Q. Why do I need audio
processing for my station? Do I need a compressor? Or a limiter? Or a clipper?
Or a Multiband audio processor? Or something with Automatic Gain Control? And
does a $2000 audio processor sound 10 times better than a $200 compressor?
One of your most important duties as a low power fm operator is
making sure that the sound that you send from your studio into the transmitter
is within the limits of volume set by the FCC. Your transmitter will set up a “carrier” signal
that runs at your frequency. The carrier, running on your frequency, is what
makes you distinct from other radio stations. You may have a carrier signal
that is 91.3, while your nearest neighbor on the dial may be 91.7. You will add audio on top of that
from your mixing board. Then the listener can hear your audio by tuning to your
carrier frequency at 91.3 on the dial, and they can listen to your neighbor by
tuning to 91.7.
The louder you turn up the volume at your mixing board, the more
you modulate the signal, and the louder it gets for the listener. Up to a
point, that is good so that you are not dramatically louder than anything
else. However, there is only so
loud that you can turn up your audio before the kettle boils over onto your
neighbors carrier. The FCC has rules about exactly how loud (and how soft) you
can be. Radio stations generally
have modulation monitors, which help you calibrate your equipment
and monitor your levels. They also have some form of audio processing, which
take the raw audio from out of the mixing board and at least make sure that it
does not exceed FCC specifications. Fancier models, that cost more, can create
an array of effects that can make your station sound better. The following piece will introduce several concepts:
limiting, compressing, clipping and automatic gain control. A compressor is a piece of
equipment which can create a number of these effects on audio.
And we’ll look at some of the controls of a compressor,
which include attack, release,
ratio and threshold:
Embedded in this on our website are some audio files which help
you to hear the effects of different types of processing on your sound. The
diagrams refer to those sounds,
and also allow you to see what the actual waveforms look like. Here are
the unprocessed, natural waveforms:
Here is Radio Volta’s Dr. Sunup talking: Surprise
peaks are the norm. Usually they
are brief.
Here is some unprocessed music- in this case, Woodie
Guthrie singing and playing
guitar. Most of the rest of this answer courtesy of John Shwenk,
Engineer for WHUS-FM in Connecticut- we thank him for his valuable insights. Limiting and Clipping Limiting and clipping are related. The distinction involves the
fact that a level adjustment with a time constant is involved in limiting but
not in clipping. Limiting drags the fader down (imagine an invisible fader
internal to the limiter) to anticipate future peaks when the level exceeds
the THRESHOLD and the fader is only slowly allowed to come back up (set by
the RELEASE control). Clipping doesn't change the fader level. It just shears
off the waveform. And during the next cycle or peak, it gets sheared again...
and again. There is no pulling down of the imaginary fader to prevent future
shearing, and no release (or recovery) time. More detail: Clipping is an instantaneous shearing off of waveform peaks that
occurs when the intantaneous signal level exceeds (in either the + or -
direction) the voltage that a given piece of equipment can pass (or is set to
pass). When you look at the waveform, it looks like the mesas in Arizona. Flat
topped hills. The waveform wanted to go higher (it did go higher
before it hit the circuit that's clipping it) but it was prevented from doing
so and the output of the circuit simply remains at the highest voltage it can
put out while the input is above the clipping level (hopefully! - some circuits
do even worse sounding things when they're clipped).
Effective, but rather abrupt sounding compression of the
talking sample.
This is the "brick wall" clipper at -6db om the
music. It will keep your signal
safe from clipping distortion, but the sound is very abrupt to some ears. Clipping is the most commonly heard kind of distortion (clipping
distortion) and is very objectionable on voice and other monotonic (one tone or
sound at a time) sounds. A similar amount of clipping distortion applied to
some kinds of music is not quite as audible but is still a problem. Even
amounts that are not explicitly noticeable to a given listener will still lead
to greater listener fatigue. They may not know why they don't want to listen
any more but it happens nevertheless. Individuals vary in their ability to hear distortion (or at least
to identify what they're hearing). I'm often surprised when others claim not to
be able to hear the problem that I'm finding so objectionable I need to turn
the radio off! First of all, limiting is a kind of compression. It is compression
with the RATIO control set to infinity to 1 ratio. This causes the compressor
to turn the level down (using its internal electronic fader) as much as is
required to prevent the overall signal level from exceeding the threshold (set
by the THRESHOLD control). When the input level drops back below the threshold,
the fader starts to rise back up again at a rate set by the RELEASE control
until another peak exceeds the threshold and the fader is forced down again. Limiting refers to the fact that the output level of the unit is
limited to that of the THRESHOLD setting. That's the case when the RATIO is set
to infinity to 1. If the RATIO was set to 2 to 1, for instance, the output
level would be allowed to rise 1 db over the THRESHOLD when the input level
went 2 db over. The output would rise 5 db when the input rose 10 db, etc.
Infinity to 1 ratio - limiting - makes it so that, not matter how much the
input level rises, the internal fader is lowered enough to prevent the output
from rising at all. This state of affairs is similar to clipping - hence the
confusion. With clipping, the output is also prevented from rising above a
threshold level. But its not because a circuit effectively lowered a fader but
because the circuit simply sheared off the intantaneous waveform peak.
The limiter alone doesn't do the whole trick here, but it helps
give a more natural sound to Dr. Sunups voice. Compressors reduce not only the
top dynamic range, but also allow the quieter passages to become louder, thus
reducing the dynamic range on both ends.
Some ears perceive this as "breathy" on vocals and
"muddy" on music. Using
a limiter, with a clipper at a slightly higher threshold, gives a smooth enough
curve to keep things pleasant to listen to.
Here is the music with a limiter at -18db. With the slow attack and release time,
it is more natural sounding than the hard clipper. Usually, the peaks are long enough to trigger the
limiter: but sometimes the
transient peaks are shorter than the attack time Another related issue I want to mention is the ATTACK control on
most compressors. That's the rate at which the internal fader is allowed to
respond to the peak; how fast it gets pulled down. So ATTACK is how fast it
gets pulled down, RELEASE is how fast it's allowed to rise back up. It the
ATTACK is slow, a fast peak will slip through the compressor. The fader didn't
react fast enough to bring the level down. However, a sustained high signal
level will allow a compressor with a slow ATTACK setting to respond and bring
down the fader to compensate. Different settings for ATTACK, RELEASE, THRESHOLD, and RATIO are
used for different purposes and can be called by different names. Limiting refers to fast ATTACK and infinity to 1 RATIO. AGC generally refers to a very slow ATTACK and RELEASE. Imagine a
very sleepy or lazy person sitting at the board, slowly riding the fader to
compensate for level variations in the signal. Now, try to grok this: Clipping can be viewed as compression/limiting with instantaneous
(infinitely fast) ATTACK and RELEASE and infinity to 1 RATIO. If you understand that statement, you now fully understand this
stuff. The reason you want both limiting and clipping in an FM audio
processor is this: The limiter is needed to control the level and do most of the job
of preventing overmodulation. However, most limiters have a finite, if small,
attack time constant; they don't instantaneously respond to peaks. Many also do
not have perfect compression ratios of infinity to 1. That is, the output is
still allowed to rise a little even when the input exceeds the threshold and
especially when it exceeds it quickly. Thus, a clipper is needed as the very
last stage to absolutely guarantee FCC compliance. The clipper will just shear
off any errant waveform peak that makes it through the other stages, preventing
overmodulation. Most FM audio processors purposely reduce the attack rate or the
compression ratio on the limiter stage and/or increase the limiter threshold so
that some clipping will occur in the clipper stage. Yes, this causes clipping
distortion, especially on fast attacks and narrow peaks. But it also raises
average volume level. Up to a point, the more you clip, the louder you'll sound
because the average level to peak level ratio is increased. That's the critical adjustment I referred to previously and where
the loudness vs. distortion compromise comes in.
With the limiter AND the clipper, there is a natural
sounding compression - with a safety net on
Woody’s music. As with music, a pleasant style of compression that also
prevents clipping distortion in Doctor Sunups ill-chosen words. The typical two-channel
compressor/limiters commonly found in live sound and recording studios generally
cost $100 to $200. For the
limiting and clipping, the outputs of one channel (set as a limiter), can be
wired to the inputs of the other channel (set as a clipper. Some units offer a peak limiter (also
known as a clipper) in each channel in addition to the full set of parameters
for other compression purposes. If
this is the case, you need use only one channel. Simply set the threshold of the peak limiter (the only
parameter offered) slightly higher than the limiter. So, what is the difference between a cheapo compressor and a multiband audio processor? A multiband audio processor basically includes several different
compressors, which each have different settings for the low, medium and high
frequency components of the program audio. This allows each of the compressor
settings to be more subtle and boost the loudness of the low and medium
frequency tones more than the high tones. The high frequency tones cause
modulation problems at lower volumes, so overall loudness can be legally
boosted if the frequencies are treated separately. Most commercial stations use
very aggressive multiband processing. Try listening to a classic rock song on a
CD, and then listen to it on the radio and you will hear the difference. (when
we get really smart, we will put in samples with diagrams that simulate
multiband processing, but we are not there yet…) Some of what you get with the more expensive audio processors is
stuff that an LPFM doesn't need. They're all stereo, for instance. That means
you're paying for twice the circuitry and not even using it! Some have stereo
enhancement circuits and stereo composite generators that are also superfluous.
(Running in stereo will lose you way more listenable range than slightly
reduced loudness.) Loudness does not correlate that much to listenable
range for FM. Certainly it's a matter of degree. Increased loudness will always
give you increased signal to noise ratio (SNR) at any range, but as a gross
general statement, a station either comes in well enough to listen to, or it
doesn't, regardless of it's loudness. (This is an entirely separate matter for
AM.) Some people can not hear any of this. But some people who listen
carefully can be driven absolutely batty by overprocessed sound. Many do not
even notice but they find that their ears are tired when they listen to
overprocessed commercial radio. Because they push everything to be maximum volume at all time to
bust over the sound of drills at a construction site or the traffic noise on
the freeway, the programming lacks the soft spots that we find in natural
unprocessed listening. There is just one important issue which sets most commercially
available compressor limiters used by musicians from professional broadcast
boards. This issue is Pre-emphasis. All FM transmitters have a special circuit that adds a
special boost to the higher frequency parts of the audio, and all FM receivers
have a little circuit that takes that boost back out. This helps improve the
signal to noise ratio. If your
compressor does not take into account this “pre-emphasis” all hell
can break loose. Broadcast compressors take this into account. Music
compressors generally do not. There are a few of the English pirate radio companies that build cheap compressors that
have pre-emphasis circuit. You can check out broadcast warehouse (http://www.broadcastwarehouse.com) or
veronica (http://www.veronica-kits.co.uk/). We have not tested these yet, but
will soon. Ask for a 75 microsecond pre-emphasis- that is the US standard. If they turn out to work, a best bet would be to use one of the
english compressors, plus a cheapo compressor musician compressor like the ones
from behringer. A good source is www.progressive-concepts.com These range from
$100 to $200. Set it for hard
limiting - infinity to 1 compression ratio (or as high as it goes) with a fast
attack. Of course, you need a clipper following it. You can set up a Behringer
for that. The level adjustment following the compressor, driving the
clipper, will be a critical one. Higher gives you more apparent loudness but
with increased distortion. Yes, you would get somewhat more loudness with a $2000 box over a
$200 box, but you certainly won't get 10 times the loudness! Maybe you'd get on
the order of 2 or 3 db more. (A total guess). It is probably not worth it
except for operations with large budgets. There are just too many other things
to spend that money on! Meet all the other stations numerous needs, then
revisit the audio processor issue when there's extra money in the budget.
(Hah!) Broadcast consoles are designed for broadcast use, and have
special features designed for taking phone calls, turning down the monitors
when the mics go on, etcetera. DJ mixers are designed for recording or
contolling a live show. They are much cheaper and more common and can do a
decent job in a radio studio, but have a few design limitations that make them
less than optimal if you can afford to choose. A good example of a relatively inexpensive pro control board intended
for broadcast use is the "Blue" from LPB. But, given that most LP
stations are going to run in mono anyway (Blue is a stereo board like most
modern broadcast boards), the small recording boards and DJ-type mixers are
probably the best bet except for stations with big budgets (for an LPFM). Old broadcast boards are often a very good deal. Because so many
radio stations are going digital now, their giant old clunky boards are being
dumped on the market for less than they are worth. They may need some work, but
broadcast boards are one of the places where second hand can make sense if the
equipment was built well to start with. Here’s another related issue that plagues some of our staff
members at U Conn's radio station, WHUS. It's that some DJs just seem
untrainable as far as setting levels is concerned. It's all nice and good to
have an audio processor that keeps the station from overmodulating (keeps it
legal), but it doesn't help if the DJ has their level way too low or too high.
If it's too low, the station will be quiet. If it's too high, they'll clip in
the mixer before the signal can even get to the audio processor! This is usually handled with some kind of automatic gain control
(AGC) between the mixer and the audio processor. It can be built in to the
audio processor as the first stage. The AGC can raise the level slowly to
compensate for the DJ setting their fader too low or for quiet musical
passages. The problem with this scheme is that it can't help if the DJ sets
their level too high. The control board will still clip before the signal gets
to the AGC. It's assumed that your DJs are professionally trainable to set and
watch their levels properly. This seems to be an incorrect assumption with
college and community radio. The ideal solution may not exist as a commercial product. That's
to have the AGC built in to the mixer! That way, you wouldn't be able to clip
the mixer. Its built-in AGC would compensate for poorly set faders / trims
controls. (I've been considering modifying our control board to do just that.)
The feature could have a defeat switch so that competent DJs could run without
the AGC. Entrepreneurs take note: there's a market for a mixer/processor
specifically designed to meet the needs of LPFM, micro, and college radio. It would
be an all-in-one mono mixer, AGC, limiter, clipper, that is simple to use,
physically robust, and not too expensive. A fool-proof device. 
Distortion
Limiting, revisited
Compressor Controls, and Automatic Gain Control (AGC)
Limiting and Clipping, one more time
How all this relates to Mixing Boards