Syntrillium Backup Forums :: View topic - Fm-izing Music Recordings?

MastrBlastr · Posted - Thu May 31, 2001 6:28 am

Can someone please suggest some EQ/compression/limiter settings for making my music sound really FAT. I'm talking big-time KIIS-FM sound. This is for personal use so it wont pass through a broadcast processor chain.

Thanks!

Syntrillium M.D. · Location: USA

Well, there are many things you could do. If you're simply wanting your tracks to sound FM-Radio like, then you might try using the Hard Limiter (with an input boost of +8dB or more, with a max amplitude of -.1dB) and some Hi-Fi type EQ (with a little rise in the mids for vocal frequencies)

---Syntrillium Support

MastrBlastr · Posted - Fri Jun 01, 2001 2:04 am

I gave that a try and it sounds OK but there's something missing. If anyone can suggest some specific settings that they've used to re-create a Hot FM, I'd love to hear from you.

Craig Jackman · Location: Canada

Call the station and talk to the
Engineer. Ask him about what settings he's using and why you want to know. Then you can duplicate - reasonably closely - what they are doing interms of compression, limiting, and EQ with the CE/CEP effects. If you want THE EXACT SAME SOUND!!!!, be prepeared to shell out thousands for an Orban broadcast processor. Way fun to play with but way WAY expensive.

Dave Merkel · Posted - Fri Jun 01, 2001 6:31 am

MastrBlastr:
As Craig said, FM radio stations spend literally thousands of dollars for on-air audio processing units. The past few years the goal as been (to stereotype) to sound louder and fatter. Each brand and model of audio processor has its own unique qualities and personality. In a nutshell, the best on-air processors provide multi-band (5 or 6 bands) AGC and multi-band (again, 5 or 6 bands) compression. The gain on the input is normally boosted to make sure the audio is compressed, and the lows and highs are normally boosted with high-freq clipping to prevent overmodulation of the highs. Those settings are what most stations use for setting-up on-air processing, but it's usually a matter of personal taste between the station engineer, program director and/or general manager.

An inexpensive multi-band processor is available as DirectX plug-in from
www.db-audioware.com . It comes close, but still won't match the results of the units actually used by FM radio stations.

One of the hottest units in FM broadcasting today for processing is the Omnia6, which retails for just over $10,000 ... though it can be purchase for as little as $9,200. They're not cheap, but they do the job intended and provide the desired results of the FM stations that buy them.

Without going into detail and long explanations here about how on-air processing actually works, you might want to read some of the white papers available. Since I've already mentioned them, the company that makes the Omnia6 has some good information to start with ...
... go to http://www.omniaaudio.com and click on "Tech Info".

I hope that helps you achieve what you're looking for.

Dave

MastrBlastr · Posted - Tue Jun 05, 2001 2:53 am

Thanks for all of the good info. I'm not looking to spend a load of cash. I just want to get a reasonably good sound for my personal CD's. I hate listening to stuff that's not on the radio since I'm so accustomed to hearing the over the air, processed sound.

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

RobertM · Posted - Tue Jun 05, 2001 11:36 am

Mastr,

I was a little taken aback by your statement as well, but, hey... if that's what you like, then more power to you. You should probably be aware that your specific musical needs are probably quite different from most of us in the forum. This is not a bad thing, just different. Good luck in achieveing the sound that you are looking for... the previous good advice should help out. But remember, you will be sacrificing a lot of the inherent subtlety of the original music (a lot of us struggle hard to preserve this subtlety), and if (when) your tastes change, you will not be able to regain that lost content from the music that you are altering. Food for thought...

freeloader · Posted - Tue Jun 05, 2001 11:58 am

LOL...Ah the sweet sound of radio..the chopped 32khz...the out of phase, the -3db on the left channel, the wonderful pilot injection noise, not to mention the intermodulation...and the over processed $10k sound squeezed through 4in speakers ...just so we can be the loudest on the dial...I hate radio..(engineer speaking)
but TV is the worst...LOL...they will destroy every piece of great audio work

Dave Merkel · Posted - Tue Jun 05, 2001 6:30 pm

Yea ...
Too bad music appreciation classes can't easily be taught online. The true dynamics of music are murdered by even the "best" on-air processors ... like you said Freeloader, "just so we can sound the loudest on the dial". There's actually been research done on the negative effects of on-air processing ... it's most commonly referred to as "listener fatigue". Lack of processing is actually a listener's sales pitch for most NPR stations ... but even then there's too little bandwidth for FM radio to reproduce from the recording.

As a hobby I've started taking up again musical arranging (for vocal groups and bands) ... and to get away from computers and my voice studio I'm playing piano with a 7/8 piece big band starting in a couple months. I'm looking forward to the pure music ... and to see if my arrangements sound anything like I think they will!

Dave Merkel · Posted - Tue Jun 05, 2001 6:40 pm

MastrBlastr:

I hope I didn't offend you with my previous post ... it wasn't at all directed towards you, simply my personal thoughts on audio. Maybe I'm to blame, in part, for your craving to hear processed music; I've been involved in radio broadcasting (in a wide variety of positions) for over 20 years now. The industry itself has conditioned listeners ears.

To be honest, when I hear heavily processed AM radio stations it brings back occasional, fond memories of growing up listening to Rock and Top 40 radio (back when there were only 5 or so different formats in radio).

There's no right or wrong to your preferences for music and the sounds of it, it's simply a matter of personal taste. Would you mind if I encourage you to listen to music in its "raw" from as intended by the artists? Adjust the EQ for your sound system, but enjoy and appreciate the dynamics (both loud and soft) portions of the music.

Dave

MastrBlastr · Posted - Wed Jun 06, 2001 4:16 am

post78 · Location: USA

Hey mastr, I think that syntrillium had it right on the ball. What I would do however, is after hard-limiting those extra 7 or 8 decibals, bring the volume down to about -3 and make a few minor eq adjustments. This will bring back atleast a little bit of flavor, then normalize from about 95% to 99%. (be sure to use only very minor eq adjustments, to much can make it sound fake.) Tell me how that sounds.