Last night, sub-tropical storm Nestor roared up the coastal plain of the Carolinas and left nearly 3 and a half inches of rainwater in the gauge on the deck in my back yard. But that’s not all; it seems that whenever Mother Nature sends a little rain to visit, she also sends along her friend Arthur. You know Arthur; Arthur Itis!
Mind you, I’m not complaining, my arthritis is not bad; just bad enough to make me realize that I’m no longer that immortal 18 year old that I was when I started spinning records on the radio. So I sat reclining in my easy chair with my after breakfast coffee this morning while nursing my left shoulder and eyeing the bottle of Aleve that sits on the table next to the chair on my right hand side. That is fortunate since my left shoulder is usually the villain in my saga.
So where did “Arthur” come from?
Left: An example of a small station control room. It couldn’t be the sports of my youth because, while I throw baseballs left handed, I bat right handed. And like most left handed folks in a right handed world I tend to be more ambidextrous than left handed. For example I can use a computer mouse with either hand with almost equal dexterity. I do write left handed. Well at least after in the third grade the nuns figured out that I was left handed and switched me over. I tell everyone that my horrible handwriting is from the loss of those formative handwriting years. Yeah, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it. About the only time I sign anything these days is the operator’s log at WUSC-FM and I strongly believe that if you looked at that log, you would be hard pressed to read my signature. The only thing that gives me away is my hand printed name in the space next to my signature.
I know that sounds weird because of the loss of my printing years in elementary school, but when I took drafting in college I realized that my printing was far better than my cursive writing. So I printed my notes in college rather than try to decipher my cursive notes that became hieroglyphics once the ink dried on the page. These days, almost everything I write is done on a keyboard.
So, exactly why is it that Arthur visits my left shoulder anyway? I have a theory that all those long hours sitting in air chairs in radio control rooms is the culprit. It seems that when an on air audio board was laid out, the designers tended to put the most used items on the left side of the audio board. At least that is the way most of the boards that I’ve used and the ones I use today are designed.
Back at WUSC, the left hand turntable (TT #1) and reel to reel tape machine were on the first two knobs (called pots – short for potentiometers) on the left side of the mixing console in both the production and on air control rooms. Then the control room microphone was on the third knob followed by the right reel to reel machine and the right turntable. That might seem like an equally spaced layout but like most of my fellow DJs tended to start my show on the left and then move to the right. We tended to use TT #1 and the left reel to reel machine more than the ones on the right.
The layout of the main control room in the Cornell Arms Building studios of WCOS was even more weighted to the left side. The left most “pot” was switched between the two Maggie reel to reel tape machines mounted in a rack next to the left end of console. Next there was the TT #1 “pot” followed by the “pot” for the three cart machines; more about those cart machines later. Finally in position #4 was the “pot” for the control room microphone. That was usually set once at the beginning of each DJs air shift but the switches immediately above were used continuously. The 5 “pots” on the right side of the board were used to bring in the studio on air telephone line, the remote broadcast lines, the microphones in the other two control rooms, TT#2 and the Maggie tape recorders in the rack on the right side of the console. Additionally the remote start buttons for the cart machines, the telephone and the remote control for the transmitter were to the left of the board. One last thing about placement, all the storage racks for the carts were on the left and all three cart machines were on the left wall of the studio behind where the DJ sat. So we were constantly swinging to the left to load and unload cards while records were playing.
To make matters more interesting, for all intents and purposes, TT #1 was the only usable turntable in the control room. TT #2 was just too hard to reach.
Can you see where this is going; my left arm and shoulder got a lot more action than my right.
It didn’t get better at WIS TV and Radio. The left side of the console was much more heavily used there as well. At radio all of the cart storage racks and both triple-decker ITC cart machines were on the left. The “pot” for the automation, the control room microphone and the turntable “pots” with their remote starts and the cart “pots” were all on the left side of the console. Even the network was on the left since it came through the automation system.
I must confess that I was a member of the left concentric design school in audio board layout design. When I designed the layout of the Audio Designs and Manufacturing console we installed in the new studio / control room expansion in 1974-75, I placed the studio microphone “pots” in positions one though 8 followed by the two turntable “pots” then the carts, reel to reel tapes the remote lines and finally NBC on the last pot on the right. I wonder how many audio operators have sore left shoulders today.
The board layout on the AudioArts D-75 console at WUSC-FM I use today is a little more balanced. It has the four studio microphones on the left followed by the three CD players. The next two are the turntables one of which is seldom used and the other is switched to the “B” position for my computer where I have my music, Jingles and other production elements. Following that is the Automation “pot” and then the Marti (again seldom used) and then the phone and finally the cross feed from the other studio. Since for the most part I use Microphones 1 & 2, the “pot” for my computer, the automation and the phone “pots”. I am a little more spread out. I have one mouse on my left to operate my computer in the copy rack above the console and two on the right to operate the automation and the control room utility computer. Note: that last computer is a Mini-Mac while everything else in my radio life is Windows based. I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve tried to “right click” the Mini-Mac which of course does not have that function or even a button for it.
On my AudioArts Air 1 Console in my home studio, the manufacturer has restricted the microphone inputs to only “pots” 1 and 2. So in order to balance out my “shoulder and arm” load, I put the auxiliary input for the Otari Reel to Reel tape recorder, the computer and the phone to “pots” 6, 7 & 8. The computer itself which has the music, jingles and production elements on it is to the left of the console and the mouse to the left of it. Finally I have balance in my life, and “Mr. Arthur Itis” appreciates that. Oh MY!
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