RADIO AND ITS RECEIVERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 529, 5 December 1928, Page 16

RADIO AND ITS RECEIVERS

Conducted fer THE SUN by

R. F. HAYCOCK.

More Resonance Wanted

CONCERT HALL ATMOSPHERE Studio Items Sound “Stuffy” RADIO listeners throughout New Zealand are complaining that the time has come for an improved system of studio transmission. The broadcasting of electrical gramophone recordings and transmissions from the concert hall during ait actual performance have emphasised the need for more atmosphere and resonance in the studio. American and English stations have already realised the advantage of transmission giving a true atmosphere, both to the performer and to the listener, and all the curtains and stuffy hangings have been discarded.

In the early days of radio broadcasting, the aim of the studio director was so to drape and hang the walls of his studio that nothing but the absolute sound-wave from the voice or instrument should be transmitted through the microphone. But nowadays, with the growth of a more critical appreciation among listeners, the director is realising the necessity of* achieving something of the atmosphere of the concert hall in the studio. The American stations have already made this change, and, with the absence of sound-deadening curtains, broadcasting has taken on a new resonance and atmosphere which gives, in effect, the impression of listening in a big concert hall. This change from the old to the new in broadcasting is equivalent to the difference between the old and new (electrical) recordings for the gramophone. Whereas for the old recording the performer sang or played before a horn in a close, small room, for the new recording he is placed before the microphone in a much larger space, and everything is done to transmit to tho record the .effect of a performance in a big hall. Some of the new

gramophone performers are even recorded in large halls, such as the Queen’s or Wigmore Halls, London, during an actual recital before an audience. Hearing such records as these on the gramophone and over the wireless, as well as performances in theatres and churches transmitted over the wireless, has given the New Zealand public the taste for similar effects from the studio. A Sim reporter who interviewed many listeners and radio experts to-day was everywhere told of this change that must come in New Zealand broadcasting. One man instanced the broadcasting of the Royal Musical Society’s performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio “St. Paul,” which was put on the air by 3YA. “Such a performance as this, in the open space of a hall, makes the studio items sound very stuffy,” he said. Another listener pointed out that in their endeavour to get realism in the broadcasting of plays, certain English stations were transmitting different acts of the same play from different studios which more nearly gave the atmosphere of an actual performance.