I’m not the engineer to KTRU, but I do help them out and remember this day vividly.
1. The fuzziness of the mics is because of a blown mic preamp card. I had offered to drive in and replace it that night, but was asked to stay out of the students way that day. I suppose it adds some character to the final days of KTRU at 91.7, but their mics now don’t sound like they’re going through a distortion pedal. KTRU’s studios have been fully digital for years, and the sound quality on air has always been quite good (save the dying Optimod during its final year at 91.7.)
2. This recording must have been made from the webstream or the feed to KPFT HD-2, which is where KTRU continues to air today. If you were listening to 91.7 or 91.5, you would have heard the audio cut to silence about 30 seconds after they segued out of the speech into whatever they played next in the recording. The chief engineer dropped the carrier on 91.7 at that point and I silenced the feed to 91.5. At that point, I was logged in from home changing several routes in their air chain – moving where the processing was inserted so there would be some gentle limiting on what feeds KPFT. After I finished that, they faded out, went silent for a few seconds, did the KPFT legal ID, and rolled Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone.
John Davis
I’m not the engineer to KTRU, but I do help them out and remember this day vividly.
1. The fuzziness of the mics is because of a blown mic preamp card. I had offered to drive in and replace it that night, but was asked to stay out of the students way that day. I suppose it adds some character to the final days of KTRU at 91.7, but their mics now don’t sound like they’re going through a distortion pedal. KTRU’s studios have been fully digital for years, and the sound quality on air has always been quite good (save the dying Optimod during its final year at 91.7.)
2. This recording must have been made from the webstream or the feed to KPFT HD-2, which is where KTRU continues to air today. If you were listening to 91.7 or 91.5, you would have heard the audio cut to silence about 30 seconds after they segued out of the speech into whatever they played next in the recording. The chief engineer dropped the carrier on 91.7 at that point and I silenced the feed to 91.5. At that point, I was logged in from home changing several routes in their air chain – moving where the processing was inserted so there would be some gentle limiting on what feeds KPFT. After I finished that, they faded out, went silent for a few seconds, did the KPFT legal ID, and rolled Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone.
How does it feel to be on your own, indeed.