Rock Radio and Time Compression

[vogonity]

I am on the road traveling for work and I happened to turn on local rock radio in Allentown, PA. They happened to be playing "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" by Pink Floyd as some sort of alphabetical countdown. I was surprised to hear this somg on the radio as it is pretty long (12-13 min I think.) Anyway here is my question:

Do rock radio stations speed up the music they play? I could swear the song sounded too fast. Since I am not at home, I can't really pull out my CD and compare. Does anyone work in radio or would you be in the position to know whether this is happening?

[DS1]

1. radio edit

quite common for anything over 5 minutes

[vogonity]

2. thanks for the reply...

Do you know if it is sped up? I remember radio edits that had stuff cut out, like "Whole Lotta Love" had some of the weird middle part cut out, but this one seemed faster.

[DS1]

3. no, they cut bits out

sometimes the record company does it, sometimes the band does

Tool, for example, have a lot of their middle instrumental parts ripped out of their songs for the radio.

[pokerfan]

4. Yes, some stations do

It's called time compression and some stations use it to squeeze in more commercials. It's mostly used in television but is sometimes used in radio as well.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1245608

[StrongBad]

5. Were there sections of the song missing?

Or was everything there just as on the album but only sounding "faster"?

If it just sounded "faster" than the record, it could not be a sped up tempo or anything to do with speed at all but rather the added compression the radio station uses for it's broadcasting.

To help create a loud, enjoyable signal that is powerful to be picked up in all types of radio receivers, radio stations boost the compression of whatever they usually play. Maybe you were reacting to this difference but just attributed it to sounding "faster"?

Since you rarely hear this song on the radio and it sounded different when you heard it, it may just be because that's how it would sound if normally always played on the radio.

Anyway that's one theory...

[StrongBad]

6. Were there sections of the song missing?

Or was everything there just as on the album but only sounding "faster"?

If it just sounded "faster" than the record, it could not be a sped up tempo or anything to do with speed at all but rather the added compression the radio station uses for it's broadcasting.

To help create a loud, enjoyable signal that is powerful to be picked up in all types of radio receivers, radio stations boost the compression of whatever they usually play. Maybe you were reacting to this difference but just attributed it to sounding "faster"?

Since you rarely hear this song on the radio and it sounded different when you heard it, it may just be because that's how it would sound if normally always played on the radio.

Anyway that's one theory...

[vogonity]

7. no sections were not missing...

I know this song really well. It has instrumental breaks that I would have noticed if they were missing. It just sounded a little bit faster. Not so much that you would notice a shift in the pitch of the melody, just like the tempo was kind of a bit different. Faster.

[darkstar]

8. Quite possible. As said above, tv does it

and these days one can speed up without changing pitch OR change pitch without changing tempo.

Nice ears....


:toast:

[RandomKoolzip]

9. "Pigs" is only about 10 minutes long. And yes, they do digitally edit

songs for rock radio to make them shorter.