Five Top Tips – FM Processing

Have you ever wondered why your station sounds ‘quieter’ than others? Here are Clyde’s top tips to improve your station’s sound:

1. FM Processing operates on everything that comes out of the on air mixer, and many stations rely on it to catch excessive mic levels. Although many great FM processors can cope with this type of overload, microphone processing would be more effective for this.
2. Some processors have preset ‘day settings’, which change your sound during different parts of the day; for example, a ‘softer’ sound overnight.
3. FM Processing can make your station sound ‘louder’. It does this by adjusting the dynamic range of the signal which you broadcast. Essentially, it reduces the difference between the loudest and quietest sounds.
4. Many operate by analyzing the signal and reducing the ratio of peak to RMS levels.
5. There are great processors, and there are not-so-great processors… The great ones, like in Clyde’s products, divide the audio spectrum into many frequency bands, then adjusts the levels of all those bands individually, then re-combines them.

And a bonus tip:
A badly set-up processor can sound worse than no processor at all!

To get the best from your processor requires specialist knowledge and experience.

Clyde Broadcast have helped hundreds of stations around the world to produce the perfect sound with our state-of-the-art FM processors. Click here to ensure your sound is as clear and loud as possible for your audience and advertisers.