OPTIMOD-FM OPERATION
3-23
intelligible sound from widely varying source material, particularly source material that is
“hot from the field” with uncontrolled quality. It extensively exploits distortion control to
achieve a very clean, highly compressed, but unclipped sound quality.
SPORTS: Similar to
NEWS-TALK except the AGC Release (AGC Release Time) is
slower and the
Gate Thresh (Gate Threshold) is higher. This recognizes that most sports
programming has very low signal-to-noise ratio due to crowd noise and other on-field
sounds, so the preset does not pump this up as the
NEWS-TALK preset would tend to do.
ROCK:
ROCK-DENSE, ROCK-MEDIUM, and ROCK-OPEN provide a bright high end
and punchy low end (although not as exaggerated as the
URBAN presets). A midrange
boost provides enough presence energy to ensure that vocals stand out. A modest amount
of high frequency coupling (determined by the
Band Clipping 3>4 setting) allows reason-
able amounts of automatic HF equalization (to correct dull program material), while still
preventing exaggerated frequency balances and excessive HF density. Dense, medium,
and open refer to the compression density, which is determined by the release time set-
tings in the AGC and multiband limiter sections.
These presets are appropriate for general rock and contemporary programming. All of
these presets have distortion control implemented at their nominal levels of
Less/More to
ensure clean speech. At high
Less/More levels the distortion control may be relaxed
somewhat to increase bass punch.
ROCK-LIGHT has an open sound with little audible compression and less brightness than
the first three presets. It is a compromise between
ROCK-OPEN and ROCK-SOFT.
ROCK-SOFT has a mellow, easy-to-listen-to high frequency quality that is designed for
female-skewing formats. It is also a candidate for “Quiet Storm” and “Love Songs” light
rock or light urban formats.
ROCK-SMOOTH has the same mellow, easy-to-listen-to high frequency quality as
ROCK-SOFT, but with more density. Again, it is a good choice for female-skewing for-
mats, but where you need more compression and density than you get with
ROCK-SOFT.
For Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) we recommend the
ROCK-DENSE or ROCK-
MEDIUM
versions. In competitive markets, you may need to use LOUD-HOT (you can
use
Less/More to get it even louder) or even LOUD-HOT+BASS or IMPACT. However,
the “rock” presets are noticeably cleaner, and are therefore more likely to encourage
longer times spent listening than are the “loud” presets.
For Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) we recommend the
ROCK-MEDIUM or ROCK-OPEN
versions, although you might prefer the more conservative
ROCK-LIGHT or ROCK-
SMOOTH
versions.
ROCK-MEDIUM+LOWBASS is an open-sounding preset with a lot of bass punch. Its Mul-
tiband Release
control is set to Slow2 so that the sound is relaxed and not at all busy. At
the same time, the preset is competitively loud. It is an excellent choice for “adult con-
temporary” and “soft rock” formats where long time-spent-listening is desired.
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