Wednesday 1 May 2013

Radio log: Vintage FM

Their motto is "old is good." Wall to wall nostalgia via Vintage 87.6 FM, the ultimate oldies radio station from darkest Penrith which, I think, is an outer burb of Sydney.

Mainly 50s and 60s tracks, guaranteed to drive any teenager today to distraction. Gotta love it!

You could listen in on your laptop of course, but that's a beggardly option, so if you have a dedicated internet radio, or can feed through to a decent Bluetooth device, that's definitely the way to go.

6 comments:

  1. Otherwise Good clean sound, but are they adding Reverb?

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    1. Reverb? I don't even know what "bluetooth" is yet. Not that I haven't heard of it, I just don't know what it is. What kin is it to "blue tube"? (I don't know what that is either).

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  2. I had a third listening session:
    They had some lively picks and a clean low distortion sound but gobs of added reverb (complex echos) (controversial as original producers/artists carefully tweak reverb to their taste) and other signal processing such as a bump in bass around 80 hz and some stereo expansion/synthesis (for older mono oldies). One would would think if they're so into processing, to go the other way with the bass: sub harmonic synthesis to fill deep bass absent from 50s > 70s analog recordings?

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  3. They jogged my memory playing "Little Girl"(1966) by one-hit-wonder 'Syndicate of Sound'. Glad they did as I dig the fast tricky 5-chord sequences done w/"Tremolo-Picking" to a Shuffle beat. I am mimicking this on a Yamaha keyboard (easier than an actual guitar!)

    It just occurred to me that their frequency assignment, 87.6, - actually just under the FM band - is used in Australia for community stations (FM tuners can still tune in down there as most go down to 87). In the U.S. they don't allow station below 88 as channel 6 TV sound is on 87.5.(so could listen to Ch6 TV sound in car)

    Australian politicians delayed FM radio by 40 years! And even sabotaged FM introduction by assigning TV channels 3, 4, 5 in FM band! (to protect big money AM network lobbyists like the Macquarie Network?)

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  4. So, in review, the Aussie politicians stall the wonderful high fidelity sound of FM for 40 years, but approve sending boys to die in ridiculous, distant WWI in about 40 minutes!

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  5. I now have an Earworm ever since they played Ned Miller's 1964 Country hit. In order to analyze the station's bass processing, I opened same song on Ytube in separate browser and A/B'd the sound. On Y-tube version, this tune, "Do What You Do Do Well", had Knackbass (picked electric bass sound from early 60's German influence)(couldn't hear these clean bass transients at all on Vintage FM!)

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