May
3
Written by:
Paul McLane with Paul Shinn
5/3/2012 12:31 PM
Paul Shinn wants to get something off his chest.
A broadcast engineer for 27 years, he shares some thoughts with me that I thought I’d pass along for your comments.
“I’m no fan of computers and similar consumer-grade electronics at a radio station,” he begins.
“Back when I got started, stations were turntables and cart machines. One station had a MacKenzie machine (it pre-dates carts). There were consumer-grade turntables, and then there were broadcast-grade turntables. The difference was night and day.
“As for carts, there were broadcast-quality cart machines, and there were consumer grade 4-track machines (which used the same tapes). Again, difference was night and day. You could drop a cart machine on the concrete and it still worked. You could subject it to disc jockeys, and they still worked (the machines, that is).
“I remember when we brought in the first CD players at KWG/B101. Although they were high-end consumer machines at nearly $2K each, they were damaged by disc jockeys. CD players had the ‘start’ buttons smashed through them, decks dislodged, optics damaged, you name it. Meanwhile, the broadcast-quality cart machines outlived every CD player that ever went through the place,” Paul continues.
“Now, I do live in the real world, and I know that all the old stuff is horribly obsolete. However, I have seen computers that were built for military and industrial uses, and I see the consumer-grade junk that passes for a ‘broadcast-quality’ computer today. Junk!
“Here’s my personal rule: If any of the parts for the ‘broadcast’ computer can be found at Best Buy, then it is NOT broadcast-quality. Period. No way I should see an Intel motherboard or a Western Digital hard drive in a broadcast computer. If I do, then I know it is just a prettied up piece of consumer-grade junk.
“I’ve seen a lot of gear come and go during my time as a broadcast engineer. I have earned the right to be judgmental on the equipment inhabiting the airwaves today. I’ve been on the buying teams of two corporations at the NAB Show, and had factory training, etc. Some of the great guys that used to design broadcast-quality gear are long gone, replaced by stuff that can be bought at Best Buy, then adapted using software written by the same brilliant nerds that brought us life-changing greats as ‘World of Warcraft’ and ‘Tomb Raider.’
“To 99.9999% of the population, a computer failure is merely an inconvenience. With that in mind, we still are forced (through lack of supply) to choose these same systems to run our broadcast stations. It’s going to the dogs. And, the dogs are not well groomed.”
So says Paul Shinn. Is his commentary fair? Is it realistic in the computer-driven, cost-sensitive world of today? What do you think?
(PS – Here’s a link to an interesting page about MacKenzie repeaters.)
3 comment(s) so far...
Re: A Gripe About 'Broadcast' Computers
Oh, Paul! Your whiskers, cranky-pants and suspenders are flagrantly showing. There are a lot of things to bitch about in this day and age inside this industry but this piece of fluff has got to be the lamest bit of grief ever...and about as important to the industry as listener requests.
Signed,
An old DJ that left radio to invent ways to improve radio with computers.
By Robin Solis on
5/15/2012 9:09 AM
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Re: A Gripe About 'Broadcast' Computers
Paul:
I have an entire non-comm that has been running almost trouble free for 3 years, with an off the shelf Dell computer (and an e-machine in the production room), utilizing a software program designed for internet radio. It costs $400 dollars...and works just as well as the $10,000 software sold by the so-called "professional" manufacturer. (Even better - it comes with an on-board music scheduler! Not as advanced as, say RCS is, it's fine for a small town station.)
I have a digital audio processor we got on a download that cost $200 bucks that far outperforms the older analog processor we have in a rack that once sold in the thousands of dollars. And we get great complements from listeners on the "professional sound quality" of our station.
Sure, I miss the turntables (been in the business for about 40 years). But I don't miss carts jamming, or broken styli or having to edit tape.
By Kevin Fodor on
5/23/2012 3:49 PM
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Re: A Gripe About 'Broadcast' Computers
That's the attitude that kept one of our automation units at the Manufacturer for 6 weeks without repair. "Uh, we're having trouble locating the original parts". (couldn't be because you never made any upgrades to your original 25 year old design, now could it) Ok, send it back, our local guy will rebuild it. "uh, good luck with that, huh huh huh." 18 hours after receiving said box, Local guy had it back on air with modern parts, running faster than with OEM parts. No need for a $4000.00 obsoleted AudioScience card in the era of 6, 8, 12 and more core CPU's.
By Ron Hyatt on
5/29/2012 11:09 AM
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