Tim's detailed description of professional audio chains connecting studios with transmitters and streaming encoders is from the perspective of a licensed broadcast engineer with years of experience.
One thing in particular that Tim said stands out to me because I have always thought the same thing:
"EQ settings on mixers should ALWAYS BE AT ZERO. Note that there are NO professional broadcast mixers or consoles that have eq controls on them."
Make that a law at your radio station. My studios never had equipment with EQs on the mixer, and I always hated finding that some of my client studios that I did service work for had these "semi-pro" boards with EQs right where talent and other meddlers could (and did) mess with them.
I'll check your streams from time to time and file responses so that you get feedback while you are adjusting sound quality.
I'm amazed you have so many stream links, MrBruce!
Carl Blare Said:
HOLD ON! WAIT A MINUTE!... Are you making changes? On this song (Watch Yoiur Heart After Dark) the highs are rolled off and it sounds like the station is coming from a tunnel.
MrBruce Said:
No one was present to make changes to the audio, that song must have had poor audio processing when it was recorded, or it was a live recording.
I do understand what you are talking about though, there is a great many songs I screwed up on when I recorded them. One mistake I made, was recording my MP3s at 128kbps variable bit-rate instead of the original recording being a .wav file, then saving as a 320kbps constant bit-rate MP3 as the final product.
I also failed to have the correct EQ setting on the mixer for the turntable channel 1, so that the music sounded like it should in the final recording.
I recorded a lot of my songs off of 45 RPM vinyl records. I file my 45s per title not artist. Out of all the 45s I recorded alphabetically from A to M I recorded them poorly and begain re-recording them again with better settings. Unfortunately, I only got as far as the titles starting with the letter H.
I, J, K, L and M titles still sound like hell, because I have not yet re-recorded them at 320kbps constant bit-rate and properly adjusted EQ settings where the LOWs, MIDs and HIGHs sound uniformly across the board.
Then again, there are some songs from LPs that were recorded with the right settings that fall under those letters.
timinbovey in post #13 Said too much to quote here. But, I have to say, ALL of what you said Tim makes a lot of sense to me.
Specially the part about NOT EQing at the broadcast console board in a broadcast setting, but leave the EQ off entirely and do the processing after the mixer if at all.
Many good points you have made in your post Tim, it was worth the time to read it all.
I will turn off the mixing board EQ, in other words, put it into by-pass mode so there is no EQ at all in the stream.
Listen for a few hours and post back the results any of you get while listening to the songs with NO processing active at all. No compression, limiting or otherwise, just straight audio, computer out, mixer, computer in.
Links for the stream are posted earier in this thread.
We'll speak more about the FM side of things momentarily, let's take one thing at a time.
By the way, thanks to all of you for helping me!
Bruce.
I just sat through "Maybe Its Love", "These Dreams", and "Desert Moon", and the sound was crystal perfect... I myself wouldn't change anything about it.
I even heard MrBruce give an ID, voice clear easy to understand.
Things are going well, unless you don't think so.
I'm listening using a WinAmp player piped into my stereo, a Pioneer VSX-D6O3S into a pair of Bose shelf speakers.
Sounds fine. Highs, mids, lows balanced well. Not muddy or too bright.
Right now "Can't Fight This Feeling" is playing.
Thanks for the responses guys.
Have you all given up on me already?
Here is what I have on the mixer for now.
I have the EQ active for channel 5 (the channel the computer feeds into), but, it is at 0dB on all 3 levels, LOW, MID and HIGH. Now again, there is a by-pass switch for the EQ, which by-passes the circuit all-together, but I am curious, if the 3 EQ adjustment potentiometers are at 0dB isn't that pretty much the same effect?
Bruce.
MrBruce asked: "Have you all given up on me already?"
What else is there to do when after listening three times I can't hear a problem?
It sounds like you have it set right and are good to go.
I have a slogan... If something works, don't change it.
Carl Blare Said:
What else is there to do when after listening three times I can't hear a problem?
I have a slogan... If something works, don't change it.
MrBruce Said:
If you announce a change, people will react to it intentionally.
If you make a change and do not announce it, people will react to it unintentionally and you get the best results.
When you all listened at the time and dates that you did and posted the results, I had the mixers channel pots for EQ by-passed. Now I have pressed the by-pass button, putting the 3 EQ settings back to being active, but instead of one being at 2 O'Clock or 10 O'Clock, I have all 3 of them all at dead center at which would be 0dB.
Meaning LOW is at 0dB, MID is at 0dB and HIGH is at 0dB. I wanted to see if anyone noticed a difference without me announcing it. I am experimenting with what difference it makes if all 3 of the 3 EQ settings are active, but each set at 0dB versus all 3 being by-passsed entirely.
I can't tell the difference, but then again, I have to stress, I have a severe hearing loss, that effects my ability to hear MIDs and HIGHs in their full spectral brilliance. These areas to me can sound like distortion even when they are actually spectrally clean.
Until I finish my experiments and announce it here, it means I am not done with this project as of yet.
I still have to concentrate on the FM broadcast side of things, but right now, I am not concentrating on the FM transmitter, it is currently off the air and is second to my current concerns right now, which is to get the Internet feed sounding good.
I may try again, feeding another network of transmitters when all is said and done. But the feed has to sound good before that is even possible.
Bruce.
Having all Begringer Console EQs activated and set to Zero will sound exactly the same as having the EQ knobs bypassed.
I would keep them bypassed so they can't get set wrong by accident.
I'm in a production situation until Monday, but I will listen some more during the week.
You have a good sounding station.
All knobs to the right!
Unfortuneatly i never had a chance to listen when this test was going on and maybe i can still tune in? Any way, a month ago i think i mentioned during an ALPB meeting that I had lost hearing completely in my left ear due to fluid building up and eventually bursting the ear drum, i am happy to report that most of my hearing is back but....
Deep bass frequencies are no longer there, however my right ear can still hear those deep tones. I still have tinitus but that will probably stay with me for a long time.
That comes from too many ear infections as a kid and loud rock music as a teenager, later working race car tracks as an adult has taken it's toll on my hearing.
It sure doesn't help matters any when you're trying to set up the audio chain for a broadcast station.
Best of luck Bruce.
Barry of Blue Bucket Radio 1620 AM
89.7 FM Willard,Ky
The only difference between the FM setting and the Internet is you should observe 2 things. 75 uS pre emphasis and also be careful of the Stereo pilot tone. Make sue you don't let too many highs within that frequency or it can cause the Stereo light to flicker and mess up the Stereo effect. However most good FM transmitters have the proper filtering to make sure you can't send audio frequencies near the Stereo pilot.
I use the same EQ setting for my FM transmitter as I do the Internet. Now AM could be a different animal.
rock95seven Said:
Unfortuneatly i never had a chance to listen when this test was going on and maybe i can still tune in?
MrBruce Said:
Barry, you are welcome at anytime to listen in and comment here in this forum, what it sounds like at your end.
Right now, I lowered the channel slider down a bit, because I noticed BUTT's audio levels were peaking in the red zone (+6dB) too often, now it's staying at about +1dB with an occasional peak at +3dB.
It sounds better now.
Out of 2972 MP3s, there are quite a few MP3s that do have audio quality issues, some are live recordings, such as at live concerts.
We have a lot of music downloaded from free open source music sites, not all of them have excellent audio quality, but we still feel the author's need some public exposure to make it to the big time record labels. Net Labels is one of the sites we look at for music. Mind you, we steal nothing and pay royalties to the labels who require it, but we try to get as much music as we can from the groups/bands who want public exposure.
I have an FM transmitter exciter board that I sent out for proper 75us pre-emphasis setting. Proof was emailed to me showing that the board has been properly set to 75 micro-seconds pre-emphasis via a resistor/capacitor combination before feeding to the BH1414K IC chip LEFT/RIGHT inputs. I am waiting for it to be shipped back to me at this current moment.
This device will be an in station broadcast device for monitoring the audio on wireless FM devices, such as my AM/FM Memorex MR4210 receiver. Here is an example of this device:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=memorex+MR4210
I can plug any set of head phones into this device and walk freely about the studio, it has a set of ear buds that comes with it, but using an adaptor, I can plug any set of head phones into this and they will work.
I have plans of experimenting with AM radio broadcasting I just have to decide the best one to purchase, I do prefer AM C-Quam Stereo. I just have to find a good one that performs well.
Again, I am always open to listener input. BY THE WAY, PLEASE LIKE MY STATION'S FACEBOOK PAGE. LINK IS BELOW.
Ways to listen:
RADIO STATION PAGE
http://myradiostream.com/WFPN
WINAMP
http://s25.myradiostream.com:9672/listen.pls
WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER
http://myradiostream.com/25/9672.asx
VLC/OTHER PLAYERS
http://s25.myradiostream.com:9672/listen.m3u
MOBILE DEVICE/CELL PHONE LINK
http://myradiostream.com/mobile/WFPN
TUNEIN LINK
http://tunein.com/radio/WFPN-AOR-s266081
WFPN WEB SITE
http://wfpnradio.wix.com/wfpn-radio
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
https://twitter.com/WFPN_Norwich_CT
Bruce.
I believe the Rangemaster will do C-QUAM with the proper encoder.