The fit-and-forget FM compression did great mischief to such classic recordings, so one evening I telephoned the presenter. He took the point immediately, checked off-air, then held back the desk level – just enough to ensure frequent 100 percent modulation, but not on every darn note in the music!

Now, many years on, that station like most others has been scooped up by a conglomerate: so it’s pump pump, click click, loads of holes. But no music worth hearing either. So guess it doesn’t matter anymore.

Hi Gavin,

Thank you for your good comment, and for adding this interesting context about VU meters and audio levels – I highly appreciate it. Understanding this part of audio theory seems pretty important, so we might devote a separate article to this in the future.

I’m not an audio engineer, but I definitely agree from my on-air and programming experience that ‘it’s the loudness of the mix to the ear that is important’, as you wrote. Everything we do on the radio, is (or should be) about the listener.

Cheers,

Thomas

So processors are configured to deal with audio levels all over the place, from talent not watching levels or understanding them to the production guys watching peak level meters on the editing software instead of ‘listening’ with the aid of Volume Unit meters, which don’t represent the same thing. Now engineers set up the equipment, and let talent and production editors not really worry about understanding the difference in metering nor the damage it has on audio quality and consistency.

I’m happy to watch a heavily compressed audio file sit in my production software peaking around -12dBFS, and I’m also happy to watch older more dynamic content peak around -6dBFS without the need to peak normalise anything the same – as it’s the loudness of the mix to the ear that is important. That’s what VU meters were designed for.

Unfortunately, the term VU meter is now often wrongly assigned to audio level meters in general – instead of understanding how Volume Unit meters are calibrated when using analogue and digital equipment side by side, and understanding the differences between consumer audio equipment levels compared with professional broadcast equipment levels.

There’s not many articles about this fundamental difference.

Thank you, Sam! Nice to hear from you.

Hi Antal,

Thank you for your kind words of appreciation, they are highly appreciated :-).

That in some markets, stations with (to a certain degree) less aggressive processing can reach an up to 14% longer Time Spent Listening according to your findings is very interesting, and a point that every program director could take into consideration. Seems like James Schulke was, can certain ways, ahead of his time!

To play the you-know-how’s advocate for a second, could it be that Top 40 stations are getting away with heavy processing, because their TSL is inherently low due to format constraints (pretty high rotation of a relatively small playlist), and because sounding loud is maybe even an image enhancer for CHR?

Cheers,
Thomas

Yes! NOT over-processed / over-compressed / extreme loud sound has a positive impact on TSL. In our big data modelling algos, the measured impact is assumed between 2% and 14% (depends on the market, of course). This means a lot.

As a European AES member, I love R128 – and German stations on the FM dial do not have to worry: their – local & regional – market(s) have the same regulation, so competitors have to pull back the horses, too. Overall sound quality matters. At last!

One more point to add: my adage is “listeners come one by one, but leave in flocks”; accordingly the music production industry (“mastering” practices = clipping & other washing machine techniques) can ruin your overall sound when airing that badly sounding song on your program.

Take care when you are building your library. Listen and “look” at the songs you are going to play. Embed them between appropriate elements – Soft AC seems to be in trouble…? :)

Cheers,
Antal