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Post by snarfdude on Dec 11, 2011 9:58:43 GMT -5
I suppose that makes sense, as CD players were slowly moving into the control rooms. One of the problems of CD players and DJ fingerprints were resolved with the Denon series of CD cart players in the early 90s and I think that was the death of the vinyl program disc...and the move to CD only for all syndicated shows.
I was just curious if there was a specific date for AT 40 switching to CD only. I have some CD shows from late 99 and spring 1992 and i'm guessing that the switch was made by spring 1992.
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Post by snarfdude on Dec 11, 2011 9:49:02 GMT -5
I used to get some of the program discs after the fact from a station that was nice to mail them to me when I was a kid, or i'd buy the US versions from record dealers via goldmine mag when they were $10-15 each shortly after they aired in the 80s.
As this was slightly before I started in radio, I had a radio shack disco mixer and mic and two turntables, with remote starts I rigged up.
When I got the show, i'd spend 4 hours in my room literally board oping the countdown myself....occasionally actually doing a newscast at the top of the hour....and commericals I'd tape off air of other stations or elsewhere to fill the breaks....
To this day, I still enjoy board oping....mostly in my control room of my internet radio station in the basement when I take over from the computer and spin records and carts and such. I usually enjoy AT40 when I transfer the vinyl to digital, as you have to listen to it in real time. Usually do that an hour at a time.
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Post by snarfdude on Dec 11, 2011 9:40:25 GMT -5
Maybe this doesn't qualify - you decide. I used to listen to AT40 on Armed Forces Radio - on medium wave. Often I scheduled long sunday afternoon bike rides to listen to it on a walkman radio. Compared to that XM sounds way too good. So I sometimes run recorded shows through "stereo tool" - a free winamp plugin - which does a good job of re-creating the way AT40 is supposed to sound on AM. Then I put the show on my mp3 player and get out the bike for a 10-20 mile tour... Note: Stereo tool is here: www.hansvanzutphen.com/stereo_tool/download/it's a variation of multiband compressor/limiter used my many AM radio stations over the decades, to yes, you will certainly get a AM sound if you pass audio through it. type "optimod"into google, and you'll find one of the most popular am compressor/limiters used in radio. LOVE am's processed using optimods...they have a distinct warm and round sound that few compressors can come close to.
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Post by snarfdude on Nov 27, 2011 20:30:37 GMT -5
I just recently obtained the 20th anniversary show on vinyl. This seemed to within the time frame of the dual format delivery of the show, both CD and vinyl.
This made me wonder how long this went on? When did it stop? My shows were still vinyl into the 90s...but eventually went all CD.
Is vinyl more collectible then the CD version of the show? were less pressed of vinyl then the CD's.
This vinyl version I have is interesting in the fact that it is the international version pressing, but i'm thinking someone at the pressing plant screwed up, as the label actually has "commericals included" on the label, but blacked out with marker. Don't want to confuse the international stations I guess.
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Post by snarfdude on Nov 25, 2011 14:39:33 GMT -5
Not surprising. Common practice for programs directors having syndicated shows being mailed in via vinyl/CD etc is to delay the show a week in the event of mail strike issues and possible general problems in mail delivery. When you are counting on the mail to deliver your programming, better to play it safe. Yes, but what if Canada Post went on strike for more than 2 weeks? I guess you keep rerunning the show.......or get creative with programming. Like you say, with FTP and downloads today, anything you here on the air that isn't local is likely a mp3 download with spots through fast channel, sling spot, or another service. physical media is going the way of the dinosaur, which is sad, as I like getting a actual AT40 show on CD or vinyl with cue sheets, instead of off air stuff. OK, the premiere stuff is mp3's with PDF cues, but still not the same...even the quality on them is so-so. Of course, I live in the world where 320kbps is the standard from a high quality source.
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Post by snarfdude on Nov 24, 2011 20:13:09 GMT -5
After just checking Shannon Lynn's AT40 descriptions from late 1983, it turns out that there was a delay even before the ice storm hit my Newfoundland hometown. It turns out that the 4/7/1984 episode did not air on OZ-FM whatsoever on 4/14/1984, and the 4/14/1984 broadcast aired as usual the following Saturday. I now know the one-week delay on OZ-FM occurred even before 1984 and I can confirm that I listened to the 12/3/1983 broadcast on 12/10/1983. I know this because I definitely remember hearing Kim Carnes' Invisible Hands on AT40 on 12/10/1983 on OZ-FM, and it certainly fell off the top 40 on the official 12/10/1983 broadcast which aired on OZ-FM on 12/17/1983. Not surprising. Common practice for programs directors having syndicated shows being mailed in via vinyl/CD etc is to delay the show a week in the event of mail strike issues and possible general problems in mail delivery. When you are counting on the mail to deliver your programming, better to play it safe. CKBW in Bridgewater NS used to do it all the time. I believe CKEC in New Glasgow, the only other AT 40 affiliate in NS (canada) also did it. I have actual program discs from both stations, and while CKEC didn't write anything on the cover, CKBW did, often crossing out the Airdate and writing in their own a week later. This would come in handy when I remember in mail strike in the 80s ended up having CKBW replaying the previous weeks countdown assumingly because it never came in the mail. These days, technology and mp3 delivery have eliminated the need to rely on the mail. At the same point, it's hard to get the mp3's as stations usually delete them and there's no inventory ending up in collectors hands.
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Post by snarfdude on Jul 10, 2011 10:11:03 GMT -5
atfanmpls how do you get 3 shows a weekend? Are you counting one from XM and then one from the 70's and 80's on the streaming radio? What do use to do your recording? Thanks!! as mentioned already....premiere 70s, 80s and sirius/XM 70s are all 3 different shows. My local station runs 70s and 80s and I have sirius in the car, so I can record all 3 if I want with no conflicts...but I only consider recording specials. I don't think AT40 nostalgia is going anywhere anytime soon. as for recording, any PC's line in jack off a radio/appropriate audio source should suffice with a wave recorder/editor like audacity of free audio editor (both are free) or better will work. as commerical radio is so audibly squashed (sirius's internet stream isn't as bad) you can set levels high (I usually go -6 to -3 usually) and let it go. no concern for clipping. As the majority of this material is sourced from vinyl in the first place, it's already been processed...
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Post by snarfdude on Jul 2, 2011 21:00:34 GMT -5
Question - is there some type of royalty fee to pay for playing old commercials - or is there a copyright to deal with ? Just curious if anyone knows the answer... I'd say no, unless you're using a copyrighted song in the spot. The industry treats them largely as disposable. If anything, it's nostalgia. Old TV spots are in abundance on You Tube, and if anything, a lot of it is figuring out who owns the copyright for a lot of them decades after they aired. For the industry, no one really cares, at least that's the impression I have gotten. Check out my blog....the jingle jetsam. I post stuff from my collection of reels of radio spots and the occasional ET from vinyl and "off the rack" jingles. jinglejetsam.blogspot.com As for AT40, when I was getting the shows from a station back in the 80s, I specifically asked for the CVD shows when I could get them....glad I did.
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Post by snarfdude on Jun 11, 2011 16:53:16 GMT -5
CT40 didn't have a great number of affiliates when it was actually airing (in the mid to late 90's especially). I believe "Casey's Hot 20" was probably more widely heard. As such, reruns seem less likely to me than an AT40 type situation. But maybe I'm wrong. Especially after some time passes. Another thought is that it would be great if some past syndicated shows could air as specials somewhere. Something like "lost radio shows weekend". I'm sure syndicators themselves could dig in the vaults and put together such packages and barter them as special programming to stations to run for an entire weekend (maybe holiday weekends). Why not a weekend of like Dick Clark year end countdowns for example? Or shows that don't exist anymore like countdowns from Scott Shannon or Dan Ingrams 80's top 40 show (Top 40 Satellite Survey I think it was)? These types of shows will never be rerun on a regular basis because they were short lived but would be great specialty programming somewhere. Perfect example of the lack of creativity in radio today. Things like this would be super cheap to produce but would actually have great nostalgia factor. The most talked about shows on XM seem to be Casey, Rick, and Wolfman Jack. People like reruns of #1 DJ's much better than voicetracking nobodies or automated jukeboxes. (Of course XM just throws these on because they are cheap anyway...) Personally, rerunning other vintage countdowns then rick or casey would really not appeal to the world of commerical radio which appeals to the mass audiences. casey and rick dominate the memories of most people for countdowns, and to a lesser degree, Dick Clark. A lot of the other countdowns existed because stations couldn't get At40 and really weren't spectacular. At40 with casey is unique, and really stands the test of time even for someone listening to it the vintage shows for the first time. It's also well known in the radio industry worldwide and thanks to pete battistini, and has a resource of old shows to rely on. That makes it very programming friendly to commerical radio programmers. Dick I have no doubt has an archive. That's what keeps rock roll and remember on the air after his stroke. recycling the voice tracks, but he's known more for oldies, specifically 50s 60s and 70s then 80s and 90s countdowns. We all remember national music survey and countdown america, but I don't think these shows have a place on commerical radio again. for the others, including top 30 USA, top 40 satellite survey, actually getting original shows and enough of them, can be a challenge. still, you think more vintage material, be it specials, or profiles, etc from syndicators given the success of AT40. One can only suspect that most of this material is topical and dated and would have to be updated to be aired today, besides the fact that, again, masters could be lost and vinyl sourcing of the shows wouldn't necessarily be up to today's standards for a lot of stations. Regardless, the shows will live with collectors like ourselves. maybe a exchange/trade of mp3 files of the shows can be set up at some point? Some non network programming i've transferred and ran on my internet stream in the past mainly because it's something to do with it.
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Post by snarfdude on Jun 5, 2011 20:04:34 GMT -5
Personally, I think some of the 70s transfers from radio station source mp3's are not great...lots of hiss and even phasing problems in summing to mono. I wouldn't think excessive hiss would not be an issue given it's off vinyl, well most of the stuff anyway, which is the thing that surprises me. The 80s transfers I have heard from source mp3's are what they should be...fairly clean vinyl transfers. Some cuts premiere seems to have replaced with CD cuts, but not all.
Hiss is very hard to eliminate. You can use a noise gate, which I think is done to some degree on the transfers, so it really is best to leave it in given a choice.
As far as quality goes CT40 was far better vinyl source material. It was 6 vinyl discs weekly as opposed to 4 and using audiophile vinyl. With respect to Shannon, you can really only do so much with the AT40 watermark source material, as they are cramming in 24 mins/side overall where the normal maximum is about 20 mins. Noise and inner groove distortion will prevail and often ends up on air for those who know what to listen for. CT40 crammed less audio onto one side of a disc, thus keeping the quality higher then what AT40 was. The louder you can make your grooves the better quality it is, as i'm sure you might understand if you ever had a K-tel album in your collection.
With the audio limitations of FM radio and it's processing, it can hide a multitude of audio sins. which is a good thing in some cases.
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Post by snarfdude on Jun 4, 2011 20:25:43 GMT -5
His voice in the last few years really was starting to show it's age. You seldom can change that really. People age different ways. I've heard radio guys into their 70s that sound great, others don't. There's very little you can do.
Early 70s shows I've heard certainly have a more subdued and serious delivery in his read. That's all about voice direction from a producer/director of the show and what they wanted to achieve. It would make an interesting question to casey or don bustany. perhaps going that route would make it easier to clear on more stations, playing it safe and conservative, which was critical in the early years as the show wasn't making money.
The turning point to me was about mid 70s from what I've heard...maybe even before that.
We have an idea of casey's range. at it's most upper end, you have Shaggy. At the lower end, subdued AT40 host. He had a good range which with direction, can be customized to what the read needs to be.
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Post by snarfdude on May 22, 2011 8:49:56 GMT -5
so when you say skipping I assume you mean the song source material vinyl skipped when dubbing to tape and not the program discs played on air?
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Post by snarfdude on May 3, 2011 13:36:23 GMT -5
Then I'd say KEGK needs to set their programming a little better so that their shows are running on time or at least closer to it. Back when they were in the 11 PM - 3 AM (EST) timeslot, they were notorious for starting several minutes past 11 because the previous show (I think it was Lost 45s) would always run over...sometimes it wouldn't start till like 11:10. Obviously I haven't tuned into them much and probably won't since they moved earlier, but I can only assume that they're still starting late. The horrors of the automation age!!! not really. even if you had a board op there, there's no guarantee the show will time out. When you account for local weather/avails that might likely run over the allotted time in the show because of an overzealous salesman adding spots for added value to a client within the show, you're bound to run over. Add to the fact that KEGK runs wall to wall syndicated shows and you'll get a domino effect in some cases.
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Post by snarfdude on Apr 30, 2011 20:28:58 GMT -5
He sure seemed to like American Pie! What about the ones he didn't like. There were alot of times that it seemed like he was annoyed by having to play certain songs. I read an interview with Casey conducted a few years ago when asked what he considered the worst record he could remember, and his answer was "Oh Happy Day" by Don Howard, a one hit wonder from 1952-53; from links in the Wikipedia entry on the song he apparently wasn't the only DJ who disliked it. At least he didn't have to play it on AT40. (BTW, it's hearable on You Tube, and is not the same song as the Edwin Hawkins Singers' "Oh Happy Day".) . certainly isn't....just a guy would really couldn't really sing with a guitar. yet it ended the year at # 33 for 1953. I have an mp3 of probably a 78 source. I'll have to use it on my show/podcast in the near future, especially since casey consider it the worst record he could remember.....I've actually heard worse....but this certainly isn't great.
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Post by snarfdude on Apr 26, 2011 19:36:10 GMT -5
"I Want Your Sex" (didn't mention the title a couple of times)? That wasn't directed as a reflection on his personal choices, that was a production choice. Cue sheets for shows with the song in it, at least the ones I have, including a memo from elizabeth rollins, producer at the time, advising stations on how to cut the song out of the countdown by dubbing the segment on tape and editing at certain points. For stations running the full segments from the discs, only the chart position and/or artist was mentioned. The title never was, even with a charlie van dyke show I have with it in the countdown. As a sidenote, the station I received one of the shows from actually put a file folder label over the segment disc grooves saying "play this segment off tape" It was a pain to clean the lp to get the goo out of the grooves.
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