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Turntables/carts @ Y-100, I95, 96X

G

Groove1670

Guest
Looking at old pictures in the 80's I didn't see any turntables to dub music to cart? On average how many music carts were in the studio not including the current rotation. Were new carts added or when a song fell off the gold playlist, was it erased and reused. I would imagine that 600-800 carts would take up space.
 
musiconradio.com said:
Looking at old pictures in the 80's I didn't see any turntables to dub music to cart? On average how many music carts were in the studio not including the current rotation. Were new carts added or when a song fell off the gold playlist, was it erased and reused. I would imagine that 600-800 carts would take up space.
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Turntables would have been in the production rooms, and not always in the main studio. Occasionally, an all-cart operation would have a turntable in a drawer or in a counter section with a lift-up lid.

Cart racks did not show up in many of the studio pix of the time, as they were usually carrousels that were about 6 feet high, holding, IIRC, about 600 carts each. I recall studios with 3 or 4 of those at the back. Of course, one might only contain commercials, promos, jingles and such, and the others would have the music.

I have a recording of (K)KHJ in LA during the Northridge Earthquake of 1994, and the loudest noise in the studio was the rattling racket of the cart racks, three of which eventually fell over on the floor...
 
Cart racks did not show up in many of the studio pix of the time, as they were usually carrousels that were about 6 feet high, holding, IIRC, about 600 carts each. I recall studios with 3 or 4 of those at the back. Of course, one might only contain commercials, promos, jingles and such, and the others would have the music.
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I understand this. I had many in my studios. The question is "where" did they have them in (at) the stations I listed.

I recall studios with 3 or 4 of those at the back.
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This must be the case. Most of the photos taken show none.
 
Here is your answer. I think having worked at all 3 qualifies me to give a reply. At 96X, there were 2 turntables to the left of where we stood at the console. They were covered until they were used for programs like Power Line and American Top 40. At I-95, there was only 1 turntable and that was to the right and just behind of were we stood, again covered most of the time until they were needed. Both station had custom cabinets where the turntables were sunken as much as a foot down so when the top was covering it, it looked like it was part of the cabinet. At Y100, at least when I was there in the late 80s, there was just 1 and it was just behind where we stood to the left. Other the standard lid, it wasn't set into the cabinet like 96X and I-95.

As David stated, there were turntables in the production studios. Back in the day, that's where we dubbed the records on to cart.
 
Stuart Elliott said:
At Y100, at least when I was there in the late 80s, there was just 1 and it was just behind where we stood to the left.
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And the cart rack was after that, also on the left... in the early 80's when I was there. I recall KC and the Sunshine Band almost knocking it over during Tanner en la Mañana.
 
Yeah, I think we had about 2 or 3 cart racks in the Y-100 studio during the 70s, early 80s.... we also had a few carts stored in the aux production studio next door, which we called the Tascam room, or, the trash can room.That's where some of the lunar-rotation tunes played on Earl The Pearl's midnight music sweep were kept.

There was a turntable in the control room we used for Sunday morning syndicated stuff, which included Wolfman Jack's Airforce show. ;-) But almost all tunes were dubbed to cart in the production studio by production director/air talent Cramer Haas, using a graphic equalizer.

There was a small rack that held the current hits, about 20 carts, to our right.... along with the current promos. The library of recurrents and oldies was to our left in the 2 or 3 cart carousels. "Cats In The Cradle" by Harry Chapin was cart #1 for a long time while I was there.

Mark In The DArk
 
At I-95, when I was there around 1985, the turntable was in a small room. DJ Willie B would do all the dubbing to cart.

I think there were only about 300 tunes in the Y-100 studio back in the 70s/early 80s.
 
Megacycler said:
What kind of boards and mikes did you have? And how about the processing chain? C'mon lets have it!
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In the late 70's and early 80's, the studio end of the audio chain was mostly stuff assembled by Doug Holland and... uh, mind blank here, the other member of the engineering staff... Howard Quentin, I think. They were constantly breadboarding things and debating slew rates and attack and release times.

There are some studio pics on the Y 100 tribute site... with board and mikes quite visible. I know the sister station, WHTT, had a Pacific Recorders board.
 
At Y-100 (70s-Early 80s) neumann microphones in control room and production, and Orban Optimod was part of the air chain, at one point, the mid 70s, I believe the commercials had their own air chain that was not as loud and bright as the jocks and music, will try to check on that.
 
Yes, that's right, back in the 70s, the commercials were on their own air chain, which was not processed like the music and DJs....
 
Megacycler said:
What kind of boards and mikes did you have? And how about the processing chain? C'mon lets have it!
Click to expand...

At 96X we had Sennheiser mics as did I-95 (just a newer version) and Y-100 (late 80s-mid 90s) We used the RE-20. Processing at I-95 and Y100 we used the Orban 8000 Optimod. Due to CRS, what we used at 96X draws a blank. :-\
 
MarkInTheDark said:
Check out a few photos of the Y studio, production studio and air chain.... back around 1976
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Love the LA 3As with a crossover and parametric eq. Those were pretty much the standard at the beginning of multi-band processing.
 
And, to answer your original question about the location of the turntables... here's a look at the Y-100 production room / news studio... turntable, where all the tunes on Y were dubbed to cart... this is probably around 1978 or so...

http://home.comcast.net/~shands8546/pwpimages/production2.jpg

Of course, we often dubbed from record co provided reel to reel tape for better quality...
 
Per usual "Mark in the Dark" shines through, and is right, although I remember when I was at high-why-hun-won-dred, prior to Mark, if I'm correct their were Sennheiser mics in both control and the reproduction room including ITC, International Tape Tronics tripple decker cart machines, even an old thunker Gates cart machine, ...........>Love 94FM had 5 of em, there was NO covering-up the the thoooomp over-air with the mic on, but the ITC was and still is the sweet-hearts of cart machines...

As far as cart-rack's WMYQ had two 500 cart-cart-racks situated, easy reach, directly behind the board and at any given time, both were stocked nearly full of carts, some spots, mostly music... Gates Diplomat board and 5 single deck ITC machines, I will say this much, for state of the art in 1974-75 WMYQ had some nice stuff, including the 48 track recording studio the Bartel Media thought we needed and that none of us really had any experience working, with the exception, of G. Michael Mc Kay, he knew what he was doing, Y-100 equally had nice equipment to work with....

Miami, being my home town, and not to take away any of the glory of Miami Radio, and since I'm always bragging and tooting my own horn, bare with me here, the coolest radio station I've ever worked for, after leaving WMYQ, was KIQQ Q-100FM Los Angles on the ninth floor of the Capital Record building, no expense spared and as plush as plush could possibly be by 1976 standards, nice view from the control room, although Zeta-4 Miami always was pretty high, so-to-speak, with a nice view, or what you could make out of it, at that time, and with that, I've pretty much said my piece and I'll go take a pill........
 
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