Casey's Voice-Through the Years..... -- American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century

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Date Posted: 08:01:04 04/17/02 Wed
Author: scott s.
Subject: Casey's Voice-Through the Years.....

OK....being a radio producer, and working with various tools for audio processing (compression, EQ) I have a good ear for detail when listening to AT40. Casey is the key ingredient, and obviously his voice, and any audio processing put on it is important and quite obvious for those in the know.

As I recently obtained a copy of the Y2K Milllenium Special from Robert Wagner, I can, to a degree safely say that I have good examples of AT40 in most of the decades, and casey's voice, besides showing the obvious signs of age, has changed over the years, mainly in the processing.

-the 70's had some great processing on casey's voice, punchy, with some nice bottom end added (bass) and using what sounds to be a ribbon or condenser microphone. to me, the smoothness of the voice is too smooth to be a dynamic.

-the latter 80's started bringing out a bit of the edgyiness in the mid range frequencies, common in movie trailers and commerical voiceovers, usually obtained by EQ and a bit of compression. casey's never had heavy compression on his voice, it wouldn't work, and it would sound like a tape recorder's automatic gain control anyways. (sidebar-compression is how TV commericals sound louder then the program!!!)with the level getting louder when he's quiet and backing off when he's louder.

-the 90's saw westwood one doing the same thing as ABC watermark, unnatural edgyiness in the mid range. I thought it was the vinyl sources, but I have a few CD's from then, and it's the same on the CD's.

-the Y2K countdown has AMFM (and now assumingly, premiere) going back to the original 70's style EQ (using a UHER 1176 limiter??? as mentioned that was used in the 70's in the book)with natural unexagerrated mid range.

I find it also interesting that there's a quite noticable hollow echo on the Y2K countdown voice tracks. this is usually the sign of a poor (acoustically) voice booth, or he's too far from the mic or both. this is the first time i've ever heard this with casey, so I guess I picked up on it(and i've dealt with the problem at the radio station level!) it's true these days, you don't need much, not like the past when you'd have foot thick doors, and insulation that's rather thick, but it's good to have something that cuts a lot of reflection, be it the voice bouncing on the glass in the VO booth or otherwise. Is this a weekly thing or a isolated incident? I'm a little curious about that.

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Replies:

Re: Casey's Voice-Through the Years..... -- Hot AC, 19:52:48 04/19/02 Fri
- Re: Casey's Voice-Through the Years..... -- scott s., 06:10:12 04/20/02 Sat