Tonight, Gay Johnson took a request for the Beatles' version of "Long Tall Sally," which sounded just the way you'd expect it to sound -- shrill and harsh. Of course, the Little Richard version wouldn't have come across much better.

I'll give them a little ... but not too much! Where do you draw the line?

You brought up two very good examples, but what about more modern music? I heard them play Abba's "Dancing Queen" and it sounded like a 32Kbps mp3 file played over the telephone! There's no excuse for that! I've been engineering stations for decades and have a good background with music on hard drive automation systems and there are times it sounds like DRC-FM is using nothing better than Real player for their on-air music. They either have a high school kid doing their I.T. and automation or the program director is nothing short of hearing impaired!

Well, the PD ("Uncle Dave" Nagel) has been holding down the overnight shift for three weeks now. Why don't you give him a call?

Speaking of overnights, I've noticed something odd about those hours -- most of the music played during them seems to be time-shifted about 14 hours. For instance, if Larry Wells plays, say, "Too Weak to Fight" and "Jennifer Juniper" (or any other songs that aren't standard-oldies-playlist material or idiosyncratic to DRC, like "Black is Black" or "No Good to Cry") in the noon hour, I'll hear them again in the 2:00 hour of Nagel's show. Makes me wonder if the graveyard shift show might be voicetracked.

Granted, this probably isn't noticed by too many listeners -- I work a 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift that finds me awake at both noon and 2 a.m. most days.

 

[scottg]

Time to bring back to BIG D!

I stopped listening when they dropped the Big D name.

 

[CTListener]

Time to bring back to BIG D!

I stopped listening when they dropped the Big D name.

But they're playing all the music they used to play as Big D (and Oldies 102.9, for that matter), and more. The criticisms on this board focus on sound quality and playlist depth. Exactly how would bringing back an old positioner like "Big D" improve the station, unless you mean "Time to bring back Jerry Kristafer, Glenn O'Brien, Dick Robinson, Joey Reynolds, etc."?

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

Uncle Dave is on the air? Geezus.

If he's responsible for this shit hole of a station now.. he needs to get off the air and fix it

 

[Turntable]

You know, I was listening to them the other day, and it is absolutely true-- they are running alot of crappy source material. Some tracks really don't sound that bad. Nothing spectacular, mind you, and their voice processing sounds really lame as well... but I think their source material is half the problem, and that includes the mic processing...

-A

 

[RadioMan203]

You know, I was listening to them the other day, and it is absolutely true-- they are running alot of crappy source material. Some tracks really don't sound that bad. Nothing spectacular, mind you, and their voice processing sounds really lame as well... but I think their source material is half the problem, and that includes the mic processing...

-A

The sad thing is, Dick Buckley has his offices in Greenwich! Doesn't this guy even bother to drive up the Turnpike to listen and see what utter crap his station sounds like? Perhaps he's more concerned with WOR and the radio network instead.

Someone else summed up the way they're running the place: We Don't Really Care

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

I'd hafta agree that We Dont Really Care should be 102.9's new motto!

i wonder how many average, everyday listeners notice this?

by the way, there's another media company based in Greenwich... Connisouer (I know I butchered the name) that owns station out in the Midwest and plains..

 

[CTListener]

I'd hafta agree that We Dont Really Care should be 102.9's new motto!

i wonder how many average, everyday listeners notice this?

I'd guess not many. I'm an everyday listener, but most of my listening is in the car, at reasonable volume, with road noise, or at fairly low volume at home. I didn't start to notice the variations in quality until I really turned up the volume, with as little background noise present as possible. While 102.9 is my favorite station, I also listen to 105.9, 102.1 and 92.5 occasionally, and I can honestly say I never noticed any great difference in audio quality until I started listening critically just weeks ago. If anything, I preferred the audio on DRC to that of WWYZ -- I didn't think the aggressive processing of 92.5 served the music well.

 

[Turntable]

Someone else summed up the way they're running the place: We Don't Really Care

Yep, that was me.

WWYZ isn't the greatest sounding station in the world, either. miles better than DRC though. I believe they are running onnia 6 over there, concurrent with all CC stations...

 

[DJ Jim Wayne]

I was listening for about 15 minutes today just before noon.
???Possibly some improvement???

 

[CTListener]

I was listening for about 15 minutes today just before noon.
???Possibly some improvement???

Must have been the music selections during that quarter hour. I'm listening right now, and "Like a Rolling Stone" sounds just as crappy as it always has, especially coming after "Beach Baby," which sounded really good (and is a great song to boot -- thanks for playing the long version, DRC!).

 

[GlennO]

Production director Rob Ray would certainly not enter substandard source material into the hard drives. It's very unlikely that some old K-tel albums or muddy carts found their way into the digital system. "We Don't Really Care" is not Rob's motto.

Audio processing may not be very top of the mind to the casual listener, but nothing can be taken for granted in this competitive environment. It's a subliminal thing, like the order of spots in a break. Bob's Furniture is a big advertiser, but you may not want to lead off every stop set with him. Larry Wells is good at keeping things flowing by leading off a break with the spot that has the snappiest jingle or production. It's one of those many little nuances...

 

[RadioMan203]

Production director Rob Ray would certainly not enter substandard source material into the hard drives. It's very unlikely that some old K-tel albums or muddy carts found their way into the digital system. "We Don't Really Care" is not Rob's motto.

Audio processing may not be very top of the mind to the casual listener, but nothing can be taken for granted in this competitive environment. It's a subliminal thing, like the order of spots in a break. Bob's Furniture is a big advertiser, but you may not want to lead off every stop set with him. Larry Wells is good at keeping things flowing by leading off a break with the spot that has the snappiest jingle or production. It's one of those many little nuances...

Glenn,

I hear what you're saying, but it seems that the current on-air product would contradict what appear to be any former attention to detail. The air product to put it bluntly is absolutely dreadful and inconsistent. Case and point below:

I know Bill Rock (I use to live down the street from him and a friend of mine is good friends with him) and I know he is very detail oriented with his productions. I would doubt that Bill would let anything with sub-par audio quality would ever leave his studio. I've heard some imaging liners from Bill on DRC-FM that sound like poorly encoded mp3 files so it's not just the music that sounds bad! I would also hope that the station has access to something more than "old K-Tel albums" as part of their music library. I know most stations have access to TM music libraries among others (I know TM and a few others were quite pleased to pick up my business for my internet oldies station). When I do have to resort to a vinyl dub for obtain a correct version or for something that's rare/out of print, I take my time and record the vinyl with a high quality audio system into the computer with a pro sound card, use very expensive restoration tools went needed (Waves, etc) and then rip into the automation system at a very high bit rate. Some songs sound like they downloaded from someone's crummy mp3 player. For sake of argument, let's collectively call this "Strike 1".

Audio processing is a whole different thing. Rumor has it that former chief engineer turned station manage Wayne Mulligan is one to have the processing set toward the female listener - very midrangy with little top or bottom end. This is what I've heard from various other engineers. Audio processing can make or break a station. I remember I contracted at a larger FM station and was told not to touch the "secret formula" in the audio processing rack, kept behind locked doors. Of course the first day I worked there I popped open the door to see what the fuss was about. The big "secret" was that all the knobs were pushed against the right hand end stops! Some big secret! That sounded loud and distorted. I bet their average quarter hour was terrible since most people's ears would be ringing. Some time later they went to a more "audiophile" processing sound that it actually helped. The processing at DRC-FM is far from stellar, and I could only imagine how bad it must sound on the HD channel. I'm trying to justify a purchase of an HD radio so I can listen enough to say "I told you so". Let's call this "Strike 2".

Every month I rescue at least one more person from DRC-FM with my internet stream. I usually find out when they have written to me to say how come I don't advertise that I'm in Connecticut. Many have said that my stream sounds better than DRC-FM ... and I'm only streaming in 64k mp3Pro! Not totally terrible, but not quite CD quality! Reason being is I know how to set my audio processing and do production. I'll grant you I have a few handfuls of poorly encoded tracks, but that's due to the antique DOS-based automation I'm using. In the next two months I'm moving to a great Windows-based system and have re-ripped the entire library for a much more consistent sound. If an internet station can win over former DRC-FM listeners that says quite a bit. I say, "Strike 3" - they're out!

Seriously, I listen to DRC-FM in the car since I can't listen to my stream in the car (and that CBS-FM is no more!). There are some major quality problems there when compared to other stations not only in the Buckley cluster but also on the rest of the dial. I bet WOR-AM engineer Tom Ray would drop dead before he'd let his station or the radio network sound that bad!

Bill
CapitalRadio.us

 

[radiomayor2]

sounds like hartford's BIG D....is doing an oldies "shufffle" good for them...

 

[wgliradio]

DRC's audio has been crap for years. I remember in the 90's how the station almost sounded unprocessed. But it was never this muddy sounding. They used to have, correct me if I'm wrong, an old Unity 2000. I would ASSUME they are using an Omnia or Orban since they are HD (although others say Aphex... a box known to make highs sound busy and lose detail).

Unless they're doing a full split and processing with a seperate box for HD... which is more difficult to do. Is their HD in sync with the analog?