In addition to working on XDRs, during the pandemic I helped keep a weekly two-hour radio show "Vinyl Revival" on the air for community radio station KRVM (the only HD station we have here). Because the studio is owned by the school district and is physically attached to a high school, they had strict rules regarding studio access. Volunteer DJs weren't able to go to the studio to do their shows live for over a year.
The host of Vinyl Revival, Greg Carter, set up a workable home studio where he could make the raw recordings himself (with only one turntable), record separate voice tracking, and then put everything on a cloud drive. I downloaded his raw WAV files, smoothed out the rough edges and pieced everything together, still in WAV format to retain the best quality audio. Completed shows were then submitted to the studio via cloud drive and aired in WAV or high-bitrate MP3 format. Together we all kept the show on the air that way for over a year.
Now it's back to Greg live in the studio most of the time. Occasionally if he can't do his show due to other commitments, we collaborate to make a show the old pandemic way.
Around 2019 I used earnings from my XDR hobby to buy the station new higher-quality turntables, cartridges, and phono preamps. And I continue to do turntable maintenance for them. The Reloop RP-7000 MK2 turntables are fitted with Ortofon Concorde MKII Mix DJ cartridges. We have to use DJ cartridges because the hosts do some back-cueing and the cartridges need to be rugged. And honestly, the Ortofons sound really good. The phono preamps are ART Project Series, powered by a regulated linear DC power supply and with the analog outputs plugged directly into the studio's all-analog console.
Check out "Vinyl Revival" with host Greg Carter Mondays at 5PM Pacific. Stream KRVM live Here. You can also listen to Greg's two most recent Vinyl Revival shows (and other shows), and view playlists, in the station's Archived Shows section Here.
Greg Carter preparing for his first show on the station's new turntable setup.
The station wanted the dust covers to stay on so that's how we rolled.
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