1 of 1- RadioActive
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Attn. CKTB Engineering Dept.: Are You On The "Levels?"
This one's been percolating with me for a while, but since it happened again on Sunday, it seemed like a good time to ask. What's going on at CKTB with the levels on syndicated shows? Every weekend, the station airs a ton of non-locally originated programming, like "Question Period", "Viewpoints" with Todd van der Hayden and even the audio from "60 Minutes."
I sometimes tune them in but one problem keeps happening week after week after week - the levels on these shows are so low, you can barely hear them. It's as if the pot or recording level is down so low, it's almost not registering. So of course, you're forced to turn the volume way up if you want to hear anything.
You can guess what happens next. When they go to a local spot or newscast, the result is a deafening blast that's so loud, you might think you're going to lose your hearing.
My questions: why would this keep happening? Does it have something to with the automation software that's running the place on Saturday and Sunday? Or is there something else going on? And why don't they ever seem to fix it? (I'm guessing those who could probably are off weekends and never bother listening, but that's just a total supposition.)
Hopefully, they'll get this problem resolved. Because I sometimes listen through earphones while out walking the pooch and after all those years in radio, my hearing ain't what it used to be. And I don't need CKTB making it worse!
- cGrant
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Re: Attn. CKTB Engineering Dept.: Are You On The "Levels?"
RadioActive wrote:
Does it have something to with the automation software that's running the place on Saturday and Sunday?
More than likely, yes. But, that same software also has modules associated such as a "dead air" alarm/notification system. It CAN also be tweaked to alert when audio levels are out of a set range, either too loud or soft. Even if this isn't a priority for Engineering during the weekends, they can see a report on Monday. You'd think, if this was a repetitive issue, someone would tweak the software accordingly.
Another possibility (albeit very unlikely) is it is deliberate. Perhaps, (again, unlikely) they lower the output on syndicated programming to comply with out-of-market copyright issues?
Another observation is 640's networked programming (weekdays 10pm-5am, including Adler and Dratch AND their TOH newscasts out of Vancouver), many times, the software is not well synced to go back to network. Also the software endlessly misses the TOH news. This is not an issue with Alex Pearson's networked show, as she is (presumingly) out of Toronto. All this has been happening since the refresh to GNR.
- RadioActive
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Re: Attn. CKTB Engineering Dept.: Are You On The "Levels?"
I find the same thing happens with Roy Green's show on 640 every Saturday and Sunday. Almost every time they throw to break, you hear a snippet of CHML, the originating station for the broadcast. You'd figure somebody would eventually fix it, because it really does sound amateurish when it happens over and over and over again, but my guess is the powers that be either a) aren't listening or b) don't care because it might cost 50 cents to fix it.
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Thread Starter- Don
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Re: Attn. CKTB Engineering Dept.: Are You On The "Levels?"
Most likely, the playback of these shows is out-of-phase - meaning, the levels look good in theory, but when the left and right channels are combined into mono, they cancel each other out.