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The PreSonus PD-70 dynamic broadcast microphone is specifically designed for capturing the human voice and improving intelligibility, even in acoustically unfriendly spaces. The cardioid pickup pattern reduces the amount of extraneous and unwanted background noise entering the mic’s sides and back while focusing on voices in front of it—just what you want for podcasts or radio broadcasts.

The all-metal PD-70 is an end-address dynamic mic with an integrated (yet removable) foam windscreen and a simple, compact mechanical design that will fit and look great on the smallest of desktops.

PreSonus PD-70 Dynamic Broadcast Microphone

You can thread the mount onto a standard mic desk stand or boom, and connect a cable to any preamp using its gold-pinned XLR output jack. It comes ready to use with a gimbal-style integrated yoke mount that allows tilting the mic up or down to aim it precisely. Once in position, it has a single knob to lock it down. It does not get any simpler than this!

I tried the PD-70 in my studio as a vocal mic feeding a Retro Instruments 500PRE preamp; I also put it up for a Zoom meeting into an SSL 2 USB Audio Interface.

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The PD-70 has a frequency response of 20 Hz to 20 kHz with a shelving boost starting at about 1.5 kHz and extending out to 10. I can hear that little boost in the midrange — especially on small computer speakers — and it does impart a certain gravitas and authority to speaking voices. I found it helpful for somber-sounding online speakers, as long as they stayed close in front of the mic to maintain a fat-sounding “lift in the bass” due to the cardioid proximity effect.

At the same time, the PD-70 suppresses p-pops better than some other dynamic mic I have, with or without a pop filter. Removing the foam windscreen, you can see a resemblance to the internal mechanical design of the Shure SM7B dynamic mic.

Paired with the 500PRE (tube-based preamp), the sound was rich and noise-free, and I would have no issues using the PD-70 for a loud lead vocal track — provided the singer could stay aimed at the mic. The SSL 2 USB preamp worked well except for very quiet singing, when that unit starts to run out of available mic gain.

The PreSonus PD-70 wins as a workhorse of a mic that will improve the sound of anyone doing online podcasting, internet radio or hosting/participating in Zoom meetings.

This article originally appeared in our sister publication Mix. Radio World invites both users and suppliers to tell us about recently installed new or notable equipment. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post PreSonus PD-70 Designed to Improve Intelligibility appeared first on Radio World.

BOSTON — American Tower Corporation has closed its acquisition of CoreSite Realty Corporation.

It follows the completion of its previously announced tender offer for all outstanding shares of common stock of CoreSite.

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Add a Class B 1kw AM facility at 1600 on the dial, serving the Beaumont-Port Arthur, Tex., since 1948, to the list of senior-band radio stations that will be calling it quits instead of carrying on into 2022 and beyond.

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The high-profile cancellations of in-person expo hall booths at next week’s CES 2022 by some of the world’s biggest companies hit a new crescendo on Tuesday. One of the biggest advocates of radio advertising is cancelling its full-scale conference and expo plans as the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus continues to cause air transportation headaches alongside case surges in key locales — including Clark County, Nev.

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Despite the upheaval associated with the pandemic, COVID-19 continues to bring to everyone’s day-to-day lives television. It remains a primary source of news and entertainment, with U.S. viewers consuming on average more than three hours of TV per day, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Even with the growing number of viewing options available, including streaming and on- demand via smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other devices that can fragment audiences, WideOrbit Chief Product Officer Will Offerman can’t speak higher about broadcast TV. In his view, it is still the most effective method for reaching large numbers of consumers.

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A Class A FM radio station and its AM sibling with 1,000 watts of power, both of which serve the Missouri communities of Bonne Terre and Farmington, are being transferred to a new owner.

Thanks to a modified agreement between the buyer and seller, we now know how much more valuable the land, building, improvements and towers are, compared to the licenses and permits tied to the AM/FM combo.

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For a bit of holiday fun, Ken Deutsch, former jingle magnate and longtime Radio World contributor, has unleashed the latest in his series of airchecks of “Wonderful WORM,” a 1960s radio station that exists in his head.

Featuring the misadventures of DJ Johnny Lizard, the parody series is available for your listening pleasure.

Get ready for radio news item groaners like “A giant fly was seen attacking the Pomona Police Station. This morning the SWAT team had to be called in.” But it’s also an audio treat for those who loved the sound of AM radio in the 1950s and ’60s. Sound effects and audio drop-ins were sourced from films and records in his collection, and custom jingles for Wonderful WORM were again recorded.

Deutsch, aka Ken R., is former owner of recording studio in Ohio that for 20 years produced “re-sings” of PAMS jingles. He grew up a self-described jingle freak who started collecting jingles in 1964 and later lucked into the purchase of more than 3,000 reels of PAMS jingles, including the instrumental backing tracks.

The website JingleSamplers.com has more on that history and numerous jingle samplers.

 

The post Wonderful WORM Is Back appeared first on Radio World.

The Independent Broadcasters Association’s (IBA) Board of Directors has elected officers for the 2022-2023 term.

Founder Ron Stone was re-elected for a second term as President and Executive Director of the IBA. Two of the other officers were also re-elected: Darrell Calton, Chairman and Assistant Secretary; and Allen Dick, VP and Treasurer.

Tony Renda was elected as Secretary and Assistant Treasurer, replacing Mike Flood.

“I am very excited to have Tony Renda as one of our leaders in the next term,” Stone said. “Tony has been instrumental in helping the IBA with many of the initiatives we took on in our first two years. The IBA has succeeded in its first 18 months delivering many new ways for its members to save on operational cost, create new revenues, and benefit from all the professionals in the industry that are working with us. We have said from the beginning that a large independent membership provides scale and with scale we can deliver many great things for independent broadcasters. I am looking forward to working with our management team to establish new goals for the IBA for 2022 and 2023.”

For streamers the big concern is latency. You may ask what is it? Simply defined, latency is the time it takes to get from here to there.

Now to put it in the context for streaming, it is the time content leaves the source and is played out by the intended audience. For sports, low latency is desirable and necessary. Nobody wants someone knowing about a sports play before anybody else, even if we are talking minutes.

An example of very bad latency was in the 1973 film The Sting. The gambling house knew the results of the horse race before the bets were placed. Yes, that is not good nor desirable.

For streamers, latency develops as the content passes through devices on its transport to the audience.

Let’s consider a simple audio file. First, it is played out, then the audio is processed, and next it is encoded with metadata. Then the file is sent through the network switches and routers out to the internet.

Depending on your connection, the packets may make some additional stops before reaching the CDN, which then transcodes the packets and streams them to the audience’s network connection and finally to your audience.

Yes, this takes time!

[Related: “Loudness Recommendations Honored by AES”]

Because of this time, the audience can hear a delay. It is noticeable, especially if they are comparing the stream to over-the-air content. The trick is to get the amount of latency down to the point of acceptance.

To try to lessen the inherent delay, you can use the Softvelum Low Delay Protocol (SLDP). This is a last-mile delivery protocol.

Whether you are encoding an RTMP, SRT, RTSP, NDI, MPEG-TS, HLS, Icecast or SHOUTcast stream, the SLDP protocol at the player side will pass the content to the audience with sub-second delay. SLDP is supported by modern browsers that support Media Source Extensions (MSE).

SLDP is proprietary and must be decoded with a free HTML5 player and dedicated mobile application. A custom mobile app experience can be created by subscribing to a mobile specific SDK.

The SLDP protocol also allows for synchronized playback across devices, ensuring that all members of your audience are viewing the same media at the same time. This can be incredibly important for second screen usage at live events or for any kind of real-time broadcast that both low-latency and consistent experience are important.

With sports as a key example again, imagine two viewers in a room together watching on their own devices, both getting 1- to 2-second delays, but with one about half a second ahead of the other. Each exciting play or devastating mistake spoiled for the other viewer as the quicker of the two reacts first.

Synchronized low-latency not only gives your audience a great experience compared to traditional over-the-air broadcast, but also ensures you maintain the shared experience that would otherwise be lost when viewing streamed content.

Another way is to use WebRTC, which stands for Web-based Real Time Communications. WebRTC operates very similarly to SLDP, but the issue with this Google-developed open-source solution is there is not a standard implementation. Different services are not deploying it in the same way.

WebRTC is fast. A real-time latency could be below 500 milliseconds. WebRTC is also supported by many browsers and is native to iOS.

According to StreamGuys the advantage of SLDP is the standardization of deployment.

According to Eduardo Martinez, director of technology for StreamGuys, “When you use a purpose-built protocol for ultra-low latency streaming you can significantly cut down on the delay inherent in traditional segmented streaming protocols.”

When it comes to streaming of events, mainly sports and breaking news, the audience will not tolerate high latency. In this world of multiple streams, the streamer does not want to be slower than an over-the-air broadcast. To quote Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part.

The author is a consultant who has held technical broadcast and streaming positions for companies like Entercom and CBS Radio. He is co-chair of the AES Technical Committee for Broadcast and Online Delivery and chair of the Metadata Usage Working Group of the National Radio Systems Committee. Contact him at dkbialik@erols.com or 845-634-6595. His commentaries are a recurring feature at radioworld.com.

The post Tips to Help Diminish Streaming Delay appeared first on Radio World.

On May 11, 1951, an AM radio station signed on the air under the ownership of David M. Segal. On that day, KDKD became the fifth station to be owned by Segal.

Today, the AM is part of the Radford Media Group, led by Clifford and Brittany Radford. And, at 5:15pm Central on Friday, Dec. 31, 2021, the Class D radio station that has served Clinton, Mo., to the southeast of Kansas City, will sign off the air forever.

Radford says the decision wasn’t up to them, but the entity that owns the KDKD-AM broadcast tower. That would be Crown Castle, the communications infrastructure provider that saw 2020 revenue of $5.84 billion and has a market capitalization of $88.67 billion on the NYSE.

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