Pop Shield

October 22, 2012

Night Fright

Last night I had a strange dream on a recurring theme. In an earlier incarnation of this nightmare, I was in ABC1 continuity suite due to play out an episode of Farmers Tomorrow. It was a tight turnaround between recording and play-out. Just moments before transmission I discovered that the computer had failed to successfully save the recording. Luckily the programme was backed up on a lesser-known format called SANDWICH. I turned around to grab the backup sandwich only to find it was being eaten by a work experience girl sitting at the back of the studio. Noooo!

In last night’s version, I was wondering around Maid Of Orleans Studios looking for some equipment. When I entered Studio 3, I was commandeered by two of R&B diva Kerry Rowrand’s backing singers. They were trying to find the singer some better headphones because she didn’t like the mix in hers. I was about to explain that changing the headphones wouldn’t help when the red light went on and the recording was underway. At the end of the song the Tour Manager, who appeared to have taken over the proceedings, said the take was good and Kerry needed to go. He then said the master recording had failed because the lead singer lacked confidence. He pointed to a CF Recorder sitting on a shelf in the studio holding the backup. The man tipped up the machine and liquid marmite poured out of it into in a marmite jar which he handed to me and asked me to take it to Jamie and Rupert in the control room. I was in a hurry to get back to my own studio so I started to run. But the lid was not screwed on properly and the black liquid started to escape. I lost about twenty percent of it, but I had no means of working out which part of the recording I had lost. Was it the bassline? Was it the middle 8? Was it the top end? I considered dumping the jar in the hope that somebody MUST have had the sense to press record in the control room, and then I woke up.

Marmite? Sandwiches? What on earth is going on here?!

September 27, 2012

The Dead Lounge

There is a relaxed office space sandwiched in-between the transmission studios within the basement of soon-to-be-defunct Ye Olde House which doubles as a pop-up pop studio.

This is the place that boy bands, pop princesses, acoustic guitarists and shaky egg shakers unite to perform stripped-down versions of their top hits at levels slightly louder than the printer. Accompanied, if you’re unlucky, by the dibberty-dib of a mobile that’s been left on.

I have enduring memories of coming here as a trainee alone in the dead of night and excitedly/nervously playing out CDRs of DJ Reel’s show from the wrong studio with little training and no instructions. On the flipside, no one ever minded or criticised. Confused and sleepy, you were eventually rewarded by the last-minute smiling faces of the early breakfast crew.

Tonight, Nick Waterfall and I head down to this infamous spot to record a late-night live session for the last time before doors close. Our challenge, if we are obliged to accept: a lot of the equipment has already moved to the shiny new space in The Mothership. Speakers gone, PPMs gone, outboard gone…

Nevertheless, there is still a mixing desk, mics and XLR cables, a quirky Japanese reverb unit and some headphones. It’s business time! Of sorts. Ipso Facto meets Kryptic Factor.

Nick brings a rack of some of his favoured compressors. This is a GOOD THING as the artist in question is capable of delivering a dynamic range this radio station has arguably never experienced before. A dynamic range that would put Radio Tea to shame! Pre-network processing, anyway.

Monitoring is conveniently via another mixing desk 180° behind us. Nick spends half the soundcheck spinning around like a whirling dervish between front and back while I uselessly call out meter readings: “Peaking five and a half!”. He balances the music on a combination of headphones and the fixed speakers behind him, which I waste no time in christening ‘The Rearfields’.

And so, we come off air at the end of the session. Close the faders, finalise the CDs, coil the cables, pack away, put the mixer to bed. With that, The Lounge Is Dead. Long Live The Lounge!

September 27, 2012

Another Day In The Office

Wake up at 4am. Travel 40 miles in the dark. Arrive at work. Move some faders. Drink a lot of tea. Top Cat arrives 30 seconds before TX. Demonstrate to Vanilla Salt the talkback button. Sign News Shmu’s birthday card. Shake hands with the lovely actress Sally Jensen. Air kiss Top Cat’s unshaved beard. Harmonise on singing ‘happy birthday’ to News Shmu. Set up a vegetable spot FX mic for Waylon Wine. Rade up some ranting callers. Fade up some vegetables. Leave work.

On the way home, buy a newspaper for an old lady at the station. Watch old lady promptly blow the savings she has made on chocolate. Get my 4am-start-face stared at all the way home on the train by a strange woman, who seems fascinated by me for some reason. Get off train. Squint in the sunlight. Say hi to the cows. Wonder where this late summer suddenly came from. Get home. Get shouted at by the cat. Watch a movie. Is my life in any way normal?

Image | September 27, 2012

As I walk over to The Mothership, I see a man in a high viz jacket flying his hawk around the new plaza. He’s doing it a couple of times a week to teach the local pigeons to stay away. Basically, one pigeon gets terrified then flies off and tells his pigeon friends to stay […]

Image | August 22, 2012

OK I’m going to stick my geeky little neck out here – and say that the operation of the Elektro Mess Technik 950 broadcast turntable is the nearest to perfection of any piece of professional equipment I ever have or ever will have the privilege of operating:- The weighty yet slick glide of the chunky […]

August 21, 2012

How Low Can You Go?

If there’s one man who can be relied upon to hold his Korrekt SM58 microphone around his ankles during a radio interview it’s flame-haired, granola-voiced alleged lothario Rick Buckley from 80’s soul sensations Simples. I last saw it happen in Aberdeen in 2005 when Rick was ‘in conversation’ and song in front of a live audience. I had a terrible cold but was not prepared to miss a day of recording for it. Later on, I might have wished I had. The holding of said SM58 at waist height during a long recorded conversation about song writing precipitated the infiltration of the front row by various broadcast personnel. All trying to catch the singer’s eye whilst manically performing the international sign for ‘put it closer to your mouth’. In the end, the producer had to go up on stage and stop the recording to ask Rick to speak into the microphone, which is a pretty embarrassing thing to have to ask a soul singer to do. But not half as embarrassing as tripping and falling off the side of the stage backwards, which is what the poor producer did.

Today we are recording jazz with Boogie Bugle at Maid of Orleans. We are here owing to a technical failure of the mixing desk in Bugle’s own studio, a desk which once belonged to Michael George many moons ago. We set up for the house band plus a guest artist, for which I rig an SM58 and pop a yellow wind shield on it. Mike rigs a cable – he chooses a yellow one too – just for Rick, he says. Rick arrives, looks at the pop shield and says “Well, that can go for a start!” and removes it. He then proceeds to turn his voice up really loud in his headphones and compensate by pulling right back from the mic so sadly the better take has loads of spill on it. Oh dear. Money might be tight, but Rick’s not right and tight on the mic.

August 7, 2012

In The Thick Of It

It’s an important day at the Corporation: the day of the long-awaited announcement about who will take over as the next General Director. I receive an urgent phone call from the office asking if I can do a favour and nip down to Studio 4Z at 1300 to cover for Mad Dog who is stuck at The Maid Of Orleans. It’s a high-profile ISDN booking involving Lord Bigwig which we absolutely have to cover and for all further details I should contact Leona on the given contact number.

So, naturally I agree to help and get straight on to Leona. She doesn’t pick up, so I leave a message asking for her to call me back about the interview. At fifteen minutes before the booking starts, I head down to the studio. I have not heard from Leona, so I try her number again, but she does not pick up. So, I patiently wait for a producer to appear and meanwhile set about getting the studio ready for what I am expecting to be some kind of two-way interview between a local interviewer and Lord Bigwig down the line. I set up a presenter mic and headphones in the studio, test they are working, set up the computer ready to record. As there’s still no contact from anywhere, I check with Control to see if they have a record of any incoming lines booked through to Studio 4Z, but they have no information either. By this time, it’s now about 1315. Hmm, this feels odd. Perhaps there’s been a change of plan. I know there is no point phoning the office to check since they divert the line to voicemail between 1300 and 1400. So, with nothing else to do I log in to my desktop in case anyone tries to contact me by email, then I sit and wait.

Suddenly the control room door flies open and an abrupt stressed-looking man with glasses runs in. Without any word of any introduction, he barks at me “WHAT’S GOING ON?” I look up and through the glass I see a grey-haired man has walked straight into the studio from the corridor and sat down in front of one of the mics. Right so that man must be Lord Bigwig come to talk about the new General Director appointment. “Hello” I say cheerfully to the rude man. “I’m Pop Shield, your engineer. I’ve been asked to cover this booking late notice, but I’m afraid I haven’t been given any specific details. I’ve not been able to make contact with Leona. Are you the producer?”. “NO, I AM NOT THE PRODUCER! I CAN’T GET HOLD OF THEM! CAN’T YOU GET ON TO THEM?” he says and without offering up who he is exactly, he runs out of the control room and into the studio and sits in front of the guest mic.” OK, so maybe this guy’s a contributor. I try Leona’s line again without success, then run through to the studio and arrange the mics in front of the two men and show them their headphone level controls. ”I CAN’T HEAR THE PROGRAMME, WE’RE ON ANY MINUTE!” panics the abrupt man. “Oh, okay.” I say, “On air to which station? ABC1?” “YES”. “Okay, let me patch you through.” Right, so it’s clearly a live outgoing ISDN so I better get some destination clean feed into the headphones and on to a check speaker double quick. Easier said than done in this studio but luckily I know it well enough that it presents no problems. At least somebody somewhere has us picked up. Sounds like ABC1 to me.

“Are you hearing the programme now?” I ask Lord Bigwig. “YES”. “And could I have a few words for level please Lord Bigwig?” It is indeed a ‘few’ words that return. “That’s lovely, thank you. And if I could just have a few words from the other gentleman, we’ll be good to go”. This request sends the still unnamed man – let’s call him Rudy – into another spin. He starts hurrumphing and saying NO I CAN NOT HAVE A FEW WORDS FOR LEVEL and OF COURSE HE’S NOT GOING TO BE SAYING ANYTHING ON AIR and then Lord Bigwig starts guffawing and muttering about CAN THE HEAD OF COMMUNCATIONS SAY A FEW WORDS HAW HAW HAW.

Right, ok, so it’s just the grey-haired dude. Rudy’s some kind of silent aide. Without any further time to deliberate, the destination cue springs into life, and shortly thereafter a little voice says, “Hello Lord Bigwig, thanks for joining us, we’ll be coming to you in just under a minute”. Followed by a bigger voice: “And now we can go over Lord Bigwig to talk to him concerning the special announcement about the new General Director.” And off we go. Have to pull back on the fader a bit now I’ve got some representative level, but otherwise it all goes fine to air. The moment the item wraps, the two men stand up and gallop straight out of the studio door without thanking me or saying goodbye.

Disbelieving, I make a point of running out of the control room and calling goodbye after them down the corridor, thanking them for coming and apologising that I had not had more information about the booking in advance. They disappear. Nice to meet you too!

As I log off the recording machine, I start reflecting on how lucky I am to work in music radio. No matter how important people are, everyone is friendly and courteous. It is at this moment that I stop feeling outraged and start to see the funny side of it all. These people are only the top communication experts at the top of one of the world’s top communication companies. Of course they are!

August 3, 2012

Happy Clappers

In a cupboard in my house there is a big crate full of small musical instruments: harmonicas, ocarinas, wooden flutes, tambourines, bicycle horns, train whistles and so on. You never know when you might be in need of a vibraslap.

In this crate there is also a brass wooden handled school dinner bell that I bought for my wedding. Proper bells are expensive, this one was as cheap a brass bell as I could get.

After an endlessly tedious and drawn-out build-up, it’s finally time for the 2012 Epic Games to start. To mark the occasion, a famous artist has decreed that all the bells in a country should be rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes at 8.12am on the morning of the Games.

A couple of days before the event an email goes around from a member of Top Cat’s production team asking if anyone has any bells at home that they can borrow.

Naturally, I offer them several items including the school bell, a bicycle bell, some Indian ankle bells, a reception bell, an Indian tambourine, a collection of chocolate bunny and reindeer collar bells. My cat kindly donates four of his bell cage toys to the proceedings.

I wrap everything up in paper and put them in a cloth bag to prevent me clanging all the way in to work. I hand them over to Helen who seems pretty pleased, and she promises to return them safely.

It is 8.10am on the opening day on Nations Favourite. Retired gold medallist Dame Kerry Jones is a guest on the morning show. Top Cat asks her to try out her bell. I hear the pretty sound of my school bell over the airwaves. He then invites foxy-voiced News Schmu to ring hers, whereupon I hear the characteristic tinkle of my Indian dancing anklets.

It’s coming up to 8.12am and there’s an on-air countdown followed by Big London Clock. A cacophony of cowbells and bicycle bells and sleigh bells erupts, which segues into a pop song about a telephone ring. Personally, I would have gone for the ding-aling song, but hey.

At the end of the song Top Cat asks Dame Kerry “Did you enjoy that?”. “Yes”, she replies “But I must be stronger than I think – because the bell came apart!”. Oops, I think, my equipment is clearly not up the job. ”The bell is clapper-less!!” decrees Top Cat. He uses the incident to comment on Dame Kerry’s fine buff form and is soon asking about her current fitness regime.

“So, how was it?” I ask Helen after the show. “Great.” she replies. “Your bells were the star of the show. I’ll return them to you as soon as they arrive back from The Park. And if Dame Kerry really broke your bell, I’m going to break her!” she says.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that!” I reply. “It’s a cheap bell and easily fixed” I say. “On the other hand, judging by those arm muscles, I suspect Dame Kerry is pretty indestructible.”

Later all my bells are all safely handed back to me, clappers intact. As far as I know Dame Kerry is still intact also.

July 16, 2012

Brooklyn, We Have Quite A Few Problems

It’s the rig day for One Big Headache. “How are things shaping up for the Crayzee headline set?” I ask Yoda.

“It’s not looking good, not good at all”, comes the reply. “I only got the information last night and the input list is the biggest load of bleep I’ve ever seen. Full of holes!” He waves an A4 piece of paper of inexplicable landscape orientation within which the stage sources have been typed downwards in columns. There are around fifty sources which have been machine-gunned over one hundred columns. It’s like a child’s input list. Typed up by a monkey. Not worthy of a man who has sold fifty million albums.

“Oh dear”, I reply.

The next morning, I head up to the main stage at 9am prompt armed with a long list of questions to ask their engineer Stephen prior to line check. Stephen is sweating and shouting at people. He looks a bit unapproachable. I approach. “Hello! I was wondering if could ask you for a few bits of information about these inputs to help out our guys in the broadcast truck?”. “Yeah, like what?”. “Well, for starters can you confirm who plays the main drum kit and what are the additional kick and snare lines being used for? Also, what kind of material is being contained in the various tracks of Unableton sources? And what is being carried on these two Outotune lines and how is the effect being inserted? What instructions are there for fading this up or down? And which radio mic line is being used for which artist?”

It’s clear early on in the proceedings that Stephen is not able or willing to give me answers. “Oh, you’re really better off talking to Jerry about the drums”, he says. So, I identify Jerry and follow him up to a platform full of synthesisers and ask him. I get one good answer and so I move on to the next one. “Oh, you need to ask Stacey about Unableton”, he says. So, I make my way over to Stacey and introduce myself. She is wearing dark glasses, chewing gum and keeps on giving me shoulder shrugs and breaking off to talk to other people then coming back to me with the odd “Huh?”’ interspersed with “What?” and occasionally “I don’t know what you’re asking me.” With the tenacity of a Jehovah’s witness addicted to witnessing Jehovah, I manage to get fifty percent information that sounds really hopeful – the other half that sounds like gibberish. “It’s just Outotune. Fade it up.” I ask again for some clarification before reporting back to the truck. Eventually there’s an honest answer: “Oh, I don’t really know. You need to ask Pablo if it’s about Outotune. He’s Westside’s engineer.” So, I identify Pablo. He gives the polar opposite answer. “So, the Outotune is inserted on Westside’s mic channel and categorically no need to fade up these Outotune lines down here at the end of the input list?” I say. “Oh, well, I don’t really know about mics” he replies, “You need to ask Olivier about that.” Dear God, help me. Olivier is worse as he’s the monitor engineer and hence the busiest and most irritable out of everyone. He gives me a ‘talk to the hand’. I try again. Talk to the hand. And so it goes on.

Meanwhile, I find out that Taco is actually friendly and eager to help. The problem is that Taco doesn’t actually know anything of any use to me right now. He’s like the friendly decoy elf in the magic cave of an adventure game. You know the type – the one who spouts riddles and sends you the wrong way. Each person I manage to engage with says something different to the previous person and then waves me away to talk to somebody else. At one point I am trapped in an ‘ask Stacey’ / ‘ask Pablo’ infinite feedback loop. The process is endlessly frustrating. Eventually the soundcheck is finished. Drum and Unableton lines have been idented, the radio mics have been tested and accounted for, and the Outotune instructions have been optimally deciphered.

In the evening, during the soundcheck prior to the headline act it’s the same thing all over again, except this time poor Shiny’s bearing the brunt of these people’s rudeness. I follow his conversations on the talkback and am heartened that at least the answers he’s reporting back to the truck concur with what I was being told earlier. The band comes on stage and for the first five minutes there is a genuine sense of achievement that comes with getting the last band of the day on stage. All seems ok, until at the start of a new song that’s when the talkback from the truck first comes alive and never seems to stop. What ensues is too painful to recall. Twelve hours of standing on my feet enduring those noise levels on stage becomes the least of my problems, as a catalogue of errors from Crayzee’s crew begins, over which we have very little control. No amount of shouting at these guys gets us anywhere.

“We’ve lost lines 99 and 100!…We don’t have anything on Unableton 7 and 8!…We don’t have ANY beats on 99!…”

While we try and sort out the track problems a fun new game called Radio Mic Russian Roulette starts.

“We don’t have the guest rapper mic! Now we have the guest rapper on the lead rapper’s mic!…We don’t have the second guest rapper’s mic!…Now the second guest rapper is on the backup guest rapper’s mic!“

”…We’ve got the beats back!…The beats have gone again!…Right now we don’t have a show!“

”…The beats are back but they’re heavily distorted!“ And finally the words of defeat: ”We’ve gone over to the front of house mix!“

Hell on earth. And a right mess for all involved to unpick as there’s multiple multi-platform programmes to consider. Shiny has the good sense to get the Unableton wavs that Stacey has offered us. We are all gutted. When we eventually manage to get away from the truck, a drink in the bar and a good debrief helps things. Well, a bit. Everyone loves to hear about a drama and colleagues nerd out on all the gory details. “Aha! So, the levels were post and the routing wasn’t isolated from the front of house desk scene changes!” they exclaim with gleefully geeky schadenfreude. I feel terrible. But deep down I know it’s not really that bad in the big scheme of things. In time this will become just another anecdote to tell in late night conversations like this.

The next day we reconvene for another hellish soundcheck with one of Crayzee’s stablemates which unbelievably goes worse than Crayzee’s thanks to some good old hum loops. One of their techs ends up walking around the stage shouting “bleep me and bleep my life”. None of this helps the healing process, although as time goes on, we do slowly start to laugh about one of the worst sound disasters we’ve all been a part of. “When you came off that stage last night you looked like you’d come back from a war zone” jokes Yoda. He then recalls Crayzee’s song about having lots of problems with money and racism and the police but none at all with the ladies. It is with perfect symmetry that it is the corresponding number of problems in that famous song as the line numbers on that ominous input list where our problems had started.

June 5, 2012

Range Master

Well, I nearly lost grip of my faders during a phone call from a posh lady called Baronness Boddum-Windham about her great grandfather, a dentist in Ethiopia during the reign of George V. Reputedly, he “took Lady Featherstonehaugh up the Arsi Mountains” and “gradually stripped off her clothes and put them on himself” in the hope of bringing her temperature down. Astonishing.