Hi. This is the technical manual, something I recommend every DJ reads carefully. It’s the section that you can refer to during your show if you are curious about how to use any equipment, or to familiarize yourself with the overall studio during training or when you are not in the studio. This section is broken up into four sections: the use of the console; playing music on the CD, Tape, or Record players; the microphones; and other inputs and overall station maintenance.

This is the largest, most expensive, and most important piece of equipment you will be using. Please be careful when using the console, as it directly affects how you and your music are heard in Radioland. Don’t worry though, the board is surprisingly user friendly, and you will become comfortable with it very quickly. Click here to open up a window of the board, to consult while you go over the rest of this section.

The board is split up into 12 channel strips, which are essentially identical across the board. Starting at the top and working down each channel, the items are:

1. the channel number;
2. the A bus button;
3. the B bus button;
4. the Program button;
5. the Audition button;
6. the Telephone button;
7. the Cue button;
8. the channel button;
9. the fader;
10. the channel On button; and
11. the channel Off button.

1) Channel Number: Self-explanatory

2) A bus button: Make sure the A bus is lit up on every channel on the board.

3) B bus button: Nothing is hooked up to the B bus button, so it shouldn’t be on.

4) Program button is the main output, which goes to the broadcasting equipment for AM, FM, and the Internet streaming audio. All of the Program buttons should be lit across the board—if they’re not, you’re not broadcasting.

5) Audition button selects what goes to the tape recorder (Tape Player 2). If you want to record your show, all of these buttons should be selected.

6) Telephone selector should not be lit up, we do not have a telephone interface yet.

7) Cue button sends the channel to the Cue speaker.

--On the Mic channels, this button, when depressed, will mute the channel, but not send the Mic input to the Cue speaker. This is called the "Cough" button. You can guess when a Mic mute button will come in handy.

--On the other channels, the Cue button sends the input to the Cue speaker, whether or not the channel ‘On" button is selected. This is very useful for cueing up music before it is sent to Program and broadcast. Cueing music is discussed elsewhere.

8) Channel label tells you what that channel has hooked up to it.

9) Fader controls the level of the input to the board.

--For Mics, set the level at –15 to –10.

--For the Tape, CD, Mixer, and Aux channels, -10 to 0 is the best.

10) On button: When the button is On, the input is active, and the audio is sent to the Program and Audio outputs. The VU meters (more information on VU meters later) will indicate the level of the input.

11) Off button: When a cannel is Off, nothing is sent to the Program or Audition outputs, though pushing the Cue button does allow the input to be heard out of that speaker.

The music or Mic levels could be too high, and the input could overpower the console’s circuitry, causing massive distortion. This sounds really bad, and can damage the board. The red lights on the VU meters indicate that the music is too loud. The proper way to turn on the channel is with the Fader in the lowest position. After the channel has been turned on, play the audio source and move the Fader up to the appropriate level.

The VU meters are the 5 curved meters at the top of the board. These are very important for watching your levels while broadcasting. It is very important that your levels are not too high. If the needles on the VU meters ever reach the red zone, the music or Mic is too loud. If the red light flashes, your levels are too high. If the red light is constant, or on most of the time, your levels are dangerously high, and console damage is likely. Be sure to watch your levels as much as possible, because they affect how listeners hear you. Keep in mind, if your levels are too low, the broadcasting equipment can’t work at full efficiency, and you cannot be heard well.

Optional: Advanced Cueing: Instead of using the onboard cue speaker to cue up songs, the monitor speakers or headphones can be used to preview your music before you play it. To do this, look at the Monitor / Headphones assignment matrix to the right of the last fader, below the ‘Radio Systems’ label on the console. There are two columns of buttons, one with the label ‘Monitor’ over it, the other with ‘Headphones’ over it. The top four of these buttons in each column is all you have to worry about. From the top down, these buttons are Program, Audition, Telephone, and Cue. Pushing these buttons assigns the Monitor or Headphones to output one of these four channels. Both of these columns should normally be set to Program for both Monitor and Headphones, but setting either column to Cue would direct anything with the Cue button selected in the Channel to output to either the Monitors or Headphones, whichever you have selected.

The tape player behaves in much the same way. The only issue with using tapes is finding the appropriate song on each tape. If you are going to play tapes on your show, I recommend using your tape player at home to find the start of the song you want. Rewinding and fast forwarding can get time consuming when you are trying to play other songs, do segues, and do Mic sets. Good cueing technique is essential if you are trying to find a song in the studio. This should be something you try during training.

The bottom tape player (Tape 2) is the deck that you can record to in the studio. To record your show, first make sure that all of the ‘Audition’ buttons are lit up on the board. Those assign that output to the input of that player. Then, insert a blank tape in the bottom deck, and hit the record button. That will put it into record mode, paused. When you are ready to start recording, just hit the pause button, and the deck will start recording. It should be set up to flip to the second side when it reaches the end of the first, but this can be changed with the ‘Rev. Mode’ switch on the front of the deck.

The turntables are slightly mire complicated to use, since they require another mixer before they go to the console. The mixer is arranged in a similar manner to the console in that it has two channels, one for the left turntable, one for the right. The two channels, from the top down have several knobs and level faders: Gain; EQ; Balance; Line / Phono selectors; Level Faders; and the Cross Fader at the very bottom. These are detailed below:

-The gain knobs control the input level of the mixer. It determines how much amplification the record gets before it is sent to the level meters of the mixer. If the record was recorded at a very low volume, then the gain should be set higher, and vice versa for a loud record. It is designed to match the output levels of two records for mixing and scratching, but for basic purposes, the gain knobs can be set in the middle.

-The Equalization faders set how much the Bass, Mid, and Treble is lifted or cut on the record. For the most part, unless you are doing advanced mixing or scratching techniques, leave these in the middle position.

-The balance should always be set in the middle, so the record sounds equally loud out of the left and right speakers.

-The Line / Phono selectors should always be set to Phono, which selects the input the record players are hooked up to. If this is set to Line in, the channel will not sound.

-The Level Faders behave in the same manner as the Faders on the man console. If you want to fade in to or out of a song, use these.

-The Cross Fader is the device that selects which turntable you are hearing. Moving it left or right fades into the elft or right turntable, respectively. It can be used for advanced scratching technique, if that is your thing.

Cueing on the Turntables is a little more complicated. This must be done through the headphones attached to the mixer. There are two faders that control which turntable is heard through the headphones: Monitor Level and CF Monitor. The Monitor Level fader sets the volume of the headphone output. The CF Monitor is another cross fader, just like the cross fader on the bottom of the mixer. Moving it left allows you to hear what is playing on the left turntable, even if the main cross fader is set to the right table. This allows you to put the needle in the silence before the song. You will get to practice this during training. The turntables are not as complicated as they seem, it will take just a little practice to get the hang of it.

There is really only one thing to worry about when using the microphones, and that is how loud you are. I’m not referring to how loud you are talking, but how loud the input level is to the console. The best way to damage the board is to talk too loud into the Mics for too long. It is crucial that you watch your levels when doing a Mic set; it is extremely easy to overdrive the Mics and make the red lights flash a lot. To prevent this, set the Mic level around –15 on the console, and do not get closer than 4 inches to the microphone itself. Please do not put your mouth right up against the Mic, as your ‘P’ and ‘S’ sounds will be far to loud that close to the Mic.

The absolute most important thing when doing a Mic set is to wear the headphones. Please do this, because it is the only way to know if you are too loud, too quiet, or too unintelligible. I really cannot stress this enough.

There is an Auxiliary input to the left of the board. It is the little 1/8" stereo cable sitting on the table. It can be used to hook just about anything up to the board. If any device has a Line Out, such as a laptop, minidisk player, mp3 player, or whatever, it can be hooked up here. Everything in the channel strip works the same as the other devices, just be sure to watch your levels, like everything else.

There is a stack of equipment next to the turntables. It is what allows us to broadcast, powers the main console, and makes us sound good. It is very important, so please do not touch it for any reason. If you think something is wrong with it, because something is off, or there are lights flashing, please call the technical director.

The last thing applies more to the comfort of every DJ who uses the station. We all have to exist in this very cramped space, and keeping it clean is surprisingly easy to do if we all help a little. Don’t bring any food or drink into the studio. Regardless of howcareful you are, spills do happen. A spill in just the wrong spot could put us off the air for a long time. Also, not bringing food into the studio keeps wrappers, cups, cans, and other crap out of there. A surprising amount of crap can build up in a short time, so if you bring anything into the station, please leave with it, or put it in a garbage can. I know none of us wants to be the station’s janitor, so please help out.

Thank you. I hope you all have a great, fun semester Djing for WBAR. Good luck!