Yes the speed & pitch of a song can be altered at play-out, but only to a point & the extreme speed-up or slowdown point limits are only just noticeable by most people & it can be done manually, or when in full automation, the software works out the log timing to the end of the hour & will automatically speed up or slow down all songs (usually the last 15 minutes) to time out correctly & hit the TOH spot on the second. If you don’t have enough songs or short songs in the log to time out the hour correctly, it’ll slow them all down to try to stretch what you have, so you’re not left with dead air before the TOH, similar if you have too many or long songs, it’ll speed them all up so you don’t go over the hour, but if it can’t make it, it’ll either truncate the last song, or drop a song/s completely & slow down the others to fit.
The more expensive professional play-out systems like RCS Zetta, do it much better than the cheaper semi-professional play-out systems generally.
Coast FM Gosford did have an incident a while ago where a Windows auto update got through, (we normally have that turned off) & it changed the AoIP sampling frequency on the play-out from 44.1kHz to 48kHz & this one mis-matched conversion when the audio was recorded/saved as 44.1kHz & everything else including the processing in the AoIP network is set to 44.1kHz made everything sound slowed down, even the commercials were slowed down & sounded like the person speaking was half asleep or on some sort of drug, lol
That issue has us stumped for a while as all the settings looked normal & correct until we drilled deep into all the windows settings & the fact that when we moved play-out to the other studio it went back to normal, so the issue wasn’t music library storage related, wasn’t LAN or AoIP network related, wasn’t transmission/processing related nor Zetta related, but a windows configuration issue on that 1 play-out computer only.
Thanks for that, yeah the timing of the hour makes sense. But to ask the dumb question, aren’t you better just jamming another promo or two in to fill in the time, rather than destroying the sound of the song?
Depends how big the gap is? You may have a 5 second sweeper, but generally there won’t be any "promo’s or commercials under 10 seconds in length, normally most range between 15 & 45 seconds in length & as @Radiohead mentioned, you don’t want to go over the hourly limit in community radio.
Also sweepers, promos & commercials won’t be altered, they will always play-out at normal speed, it’s only the “song” tracks that are/can be altered in time & pitch & generally speaking if you speed up or slow a song you can only shorten or extend it by about 5 seconds before it becomes really noticeable (unless its truncated) & as the play-out software generally only alters the last 15-20 minutes of an hour, you’re only looking at maybe 3 - 5 songs so you can’t lose time or fill much of a gap.
If the hourly log is too short the software will add a song, which it’ll find randomly out of the library (but can be limited to specific folders/songs) which it finds best suits the gap in time of length, if the programmer is really crappy in programming an hourly log too short, but not by that much, you’ll probably get the automation software adding a song & truncating it at the TOH, even if it’s only been playing say 35 seconds, which sounds crap, but that’s on the programmer.
When I was programming overnights logs for automation, I’d put in enough music, sweepers, promos & commercials to get to the TOH as close as possible, no more than 5 seconds short or too long, then I’d add another roughly 20 minutes worth of songs the automation software could continue to play if something during the hour didn’t play for whatever reason & was dropped. The automation software doing it like that would then, if at all, only need to adjust 5 seconds. I used to program it to use/adjust the last 20 minutes of the hour, so it was barely noticeable or not noticeable at all that songs had been sped up or slowed down & if it got the the TOH not needing any extra music, it’d just drop the last (extra) 20 minutes of songs out of that hours log & then start the next one.
Nope - not kidding at all. They’ve got better choices on commercial FM.
Rebel - Rock
Breeze - Soft AC
4AK - Hot AC
4GR - Triple M
4WK - Talk/Classic Hits
Hit - CHR
How is that not better than:
KIIS 97.3 - CHR
B105 - CHR
Nova - CHR
Triple M - Sport and Greatest Hits
So how is Stanthorpe not better than Brisbane? I don’t include automated DAB music loops as stations because in my view Spotify is better than an automated DAB station.
I would 100% choose Stanthorpe over Brisbane. They have 6 commercial FM stations offering 6 distinctly different formats! Brisbane has 4, with 3 of them sounding identical.
Though those community services are all a bit more bespoke, wouldn’t have the longer term listenability as the Stanthorpe stations do. Probably also in mono as well in most cases, which further lessens the appeal.
If you include community radio and DAB, plus the overlapping commercial stations, Brisbane is miles ahead.
Brisbane has more diversity on FM / AM if you include the 8 commercial, 7 community stations plus 6 overlapping commercial FM stations (3 on the Sunshine Coast, Rebel and Breeze in the south and River in the south and west.
Not all the DAB stations are just “music loops”, some have announcers and most, if not all, have advertising and news updates at the top of the hour. In fact, I prefer the DAB stations, as you don’t get endless talk as you do with most FM stations.
Some random questions that popped up in my head after going through the Broadcast transmitter data files from the ACMA. Just putting them altogether here to avoid posting in several different threads:
What happened to Power FM 94.9’s signal? It used to come in really well into Sydney, but nowadays Rhema from Gosford dominates in most areas of Sydney instead.
Does the ACMA have any plans to resolve the Gosford/Illawarra co-channels? 93.3/94.1/94.9/98.1 are generally a mish-mash of the two areas’ signals when travelling around Sydney. I recognise Sydney is in neither licence area - but I assume tropo would cause issues in the fringe areas of the licence areas of Gosford and Wollongong.
2RPH from Newcastle and Sydney are both on 100.5 MHz. Is there any reason why 2RPH from Wollongong on 93.3 can’t also go on 100.5 MHz as a SFN to resolve the co-channel issues with 93.3 from Gosford?
What was the historical reason why Hope 103.2 is on an even frequency? Does that reason still exist? (e.g. was it related to analogue TV?)
Why is Kix FM from Wollongong on 105.3 considerably weaker than Vox FM on 106.9? It seems like they have the same technical specifications.
2MWM on 88.7/90.3 is the only sub-metro community station that’s difficult for me to pick up. Has their signal always been this weak? Or has it become worse over time? Any reason why the 88.7 service couldn’t move to 89.5 so that it doesn’t co-channel with the LPON from Camden also on 88.7?
The ACMA data seems to be missing a few services from their databases like 2RSR on 88.9 MHz, 2BL Gosford on 92.5 MHz, 2LIV Wollongong/Nowra on 94.1 MHz and 2PB Gosford on 98.1 MHz. Is there any reason for this?
I was putting together a map of the transmitters data and for Triple J, I noticed that it is missing in Batemans Bay. What’s the reason for Batemans Bay not having a Triple J service when it has all the other ABC service?
Lots of good questions! I also noticed ACMA haven’t updated the Excel listing since January… I haven’t seen them go 6 months without an update before.
Power FM - There is a 1.5 kw notch in their signal towards Sydney. That has apparently always been there in the specs, but I suspect was only put into effect probably about 5-10 years to protect Rhema Central Coast?
Illawarra/Gosford co-channels - No plans that I know of, but it would be great if they could do something more about this.
2RPH Wollongong - from memory I think the Sydney East one has a reasonable signal towards the Gong, maybe this is why… and not sure if they have an Illawarra Mercury reading opt out like Newcastle gets with the Newcastle Herald… the Sydney East/Newcastle is virtually an SFN as the content is now virtually in sync during the 21 hours a day of shared programming.
Hope being on an even frequency was due to Channel 7 analogue… second harmonic interference or something like that…
I suspect Kix Wollongong uses a different antenna… can’t think of any other reason why it would be different to 2VOX.
2MWM… I have noticed it’s always been like that in my experience… It was weird when I would stay in the Sydney CBD, have line of sight to South Head, yet I can still barely receive 90.3… 88.7 no chance, yet I can get a reasonable signal on 88.7 at home in all conditions, and 90.3 when there is tropo.
re Incomplete ACMA records - the only reason I can think of is that a broadcaster can opt to not have their licence shown in the public listings… either that or ACMA shoddiness…
Batemans Bay JJJ - good question, the ACMA did reserve 89.3/90.1 for additional ABC services in the Bega LAP for Batemans Bay… There are also a number of other sizeable population centres that don’t have a local JJJ, but have a govt funded News Radio or Classic FM… eg. Muswellbrook NSW, Gladstone QLD, Emerald QLD, Bowen QLD, Port Lincoln SA.
I reckon 2MWM 90.3 & 88.7 signals were stronger many many years ago, but signals have weakened considerably. Wasn’t the Tanya Park in stereo many years ago? Maybe in mono due to replacement lower powered TX or switched off stereo pilot due to aging TX that can’t cope with original power output?
One can only speculate?
Maybe someone at the station can tell us more?
