It’s number 14 for VoxPro and the Ryan Seacrest Foundation with the December 5 opening of a broadcast studio at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. This is the latest studio built at a children’s hospital by the Ryan Seacrest Foundation.

Like the first Seacrest Studios built at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in 2010 and all those that followed, the new studio will broadcast more than 30 hours of live content a week on closed-circuit TV throughout the hospital and include VoxPro recording and editing for song requests and other call-ins by hospital patients. “We have designated phone lines like any radio station where they can call in to request favorite songs,” said Nicole Mead, VP of Business Development & Operations for the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, which was started to help young patients explore the creativity of radio, television, and multimedia during hospital stays.

“Many of the patients come down to the studio to participate but there are others in isolation who have to stay in their rooms and can’t come down for whatever reason, and this gives them a way to be a part of it,” she explained. 

Radio and media personality Ryan Seacrest was inspired to open the first Seacrest Studios after seeing the healing impact his broadcasts had on young patients during his frequent visits to children’s hospitals. Since then, thousands of kids and youth have participated in broadcasts and worked with the tools of the trade (like VoxPro) in Seacrest Studios at major children’s hospitals across the nation. Hundreds of college students and others have interned at these very same studios and gone on to careers at ESPN, Spotify and elsewhere in the industry, thanks to a hands-on and innovative internship program that has existed since the foundation’s inception.

Seacrest Studios for hands-on radio, television and media production and participation are in children’s hospitals in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Memphis, Nashville, Orlando, Philadelphia, Queens (NY), Salt Lake City, and Washington (DC). 

VoxPro controllers and software are in all Seacrest Studios, and were donated by Wheatstone through Broadcasters General Store. “We could not do what we do for these patients and their families without partnerships like this,” said Mead.

By Jeff Keith
Wheatstone Senior Product Development Engineer

You know that sound you hear in your head that you’d like to get on the air?  There’s probably an audio processing preset for that, or a preset that comes pretty darn close. I know this to be true because my ears have logged hundreds of hours in the audio processing lab getting those presets just so, more recently for our new LiON FM/HD audio processor.

To develop a new preset, I often start with a basic preset and then run it through the mill with as many musical and vocal tracks as I can to determine (actually, train my ears) how it behaves with a variety of programming. I always begin with dynamics and once I’ve dialed that in, I tackle loudness last. You can do the same in a lot less time.

Start with a basic preset like Max Dynamics, Modern Jazz, Classical and Smoothie (although you’ll find a few oddball names in some Wheatstone processors, depending on how late I stayed at the lab). These have the basic spectral balance and general dynamics behavior that make them a great starting point. 

I recommend you don’t do any initial tuning while the unit is on the air. Later, when you’re ready to tackle loudness, you can put the audio processor on the air for the rest of the tuning process. But until then, bench the unit and feed it a good source of linear audio (analog or digital), and then connect the MPX output to a good, quality stereo decoder such as a Belar FMSA-1. Alternatively, you can connect the MPX output to a spare FM exciter with the resulting FM signal demodulated by a good quality modulation monitor or FM tuner. 

It is critically important that the audio going into the audio processor be as pristine as possible, so any subtle changes you make aren’t masked by codec artifacts or other artifacts.

Here are a few examples of how I dial in a sound. The tips that follow focus on our own processors though these tips generally can be used on other manufacturers' processors.

Example: The sound lacks energy and needs to be punched up overall. 
1. Increase the input driving the AGC. Don't be afraid to drive it hard—it can take it.

2. Or, increase the AGC density a dB or two. The higher this setting is, the more short-term density is added to the audio to give you a “fuller” and more consistent sound. 

Example: Needs a bit more density so it sounds even fuller.

The limiter section can help. Increase the amount of input driving the multiband limiter until you can see an increase in the limiter gain reduction (our processors have a GUI that can show you this). We give you up to 12dB of drive available in some of our processors—don't be afraid to use it, though be mindful that a higher limiter drive setting can start to make the audio sound squashed.

Example: Density is there, but needs more bottom-end punch.

Raise the bass clipper threshold a little. If the threshold is sitting at -5dB, you should start to notice a difference by raising it to -4dB. Wheatstone processors have a Bass Clip Drive control that is also useful. The higher the setting, the more you can create ‘bass sustain’, something you'll already hear on many Urban cuts. It might take a while to find that sweet spot because some back-and-forth iteration is always necessary when tuning any bass clipper.

Example: The dynamic balance sounds pretty good overall, but a deeper low end would be great.

Increase the lower band (Band 1) AGC and limiter thresholds a dB or so. Better low end now?

Example: Things are sounding pretty good, except the program content is lacking a stereo effect.

Nudge up the Stereo Enhance settings to change the perceived stereo sound field width overall. We provide the L-R settings on a per-band basis (all Wheatstone processors do, including LiON). But, careful. Here’s what you need to know about those settings. 

A. There is very little stereo separation at very low frequencies in most musical material and boosting those frequencies (AGC Band 1) can exacerbate the perception of multipath.
B. Adding too much L-R at the high end can make your audio sound “splashy” on stereo receivers when they’re in weak signal areas (AGC Band 5).

C. You’ll get the best overall perceived stereo effect when adjusting the midrange (Bands 2 through 4, in the case of our LiON processor). A little goes a long way. 

Stereo enhancement of the midrange frequencies can not only significantly improve the perceived overall stereo sound field, but this can improve how some receivers behave when tuned to your station. 

Example: It’s sounding great but not very loud.

If loudness isn’t quite there yet, you can slightly increase the multiband limiter drive control by perhaps a half dB (0.5dB) and then back down a bit when you hear any objectionable clipper induced distortion. You can also build in a little more pre-clipper density by lowering the multiband limiter thresholds, perhaps by a half dB (-0.5db).

Once those parameters have been changed, and you’re still hoping for more loudness, you can go to the main and composite clipper drive controls to see if a slight increase in one of them (always start with Main Clipper Drive first) will bring up the loudness sufficiently. You can also try lowering the bass clipping threshold slightly and upping the bass clipping drive control to offset it.  But a word of warning: Bass waveforms should never reach the main clipper threshold or IM distortion will result! The bass clipper threshold control in most processors sets how close the clipped and filtered bass waveforms can get to the threshold of the main clipper. In our LiON processor, for example, this control is calibrated in negative dBs, which represent how far below the main clipper threshold bass is allowed to go.

Some of this experimentation can be done off air but at some point, you’ll want to compare your results to what’s on the air, and for that you’ll need to experiment while the processor is on the air. That’s what early mornings are for.  

As you adjust, be sure to give your ears time to adjust to each setting and to listen to a variety of program cuts as well. Make a few adjustments, jot down some notes, save those settings as a preset, and then WALK AWAY. Not taking an ear break is like driving into a roundabout and always making left turns. You will never arrive anywhere, and more importantly, you will never escape! Come back again only after you’ve taken an ear break, listened for a while, and make written or mental notes of what to touch next. 

Happy tweaking, and please let me know if there are any useful tips you’ve discovered along the way. I can be reached at [email protected].