Friday, June 17, 2005
Three Cheers...for Engineers!
Any one who works in radio knows that engineers can be an on-air person's best friend. We're lucky to have an engineering staff at WLS that is not only very competent...but also friendly and responsive to the needs of the staff.
Some background...
I now use a Marantz PMD660 Recorder for field reporting. It's a state of the art compact flash card recording unit that has become the new industry standard for radio field reporting...rendering most other formats (minidisc, DAT, etc.) obsolete. You may be familiar with compact flash cards from your digital camera.
I bought the unit at the Radio-Television News Directors Foundation auction in Las Vegas in April. So, I got a great piece of equipment...made a donation to an excellent educational foundation...and, got a tax write-off out of the deal. Who could ask for more!
But, I digress...
Any way, the PMD660 is a great unit...but I had been having some problems reconciling the record levels. In laymen's terms, I speak too loudly - without even trying - and my voice was overpowering the unit a bit, making for a "rougher" sound than it should have had.
Enter WLS Chief Engineer Warren Shulz and staff engineer Andy Weiss. Warren and Andy spent about a half hour with me today...reviewing every one of the many pre-set programs in the machine. We finally reached a series of settings that, along with a -10db "pad" (don't ask) attached to my microphone, have the machine recording pristine audio. I knew all along that it wasn't the machine's fault I was just overpowering it - and, I was right. It just took Warren and Andy's help to get all of the settings right. Thanks Warren and Andy!
Jeanne comes home tomorrow. Because of her travels - two business trips - that overlapped with my trip to Peoria last week, we haven't seen each other for two weeks. Even when I was off covering Bosnia, the Kosovo war and Cuba, we were never apart for this long. I'll be very glad to see her! : )
Some background...
I now use a Marantz PMD660 Recorder for field reporting. It's a state of the art compact flash card recording unit that has become the new industry standard for radio field reporting...rendering most other formats (minidisc, DAT, etc.) obsolete. You may be familiar with compact flash cards from your digital camera.
I bought the unit at the Radio-Television News Directors Foundation auction in Las Vegas in April. So, I got a great piece of equipment...made a donation to an excellent educational foundation...and, got a tax write-off out of the deal. Who could ask for more!
But, I digress...
Any way, the PMD660 is a great unit...but I had been having some problems reconciling the record levels. In laymen's terms, I speak too loudly - without even trying - and my voice was overpowering the unit a bit, making for a "rougher" sound than it should have had.
Enter WLS Chief Engineer Warren Shulz and staff engineer Andy Weiss. Warren and Andy spent about a half hour with me today...reviewing every one of the many pre-set programs in the machine. We finally reached a series of settings that, along with a -10db "pad" (don't ask) attached to my microphone, have the machine recording pristine audio. I knew all along that it wasn't the machine's fault I was just overpowering it - and, I was right. It just took Warren and Andy's help to get all of the settings right. Thanks Warren and Andy!
Jeanne comes home tomorrow. Because of her travels - two business trips - that overlapped with my trip to Peoria last week, we haven't seen each other for two weeks. Even when I was off covering Bosnia, the Kosovo war and Cuba, we were never apart for this long. I'll be very glad to see her! : )
