Retro Recording Studio

[TundraWalk3r]

Are you broadcasting over the air?

[TundraWalk3r]

Great video!



[rhyskallen]

that keyboard looks retro lol

[RadioHamGuy]

This is so fun to see! Keep that stuff working..

[chickeninthebreadpen]

Great job, fantastic! It's very special to see a radio station still using that equipment today!

[targetpanicrecords]

Yeah wow I love that stuff cool place bud

[sonick808]

awesome console!

[dearjunehardcore]

wow

[Batsenl]

nice !!!

is it a stereo mixing console ??

[AhYaOk]

thanks for showing us young guys how its done. you put a smile on my face.

[osdelced]

Your vintage radio studio makes me remember when i begin to work on this. Great memories man!... At that time, it was worth the work, and was very nice. And now, we use computer for all...

Computer makes it cold and boring. XP

[Individuell83]

you can be lucky I wasn't there I would have stolen some of your records and your reel to reels :D

[KINZOisHERE]

sweet

[fuckingharpsichord]

all the things

[hollywoodfinch]

Love those old QRK turntables.

[BudWiser999]

Well, well an AMPRO AC-8 console! Simply excellent competition against the Big Boys back in the day! I have one and it still works great!

[anyhooanytime]

I still have one of those AMPRO consoles.

[GAILTALER]

wish i coul'd see such beautiful studio in real....

[Fluffets]

One thing you might also consider is using the thin white cotton DJ gloves when handlign those records, and maybe they will last another 50 years too.... ;-)

[Fluffets]

Love seein' it all!... and love that you are preserving it and using it... though it would be kinda neat to see it without the keyboard and mouse in there for getting the really old time sepia feeling...

[KedmenecMartin]

what tape-machine do you have?

[southjk]

ampex 351

[GAILTALER]

wonderful video of a wonderful broadcast equipment!!

can you please tell me whats the name of thouse songs??

sorry for my bad english. I'm from Austria....

[kaferere]

How wonderful to see that beautiful equipment, especially the Ampex machines (440?) Thankyou for making my day.

[NTSC1080]

Get a proper microphone and you'll be all set. Even an SM57 would be correct to the vintage of that Ampro solid-state board.

[Mackinac359]

Is that an RCA dual channel board??

Shades of WGON/WQXO-FM Munising Michigan from 1974 !

[RCAquadruplex]

This is terrific! For years, I've thought about recreating a vintage radio studio like I used to work in as well, but haven't yet gotten around to it.

This is bringing back some great memories....excellent!

[southjk]

thanks for comment

[bigbadwolf2007]

@southjk Could you tell me what was the name and the artist of the last song you were playing.

[jrcstudios]

Wow, you know, you could replace all that with one computer, automate hundreds of stations from one location, and make all the stations across the country sound the same.. I think I'll do that. I'll call it "Clear Channel Radio".... What, that already been done? oh well!! NEVER SELL OUT, SOUTHJK!!!!!

[koolbossjock]

LMFAO..I hear ya,i was replaced by cheapchannels robots 3 times.Cheapchannel = thousands out of work.

[lrh1966]

It is great seeing, and hearing old broadcast gear, and keeping it maintained for current, and future generations to enjoy!!..and I like that old tube broadcast console that looks like a Gates brand mixer!!..Lloyd.

[fritzempit]

coolest thing on youtube...i just wanna shake your hand and see your shining eyes when you tell me bout your wonderful life..serious!!!

NO GAY THINGS....LoL ...

[briauc]

thats a crazy console

[ninjafinity]

Do you do all your recording/mixing with tape, then stick it on a PC? It would be pointless to have all that stuff then just use a computer.

[southjk]

we make wav files using fastedit and use media player to facilitate automation of the broadcast

[briauc]

i hate you

[southjk]

thanks for comment

[TVperson1]

Cool setup. Are those turntable stereo or mono?

[pastryhat]

mega jealous

[southjk]

thanks for comment

[skipsanders12345]

Dude... thats wicked cool.

[southjk]

thanks

[bastardmaker82]

what's the point in having all of that expensive vintage analog gear if it's just going to be sent to a PC anyway? why not just use modern technology?

[southjk]

we had to do alot of work to get all of the vintage equipment in working order...but got it for free basically. Recording the audio via analog setup gives it the sound we want. Putting it on the harddrive gives us a way to preserve the media for historical archive purposes...thanks for comment

[bastardmaker82]

that's cool... so do you broadcast your radio show through AM/FM or do you have a podcast or internet radio show?

[southjk]

local broadcast on the AM band....(low power, unlicensed but legal)

[randyriddle]

Fun video - I used to have one of those turntables and that looks like a Rek-O-Cut arm . You can use those big tables to play 16" transcriptions that radio stations used to get syndicated shows on - they make singles look really small.

[eadz061589]

what are the two songs called that you dont mention the names of

[southjk]

intro music is Charlie Parker..the songs played on the tt are "He walked on Water" by Randy Travis. and "Nobody does it better" by Carly Simon

[JeanKhule]

Hoooly molly !

[southjk]

thanks for commenting

[ClassicTVLover]

Reminds me of when I got into radio back in the 70's. There was something about the smell of old tube equipment that I miss in today's sterile radio studios. Thanks for the trip back in time - great retro studio!

[veditanimal]

I remember those old time turntables. I used to call them "Rumblemasters" as they did seem to have a constant low end vibration in each and every song!

[luminousoctaves]

I love those old machines. That computer keyboard really looks ugly in comparement, ha ha!

[bishopdante]

@luminousoctaves

should get a vintage IBM one surely!!

[michaelj0023]

Thanks for the post, when I started out at 89.9 WERG back in the late 80's, we had equippment similar to that. We had 3 cart machines, 2 turntables, one casette deck and now computer hard drive or keyboard. As for the queing, I remember back queing the record 1 quarter of a turn so the the song wouldn't sound crappy when you started it up.

[strong1235]

Thats a nice old setup! The keyboard looks SOOO funny sitting in front of that board though! Would love to have had a better shot of the Ampexes in the back rack rather than the home stuff on the side table.

[sopaman1234]

awesome equipment especialy the turntables!!

[MIKEPREAMP]

I see that you don't "back-cue" or "slip-cue" your records. That keeps them from getting "cue-burn". What model microphone is that? It looks like a late-model ribbon unit.

[Paddorna]

love the studio! But , it`s not a recording studio,is it?

[southjk]

you are right..it's more of a broadcast studio however we do some single mic recording via the ampex for fun

thanks for commenting

[iabhornc]

Now, that's what I call a studio. For some reason, it doesn't look right w/o the open reel decks and turntable which are becoming scarce. Thanks for sharing.

[iabhornc]

And great choice of music too :-)

[brerrabbit77]

I worked in a college radio station during 1979-1980. I think we had Russco turntables, but I don't remember for sure. We cued records by putting it in neutral, turning the motor off, manually spinning the record to the beginning of the song, then backing it up 1/4 rev, then put it in gear for the correct speed. When we got ready to play the record we would hit the power switch to turn on the motor and it would get up to speed and begin the song in about 1/2 a second.

[GUITAROASIS]

cool

[smurfswacker]

Does this bring back memories! In 1967 I signed on to KZSU, a 10-watt(!) college station with next to no budget. We had a marvellous late-40s control room with two turntables, two lousy cart machines and an Ampex 360. Adjoining the control room was a genuine radio studio,converted to a storage room (they'd painted over the acoustic tile). Some friends and I resurrected the studio and made a series of very bad radio plays. Some of the happiest hours I ever spent. Thanks for the memories!

[smurfswacker]

By the way, when we played records we always used a slip cue...turn up the preview, put the turntable in neutral, cue to beginning of song by hand, back up half revolution, pot back down, turntable motor on, table in gear, grab the felt pad while you talked...pot up, release felt and there you go. On the nose every time!

[southjk]

thanks for comments...hey that's great. I'd love to see that. I got a bit lazy but when I was playing records at KJBC AM 1150 I used a similar technique buy putting the tt in que and in neutral and spinning the tt get to the start of the song..never tried grabbing the felt but I'm gonna try that and post a new video

[turntablesrock]

Thank you for showing this.

I personally have a Russco Cue-Master that needs a new idler, and it's functionally similar but mine is a 12" platter, not a 16" platter like our TT's are.

I'd be interested in seeing more of those R2R machines. specifically the Ampexes and Tascam, and whatever the one withe the dustcover on it is...

[southjk]

thankyou for commenting. I'll try to do a video on the other tape machines soon. Check out the video I did on the Ampex 351 units

[kimberlyKfnOphiEAGLE]

Nice studio! Reminds me of when I got to visit the old WMVB 97.3 Studios in Vineland NJ, when I was 14 years old. I remember they had all the singles on the playlist on this type of backboard, so the DJ could just grab them and put them on the turntable. They also had the cart and open-reel machines, to record ads and PSA's.

[southjk]

thanks for comment..we really enjoy playing radio station

[wildbilltexas]

Thats great, In the early 80's worked at a country radio station in Pawhuska Oklahoma (KXVQ-AM). I did long 7-8 hour shifts on the weekend, mostly spinning 45's, with news some syndicated programming to fill up time.

The control room had the same models of (QRK) turntables, (with the remote start!) but we had a vintage Gates tube control board, and tapecaster cart machines. Great you kept that old gear up and running.

[southjk]

that's great...thanks for comments!

[THESTATEOFAUDIO]

Thats cool

[orphiusflux]

Very interesting. Would be great to see more of this studio.

[darksound1973]

Is your mixer Solid state or Tub?. Like the Reko-cut turn tables, those are solid ones. I still make wax cylinder blanks for Edison Phonographs. One project for the fututure is make a 4 imput mixer using ux-26 or 57 pre amp tubes.

[southjk]

the Ampro is solid state

thanks for comments