Best at stringing songs together

[RockJazz]

I imagine some DJs give more thought to stringing songs together and do it better than others though I haven't really focused on comparative DJ talent or sensibilities with that to voice a well-considered opinion and don't know the industry basics for this.

Within rock- classic or alternative- who would you say is or was  the most thoughtful or best in this market?

How much is really driven by programming execs these days? I assume  the songs are probably almost entirely but how tight is the formula for the sequencing? Fast or slow, old or new, appeals to men more or women?

[mightymoose]

Compared to the time and trouble we would go through 20 or 30 years ago to maintain element to element flow no one is worth a crap these days.  Why do you think radio cume drops every year over the last 2 decades??

[Bongwater]

it's really hard to maintain flow when you don't have any control over anything else in your program. You just have to resign yourself and sound like the guy/gal before you, who sounded like the guy/gal before them, who sounded like the guy/gal before.....

Guess that's the definition of radio success these days.

Guess the rest of us will just keep tuning into non-terrestrial radio sources.....slowly......but assuredly. Wake us when it's over. And please don't mind when you've discovered nobody is listening at all except just the carefully selected people with PPMs. Which by the fluctuation of some of these numbers, people just stick the damn things in a room and just let it record whatever comes up. No agendas, no taste, just whatever publicly available high numbers come up and ditto it. A REAL radio listener will pick and choose, hourly.....if not by minute.....

Don't tell me THAT can't happen.......or has NEVER happened. How did KGY-AM pop up in the first 6+ books? And how many people actually get these things?

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[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

That, believe it or not, was kind of final straw for me.  It was still KIND OF fun when you were playing music off CD as you could decide where segues would start, how/where to drop imaging during a segue, etc so it flowed.  Also some decision-making about how to use a set of music to accommodate ALL the stuff you wanted (contesting, imaging, hits in key clock positions, etc.). 

When it went to digital hands-off .. it was coffin nail #1.  When you couldn't even tough digital segue control (e.g. Prophet got locked down) it was pretty clear there was no such thing as "talent" in the "air talent".  Pretty much a playground where I can't see ANY fun any more. 

And all that assumes that ANY freedom about what you could say or do had already been hosed out through aircheck sessions, etc. LONG before the flow control was taken away.

But it WAS reassuring to know that some blow-cheese consultant nine or twelve states away cared a lot more about execution on every station during every air shift than any of us EVER could......

[TheBigA]

Compared to the time and trouble we would go through 20 or 30 years ago to maintain element to element flow no one is worth a crap these days.  Why do you think radio cume drops every year over the last 2 decades??

I hate to break it to you, but creative segues didn't build cume, and the lack of creative segues doesn't hurt it.  And I trained at the feet of Thom O'hair.  If he was alive, he'd tell you that he didn't do them to build cume.  Traditional radio goals were absolutely not his motivation.

Progressive rock radio was important to a small dedicated group of music lovers for a short period of time.  The grand experiment was killed by Album Oriented Rock, which valued variety over building a flow.  And individual show identity was killed by the desire to build an overall station sound.  All this happened over 25 years ago.

[TheBigA]

When it went to digital hands-off .. it was coffin nail #1. 

Why do you think the street MCs still use Technics turntables?  They still even do a slip cue every now and then.  That was living life in the fast lane baby.  Just don't try it with a belt drive.

[HowardMBurgers]

Andy Barber and I used to have segue contests and we weren't using CD's or vinyl.  We did it with good ol' fashioned tape carts.  You can't pitch them up or down.  You can't start them late or where you want to (easily).  ITC RP cart decks with a Gates Statesman console and big knobs baby!   CD's are for pu$$y's and bad wedding DJ's.

The BigA is correct though, nobody cared other than those doing the segues.  Andy and I knew that at the time, but hey at least we were entertained!

[TheBigA]

We did it with good ol' fashioned tape carts.  You can't pitch them up or down.  You can't start them late or where you want to (easily). 

Exactly.  Carts were far more exact than vinyl or CD.  We had PacRecs at our place.  That's Pacific Recorders.  The greatest invention was rapid cue.  But we could hit a cart an it would be right on the beat.  And it wouldn't skip.

[HowardMBurgers]

Exactly.  Carts were far more exact than vinyl or CD.  We had PacRecs at our place.  That's Pacific Recorders.  The greatest invention was rapid cue.  But we could hit a cart an it would be right on the beat.  And it wouldn't skip.

I remember those..worked on a few of them.  They used a worm gear and servo motor to pull in the pinch roller rather than a solenoid and plunger.  The advantage was supposed to be less wow and flutter because of more even pressure between the tape and capstan.  It was fine until the little position sensor conked out and the motor burned out causing the main circuit board to cook.  Made lot's of smoke and panicked a few jocks.

Remember "Fido-Pak" cart machines?  Actually known as Fidelipack, they had a lot more sophisticated electronics to automatically adjust for phase shift as the tape aged or tracked across the head.  They actually worked pretty well if you used the correct cart with them.