SOUND ON SOUND

[dmprog]

Hi. I hope somebody can help me on this one. I have a issue on my radio releases since a while. When the song is played on air, sometime there is certain instruments missing. The problem is not always present. I went to the radio station directly to hear right from their system but all seems good there. I heard also a song from another studio that had the same issue one day. I suspect the broadcasting compression system the issue but I'm very not sure. Example: I hear all the instruments but there's a solo guitad missing on the right, the left side is ok. I never notice if it's the right or left side the issue. Did you ever heard about those kind of problem? Thanks in advance.

[Hugh Robjohns]

If some element that would normally be hard left or right in the mix is missing, it can really only be because that source channel either wasn't connected or has been lost for some reason.

A more common problem is to lose all central sounds (typically vocals, kick drum, bass etc) and that's typically because an unbalanced stereo signal (eg headphone output) has been connected to a mono balanced line input (the balanced input intentionally cancels out anything the same on its two inputs).

For your situation, you're going to have to do some testing to find out exactly what's happening, because your description is far too vague to give any useful indication of a problem source.

[Mike Stranks]

Welcome! :thumbup:

Sounds like it could be an intermittent dodgy cable fault somewhere in their transmission chain...

Also... is this a broadcast (FM/AM/DAB) station or an Internet station? There's a world of difference in technical understanding, equipment used and the implementation of universal standards for all contributors.

Have they given you any technical specification of how they want your programme presented to them?

If possible find out what processing happens between receipt of a submitted programme and when it goes out of the door to transmission.

[Mike Stranks]

Further thoughts...

Is this only affecting your progs or are other people's affected too?

Do they have a 'Listen Again' facility? Does the same thing happen in the same place on the repeat?

[dmprog]

That's weird. Sometime the same song play no problem, other time the solo guitar is missing( hard right) all in the same radio station. I heard another song from another studio one time that the fiddle was also missing. All the other instruments( drum bass ect) still there.

[blinddrew]

Sometimes a weak FM signal will drop down to mono - in which case you'd pretty much lose anything hard panned.

[Sam Spoons]

Are you sure about that Drew? Surely it would only drop 6 dB relative to centrally panned objects? That's a fair reduction but not enough to make something disappear completely, at least not a prominent part. If OTOH they dropped out one side of the stereo rather than summing them to mono?

[Hugh Robjohns]

Are you sure about that Drew? Surely it would only drop 6 dB relative to centrally panned objects? That's a fair reduction but not enough to make something disappear completely

Exactly that. Edge sounds fall by 6dB relative to central sounds... But obviously anything with any out-of-phase elements (eg. some stereo chorus effects, some stereo reverbs, some ultra-wide panning effects) would substantially disappear when summed to mono.

If OTOH they dropped out one side of the stereo rather than summing them to mono?

A radio receiver can't do that. Stereo FM is broadcast as a summed mono signal, plus a side carrier with the Sides signal. The two signals are matrixed in the receiver to generate left-right stereo. However, if the signal strength is poor the Sides signal side carrier becomes excessively noisy and is therefore ignored, leaving just the summed mono.

[Mike Stranks]

So it looks like it's not your problem, but the station's...

More questions (some repeated):

* Is this a broadcast radio station or an Internet station?
* Is this in the UK/Europe or another country?
* Which radio station is it?