Radio commercial jacked-up on air

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doody

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Greetings and salutations mixmasters:

I am fairly new to digital recording. I was a DJ on radio back in the 60's and 70's. All of my experience with making commercials was in the analog relm.

I use SONAR and Sound Forge to make commercials for a local FM station. The manager there loves my creative work and put the stuff on the air immediately. My work sounds fabulous on a CD boom box -- but HORRIBLE when heard on the FM radio in my car. The commercials come out all tin-like -- it sounds like scrambled eggs after it goes through the stations' gate and compression. I tried to re-EQ the stuff -- and it got worse. I have the STEINBERG Suite of processing -- but am at a loss for what to do -- or how to do it. Sending compressed files through the station compressor again doesn't make sense. It will only get jacked-up even more. The pumping effect of the end product on-air makes me embarrassed.

What to do?

Bill Schenold WCCQ
 
Let me be the first to say 'Howdy Doody'! Okay, now that I got that off my chest, let's move on. ;)

I also used to work in radio (10 years under my belt), and have seen this happen to some of my own work, and to others.

What I think is happening is the radio stations compressors are reacting to things you aren't hearing on your own equipment...Things you may think are balanced correctly, but in reality are not. Compression for radio is often times run through multi-band compressors, and if you have too much energy in a certain band (let's say it's the high frequencies), the multi-band compressor will grab hold of that extra high frequency information and pull it back...now that the high end is squashed and pulled back, it gets put back together with the other audio band (mids and bass), and will sound dull, and probably make huge breathing sounds. Let's also say that you've got too much bass in your spot (commercial, for the non-radio people)...the multi-band compressor will deal with the low end on it's own, and combine it with the mids and highs. Now you're hearing pumping, breathing, dull high end, and distorted, low level bass...

I guess what I'm getting at is that you need to be very subtle with things like eq when mixing for radio. Anthing that is excessive is going to drive the compressors wild, and your end product will suffer. Do some frequency analysis to see if you have too much high end, or too much low, etc. Try adding some of your own compression, so that the ones at the station don't do all the work (poorly).

I hope that was clear enough...otherwise, just ask more questions. :)
 
Looney tunes brings up some really good things.

One thing you might also consider is the practice of using peak limiting as opposed to compression. Since the station's compressors are already going to be doing their thing, I would run your stuff through as little compression as possible. Maybe just some peak limiting on the final mastered product. That should keep your dynamics in check without adding any pumping/breathing. Software limiters tend to do their job transparently, and with little to no artifacts you normally associate with peak limiters.
 
Hi there Doody. For your reference, I use Sonar XL as well for my music projects and as such, I feel I can help you with your search for audio perfection - elusive as it is!

Also, I used to make radio commercials many years ago too so I can truly relate to where you're coming from.

Firstly, if possible, straight away get a nice little FM radio near your workstation which ALSO allows you to feed your sound from your PC into it. A nice little cassette tape deck thingey should do the trick. Then, you can tape a known radio commercial which you really dig and you can use it as a reference point. I find that mixing and mastering gets a little bit like smell after a while - you lose perspective.

Next, play the 'reference' commercial, and then play your work project. Get the overall levels really similar - unequal levels can be misleading. Then mix and mix and mix until YOUR work sounds the same.

Now, for the final effort. Mastering your product. OK, obviously it's different for a true 'music' album because with commercials there are certain forefront and certain background sound points, but it's pretty similar by and large.

This is what I do to get perfection mastering within SONAR and I reckon it's a real good trick personally. Obviously you'll need some Mastering software, and it sounds as though you've already got Steinberg's Loudness Maximiser, but most products are similar. They're an exquisite mixture of limiting and compression.

What I do is I dump my fully mixed sound file into a directory called "Pre Mastered". Then, I open a SONAR project called "Mastering Files" - and I import the song fully mixed but premastered. I then master the tune with a slight dash of eq if need be (I try to avoid it) and get the tune as loud as possible before it sounds overdone. I do all of this throug my Yamaha reference speaker system which is hooked up to my PC via my mixing desk, but then I also play it through my reference Headphones just to make sure there's no distortion but I never, ever mix thru Headphones because they are soooooooooo misleading. I turn down the headphones really low and listen for clipping and nothing else.

Then, if need be, I'll put on a CD and play my reference piece of music again. I usually know of a tune that one of mine is similar to in tone and that's what I go for - the tone. Then I'll play mine again. It's a process of whittling away but you get there and you get more efficient as time goes by too.

In closing, some things to note about SONAR and digital in general. Unlike good old reel to reels, there's no inherent tape compression built in. I've found I almost always end up using compressors on the following... drums, bass guitar, lead instruments, and vocals. The settings are respectively light, heavy, light, and medium. This is done in my "pre mastered" mix.

And always remember to go back to your FM radio man! It took me yonks to realise that reverb is bad because so many people listen to music in really harsh reflective environments. Even Phil Spector used to do that - he'd listen to his mixes thru a shitty little 4" radio speaker super duper quiet - listening for what people would hear on their car radios.
 
Many thanks

Many thanks to all who have helped me with my commercial problem. Thanks for the terrific tips and info. I knew something wasn't right with what I've been doing. I am going downtown Chicago on Sunday morning to visit a BIG TIME Chicago station engineer who has done this work for many years. He will help show me -- what you guys have already stated -- on the stations equipment. By the way ... I'd like you guys to hear my commercials. Go to: http://www.manteno.com/radioman to see my site. Lots of Laughs!

Bill Schenold
WCCQ
 
I know exactly what you are talking about,I used to do spots for an ad agency and it seemed like they were always getting hosed on the air.Here is something to try.It seems crazy to compress something that is going through another compressor,but there is a function in sound forge called "normalize to rms" which is actually a compression scheme that lets you set the average loudness to a given db value.If you are using a music bed under a voiceover,mix the voiceover to peak about 7 db or so over the bed.Then set the "rms normalizer" in sound forge to about -14db average or so,you might play around with that number a bit.Then at the last step,turn down the wave until the peaks are at about -3 db or so.Don't worry about not having hot peaks,it's ok.It isn't the peaks that make the spot loud,it is the rms average that makes it loud.This way,you can duck under a lot of the stations compression and still have a fat sounding spot on the air.You might have to play around with the peak and rms values to hit the "sweet spot" for a given station,but it is worth a try.And some stations have the settings so fucked up you can never get them to come out right.And NEVER do this to a nice song,spots only.


Good luck!
 
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