What happened to it????!!!

Pierre

I belive we are having an updrade to do with our playout system.

with the removal of the blue box, both sides of the pc now have independent faders, so the tape option of the fader has been replaced and therefore removed, allowing the turntable option to remain. I believe a rewritable cd player will take it's place soon.

What's an updrade?

I am rather concerned along with some of our presenters at the removal of the tape deck. Over a period of 11years I have conducted many interviews useing a cassette recorder one of which was with Humphrey Lyttleton who has just died. I was hoping to use this historic interview in tonight's show on a tribute to the great man but now find myself unable to do so. I think it is rather short sighted to restrict our presenters as to the format they wish to use as many past recordings are unavaillable on compact disc.
If any other presenter feels as I do on this matter then they should raise it at the O.G.M.
for discussion.

Vic Moont

Vic I thought as a member of the committee you would have discussed this together at a committee meeting before the change. Was this not the case?

Also I would say that if you take the whole radio station into account, the use of the tape deck is probably very minimal. Not to take anything away from those who do use it, but
I would say that a higher percentage of the station would benefit from the extra OTS fader. This helps us to pre-fade songs, which helps with the smooth segways between jingles and songs.

Also the sale of cassette tapes is dropping off and with time it would be completely redundant anyway.

I think we should have a democratic vote at the OGM next week, I may be proved wrong who knows.

All,

Firstly apologies if the removal of the cassette deck has caused any disruption to programming. As far as I am aware this is a resource that was used a little by a few people and not at all by the majority.

In view of the concerns of Vic and others who may be in a similar situation with archive material I will set up a way of transferring material from cassette to CD. This will ensure that any important archive material is still usable and will be processed to improve the audio quality.

Now to dispel some rumours. If there had been a choice I would have left the cassette deck in the studio however we are at the maximum amount of analogue inputs. The result of this is that to configure OTS to work on two channels I had to remove another analogue input.

Initially I placed the second OTS channel on the line 2 input of the left Deck however I felt this was a little clumsy and restrictive. I have now re-configured the mixer so that we have 2 CD’s, both OTS channels and the 2 Decks available without having to share channels. The third CD player had been placed on line 2.

I have no further plans to adjust the way that the studio works in the foreseeable future. This work was carried out at short notice due to the number of requests I have had to enable two channels on OTS. There was also the need to get into the studio at a time when it was off air and therefore cause minimal disruption to shows.

I don’t plan to take this to a vote at the OGM as I don’t believe that this is really a voting mater. As Technical Officer I was appointed to the Committee to do the job I do and make decisions as appropriate. Again I apologise if this decision has caused any disturbance or confusion to members and would be more than happy to discuss the situation with anyone who is concerned.

I only asked.... :wild:

I dont know where to stand on this
- Im personally not fussed about the tape deck - im more concered about the usage of the 2 ots channels.

When you prefade a channel - you bring the fader down and press prefade but then you need to move the track out in order to have the channel on/ready otherwise the fader start kicks in and you end up playing the track you;ve just prefaded - which im finding annoying, and is spoling the quality of the broadcasts -

Ben,

I agree that it can be a little awkward if you want to use the auto DJ feature on OTS. As you correctly ascertain you need to move the track out of the deck prior to moving the fader up. The two OTS decks are working in the same way that any other fader start equipment operates.

I could fit a bypass switch for the fader start however I wanted to get rid of any such boxes as they tend to make it even more complicated. I would suggest that initially you may find the new system more complicated however with time you will become used to the way in which this works.

I could of course remove the fader start however I prefer to have this as I find the buttons on the keyboard too small to use to start OTS.

I am still firmly of the opinion that having two channels thus allowing you to pre-fade, play both channels and individually adjust the levels on the channels is better than what we had previously.

I know that you are great with the techy stuff Ben, but I think that we should leave any bypass to the heart doctors :lol: :lol: :lol:

With regards to Punters point about the fader start etc...

As Brother Hart pointed out to me when I raised this question, the get around is to empty the deck you need to bring the fader up on. Once the fader is up, and the light is green, you can place your song back into the deck.

Alternatively...don't use Auto DJ! :)

Matt

Thats the other thing...
if you prefade the other channel while its on Auto DJ mode. when the track is about to end and about to go into the track youve just prefaded it well start playing - if you dont even have the green light on, but if you press the green light it well start even if the other channel has finished:

- Fader Down
- Prefade Track
- Move Track out
- Fader up
- Fader On
- Move Track Back
:wacko:

I agree with Ben Hart I think. It's the fact that it's new and takes getting used to. I think once it's been there for a while you'll get totally used to it.

Also RE fader start.
Before OTS you had to start everything manually. It's only with automated playout that the need for this deminishes.
You could always turn off the auto DJ and do it yourself. It's too easy to let the computer always do the work for you. B)

Which one?

Yeah, it's true about the changes- we probably will get used to them.... I discussed these with Ben on Sunday.

Although, without a tape deck, I can't record my show anymore either! :(

However, it would be handy if CD3 can be next to CD 2 on the slider control please! I know it's a silly thing to ask, but I can't help but think of the sequence, CD1 CD2 CD3... which I think is how it was before?!!!

Pierre