Terry Green Blogs About KUSP

This is likely to be the last post in this blog for the year (unless something especially interesting happens in the next week) — and I wanted to finish by showing you how our Upgrade 2011 studio renovation is coming along.

There are three studios at KUSP. Renovations in one are essentially complete, and another studio is nearly finished. Here’s a look at how they turned out!

Production Studio 2 was the first to get overhauled, starting in September. You can see its skin and bones back at this blog post.

This picture shows J.D. Hillard at work this afternoon. To his left is the “control surface,” which is where studio users mix the different audio sources and send them to the right destinations. This was always called “the board” (or by some of my British friends, “the desk”). Up to now at KUSP, a wire with the audio running down it would connect each source of audio to the board, and mixing and switching would happen inside the board itself. Now, what we have (in combination with the computer screen behind it) is more of a virtual device that sends instructions to wherever the audio is coming from (or going to) — anywhere in the station. Gigabit Ethernet switches connect everything together.

In front of J.D. is another computer screen on which we record and edit digital audio files; typically, the audio sources for that editing (such as the microphone in the picture) are what we have assigned to the volume controls, on-off switches, and other knobs (real or virtual) on the control surface.

I’ve written about the “blades” that are at the heart of the system before. These are the devices that take analog or digital audio signals into the system (converting the signals to packets that can move around on the audio Ethernet environment), or convert an output stream to a standard digital or analog audio signal so it can leave the studio (or be fed to speakers or headphones). This pair of blades has been rolling along nicely in our audio server rack for about two months now!

Once we had Production Studio 2 up and running, we started in on our main recording studio, Production Studio 1. Here, Bruce Larsen is carving the right-sized hole in the countertop for this studio’s control surface.

And here’s how the room looks today, back in operation. There is still a little bit of finish work to do but we’ve been using the room most of December. The first KUSP show to be produced here, by the way, was Bonnie Jean’s fine late-night program, “The Playlist.” Blades and source equipment (CD players, tape decks, and so on) are installed in the upright racks to the right and left of the control surface, which is a bigger, more versatile version of the one in Production Studio 2. People we interview sit on the opposite side of the counter, and the window looks into the Peter Troxell Performance Studio (also known as “Studio T”), which will finally get permanent equipment about ten years after my predecessor, Peter, started that project.

This close-up gives you an idea how much control we have of each audio source now. Any audio signal at KUSP can be assigned to any control channel in any studio; the display in the middle of the channel strip tells you what’s assigned right now. The blue and white buttons at the bottom turn the audio on and off; the vertical slide fader adjusts the sound level; and the buttons above the display let you select different destinations for the audio.

What’s left to do? We’ve been sidetracked somewhat by delays in getting carpet installed in the last studio to upgrade, which is our main on-air studio, but today we got word that the carpet should finally get to Santa Cruz the middle of next week. We will speedily move our on-air operations into Production Room 1 (so if you hear some unusual flubs on the air right around New Year’s, don’t blame overindulgence by the hosts!) and get the last renovations done. Then it’s on to 2012!

Once again, I want to express my gratitude to the hundreds of KUSP supporters who made special gifts in the first half of 2011 to match our federal grant and make Upgrade 2011 a reality. It’s a joy to produce radio in such a flexible and up-to-date facility, and we owe it all to you. See you next year!

Now that we’ve just started installing the new equipment for KUSP’s “Upgrade 2011″ project, it seemed like the right time to get a couple of photos of our starting place. Many people have visited KUSP in the 30+ years our studios have been at 203 8th Avenue, but far more folks haven’t seen the place. So…. here’s the tour!

This is our main on-air studio. There’s almost always someone sitting in the chair in the foreground; I took the picture on Saturday morning right in the middle of the third half of Car Talk, so we didn’t have to have a person there for a little while. Under the big digital clock is our main audio console, the single most expensive piece of equipment we’ll replace as part of Upgrade 2011. Among other things, you’ll see only one of the four audio level meters still lights up (the bulbs are hard to find and the sockets are problematic). There’s a hole where a yellow “OFF” button should be on the far right end (can’t get the parts).

You can also see our three on-air CD players (dark grey rectangles, one to the left of the console, two to the right) and the two turntables we use to play records (one on each side; the one on the right has our program log book sitting on its plastic cover). The top computer screen shows the status of the digital audio storage system that plays back recorded programs; the bottom one is a general purpose computer where we look up traffic reports, weather forecasts, and so on.

There is exactly one piece of Upgrade 2011 equipment in this “before” picture. In the right-hand rack, between the two pieces of light gray-painted equipment, is a skinny black unit with some blue stickers on it. That’s a Denon CN-F650R professional audio recorder; here is a better look at it (thanks to Denon’s web site):

This is for recording in-studio performances, live interviews, and similar kinds of events. Instead of using tapes or CD’s, this device puts the audio on a removable USB storage device that plugs in the front. We’re hoping this will be more reliable and lower maintenance than the tape and CD recorders it replaces. In the main picture there’s a purple CD recorder above the Denon and a Panasonic DAT (digital audio tape) recorder below it (partially obscured by a taped-up note – you can see that we don’t use DAT tape on the air that much any more!)

Across the hall from the on-air studio is Production Studio 1:

We record most every kind of program we have in here, and we can link this studio to studios anywhere in the world through a couple of different digital audio delivery systems, for either live or recorded programs. The equipment layout is very similar to the on-air studio; this is useful because (1) we can use this as a back-up on-air studio if the main studio is down for maintenance and (2) it makes training our volunteers and new employees easier. No new equipment is visible in this studio yet. We are looking forward to replacing the CRT-type computer monitor and regaining some much-needed counter space!

On the other side of the wall behind Production 1′s computer monitor is Production Studio 2:

“Studio” is kind of overstating the current capability of this room. I’m told it was built in the 1980′s as an announcer’s booth; you can stand in the middle of the room and touch opposite walls in one dimension. After years of disuse we revived it when KUSP Reports ramped up its number of stories in 2009, and now it’s in near-constant use as an editing location during the day. In the picture you can see (left to right) the room’s DAT recorder, a small tabletop CD player, the microphone and a very small audio mixer, and the computer screen for our digital audio editor. This room will be totally overhauled as part of Upgrade 2011.

Our final stop is our satellite receiver rack:

This equipment lets us receive all our nationally and internationally-distributed programs. Some programs (like Morning Edition) are live as you hear them, while others are time-shifted by a few hours (The Diane Rehm Show is an example) or a few days (the Friday night broadcast of This American Life). All of these programs are delivered to the Public Radio Satellite System’s main transmitting uplink station in Washington, DC, and received by the hundreds of local public radio stations across the country. This is an all-digital system and most of the units mounted in the rack are actually specialized small computers running Linux. These devices receive the satellite signal and either turn it back into audio to run live from the studios or route it over to the digital audio storage network.

With this gear, the more green lights that are on, the better.

The receivers in the top of the rack are brand new and will go into service after we finish Upgrade 2011. In the middle of the picture is a “patch bay” for the rack. We move audio feeds now by plugging and unplugging cords in a patch panel that might have been built 70 years ago — with the same parts that were used in telephone switchboards for decades…

Hope you liked the tour – as we get more stuff installed, I’ll have more posts.