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I’m not sure. I know the brand new Harris STL HD is uncompressed, but I think that the older model (pre-HD radio) that we had in the rack room was, in fact, MP2.
I’ll have to check when I get to work in the morning.
Adam
Yes, my engineer friend who has been a certified broadcast engineer for 32 years is incorrect. Good call.
I think the point that your missing is that the STL compresses the audio anyway, so all that FLAC and WAV stuff is great, but as soon as it gets to the transmitter, it’s re-encoded to whatever the STL is using.
Adam
Ah I see what you’re saying. I thought you meant they compress the dynamics.
We only use WAVs, but that’s because we don’t fall under Clear Channel’s ridiculous theory of homogenization, where some moron in San Antonio programs 300 CHR stations at a time and none of the jocks actually live where they are heard. I seriously hate those guys.
Interestingly, one of the engineers that I work with told me that an MP3 at 256 kbps will pass through a processor the same way that a WAV will. Most STLs are compressing the transmitter feed anyway, so there may be no real benefit to using WAVs anymore.
Adam
Clear Channel does not compress their music ahead of the processing. In fact, I don’t know of any radio group in the US that does that. I work for Cox Radio, and everything in our library still retains the original dynamics that can be found on the master.
Just sayin’.
Adam
Hey Leif,
I actually did try it with Live on a separate machine. I got the LiveLinks to appear in StationPlaylist’s output plug-ins, but I still wasn’t able to route the audio properly. Not that I would expect you to do this, but is there a chance that you could download the free trial of Studio and try it? I think it works a little differently than SAM.
Adam
Leif,
Can you do something similar for StationPlaylist? It, too, has the ability to encode streams from DSP.
PS…I already tried the plug-in utility, but wasn’t able to actually get the audio moving through the processor.
Adam
Leif,
That’s awesome man! I’m glad we were able to work through the preset problem. Do you see an issue with adding final drive to any of the louder presets?
And yes, Live was practically a perfect first beta release.
Adam
Sweet! Business must be good…
Try it again. Looks like the eastern half of Europe is starting to go home for the day so more slots should open up.
Adam
…and yeah, it is that good. 😉
Leif and friends,
Maybe you could tune back in and give me your thoughts again (http://www.x100radio.com).
I am back on BBP, running the NYC preset and have throttled down the final drive to 0.0db. Power is at 20 and speed is at 65. Leif, you were right (big surprise there) in saying that the BBP backend is much more suited to handling high-powered compression driven right to 0.0db. Seems to be much, much more transparent than the Live backend.
Don’t get me wrong though. Live is awesome for most formats that don’t require a high loudness factor. For instance, I have it running on a smooth jazz format right now and it sounds golden.
Thanks to all for your input!
Adam
Leif,
Thanks for posting those clips! I can hear a definitive difference between the first and the last two. I had not realized that Live wasn’t designed to be pushed as hard, and knowing what I know now, I think it may be best to just throttle down the processor.
When I get home this morning, I’ll fire up the new version of BBP and take it for a ride around the block. I used the previous beta for a month or so, but was pretty much forced to switch to Live because it drove my CPU so hard that my studio sounded like mission control in Houston.
Also, was it me or did the audio coming from BBP sound fatter and more bass-y?
Adam
You got it man. I’m working at my FM gig right now, but I’ll be home in 20 min or so. If you can tune back in after I make the change (maybe an hour or so from now) and post your comments, I would appreciate it.
Thanks!
Adam
I actually had Live in the chain within 2 hours of the link being posted. Nearly 2 weeks later and it is running just fine. Have a listen:
Adam
