The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum / Faders Vs. Sliders: Going By The "Boards"

**Posted by RadioActive** March 9, 2025 7:56 am

I always enjoy CKTB's early Sunday morning show, which essentially consists of host Karl Doxtater and his producer Ryan Williams chatting about nothing. But it's very entertaining and there's nothing else like it really on during the 6-8 PM time period.

You never quite know what they'll talk about and having listened for so long, I suspect they don't either. Which is how Sunday's show devolved, if that's the right word, into a brief discussion about the board Ryan was working and they briefly batted around the subject most people wouldn't have a clue about: faders vs. sliders. Which is better?

Ryan is a man after my own heart - he vastly prefers faders, those round pots that allow you to control what goes on the air. Faders are a lot more modern but as he noted, "sliders are small hamburgers!"

I have to admit I haven't seen a fader on a board in a long time, and I'm not even sure they still make them that way. But I learned how to operate on a board with faders and I always had a fondness for them.

So if you're a radio, podcast or production person, which one do you prefer?

**Posted by Jody Thornton** March 9, 2025 8:47 am

I always heard sliders as "faders", and pots as "rotary" boards. I think it depends if you spoke with announcers or engineers. If the current board style is sliders, then that would be my preference, though I prefer using analog boards from the late 80s and early 90s, like Harris. Although a cheaper option, I liked some Arrakis boards too. They were very simple to me.

I suppose I prefer sliders, because I have a visual layout of the levels across the board. Plus using the older slider boards felt as though I were seated at a table, ready to do my work, whereas using a rotatory/pot style board, you were up right up at it. The level meters were right in front of you. Alternately on a slider board, you'd see all of your meters at a pleasing distance. I find also that slider boards had more meters available so that in addition to left and right "program", you could have another meter to monitor a mono "sum" output.

So, +1 for sliders.

**Posted by paterson1** March 9, 2025 10:11 am

I didn't really care whether the station had sliders or pots (rotary) boards. My on air career it was almost always Mcurdy boards often with pots or Ward-Beck that had sliders. Both were excellent and used all over North America for television and radio. McCurdy and Ward-Beck were engineered and built in Toronto.

The only time I didn't use either a Mcurdy or Ward-Beck (WBS) was at CBC in 1976, where they had a few old Northern Electric boards still in use. The other was at CFPL in London, they actually made their own audio boards. The engineers at PL were really something else! Their designs for the boards were fantastic, and were all sliders.

**Posted by Chrisphen** March 9, 2025 1:42 pm

I've always used the term 'pots'.

**Posted by Cheese2RF** March 10, 2025 10:52 am

Binson Echorec wrote:
Never worked a board with potentiometers. I've used Ward-Beck and Wheatstone boards, both are equipped with sliders/faders.

Until reading the topic of this thread, I didn't think there was a difference between "slider" and "fader", they're the same thing to me.

yea im having a trouble understanding the difference between slider and fader, are they not the same?! Wheatstone boards have faders right? and i know McCurdy made both linear potentiometer (fader/ slider) and turn potentiometer (what i always called pots or turn pots) boards. though I'm no where near old enough to have ever seen one in action lol!

**Posted by betaylored** March 10, 2025 2:50 pm

We used the term "pots" even though they were, from the description given on this post, sliders.

If you worked at a rock radio FM station back in the day, coming up with creative and different music mixes used to be a part of your show and a way to play with the energy and mood and to keep things interesting for the listeners.

Sliders were crucial when doing a fade in/fade out mix from one song into the next. Get it right and all was good, screw it up and it'd sound awful.

But it wasn't until just now reading this post I realized why I subconsciously got a kick out of working with the sliders and that right from the start they felt familiar. The reason? The original Star Trek's control boards. 🖖😁✨

Last edited by betaylored (March 10, 2025 2:54 pm)