Environmental Consciousness: Keeping the Country Clean with Omnia

With installations at stations and networks around the globe, the sound of Omnia audio processing is pretty much everywhere. Plenty of big broadcasters are vocal Omnia fans, of course, but what you might not know is that you don’t have to be a huge station to have Omnia clarity. Take Tim Marini for example, who runs an Internet streaming music station out of his house in rural Utah.

Marini started his stream in 2010, and experimented with several musical formats. On January 1, 2011 he started focusing on Hot Country. Since then, he has built up the 24/7 webstream to 100,000 -120,000 total listening hours per week, and is steadily building his base of sponsors. Part of his secret is not going overboard with commercials. “I limit breaks to three 90 seconds per hour,” he adds. He streams at 48K AAC+, and 128K MP3.

Topics: broadcast audio processor

Omnia.9 Undo - A Cease Fire in Radio's Loudness Wars

We've all heard about loudness wars on the airwaves, but you may not be aware of the loudness war in the music industry, or at least not how far it has progressed.

Nobody wants to release a song quieter than other contemporary releases. Few want to just match the loudness, most seem to want to release their music louder than other contemporary releases. The reasons are not clearly known. Perhaps there is a misconception that a loud release will cut through better on the radio. Perhaps it's human nature. Perhaps some people think their music will be a bigger hit if it's louder.

Topics: broadcast audio processor

Enabling Omnia.11 Low-Latency Monitoring

Ben Umberger of WFLZ writes:

"I'm using an Omnia.11 with version 1.03 firmware. I have the analog output selected as DJ for off-air monitoring, but the audio is still coming out delayed. What am I missing?"

Topics: broadcast audio processor

Off-Air Monitoring with Omnia.9

Resolving audio delay issues with the Omnia.9

Topics: broadcast audio processor

KQ103 Rocks Orlando with Omnia.11

Sometimes, it takes a little trying, a little sampling of various options, before the right choice presents itself. In this case, the subject is audio processing. It took some time, but after extensive, on-air comparisons of all processing options, Orlando's WHKQ (KQ103) has decided on the Omnia.11 as their final choice. "We tried others, but we're keeping the Omnia.11" says Bill Sullivan, KQ103's chief engineer. "We are most impressed with the clarity of this unit."

Topics: broadcast audio processor

Omnia ONE: Sound big. Spend small. 

You don't have to spend major bucks for major-market sound

We always like to hear from satisfied station General Managers. After all, if daddy (or mommy) ain't happy, no one else is!

Topics: broadcast audio processor

AM Low-Pass Filtering with Omnia-5AM

Lewis Downey of KUER, University of Utah, writes: "I take care of an AM that uses the Omnia 5. I want to roll off the audio to be processed to about 6 KHz. It is silly to try forcing anything above that through AM radios these days. I don't see an LPF filter option in the processor. Does one exist? At another AM site I built my own filter with op-amps and it hasn't hurt the perceived fidelity one bit and I think it makes the perceived modulation a bit louder because I'm not modulating with audio that isn't going to make it through the radios anyway."

Topics: broadcast audio processor

Is your AM Audio Quality Lost in Translation?

Omnia can help

Our US readers may have noticed recently a number of AM stations filing for and obtaining translators to help boost signal coverage. Maybe you've even applied for one of your own. That's thanks to the FCC's Report and Order from 2009 that allowed cross-service translation (the ability for AMs to rebroadcast on an FM frequency).

Topics: broadcast audio processor

Going FM Talk? Omnia has you covered

With talk programming coming to the FM band in many places - it's more essential than ever that your processing is dialed-in. At Omnia, we known that tuning for voice-only radio can be a time-consuming endeavor. That's why our processing team has been hard at work creating new FM Talk presets for the amazing Omnia.11 audio processor. They've come up with presets for News, Talk and Sports programming that give voices the richness, smoothness and authority your PD wants. In short, it's the clear, clean, loud-as-heck Omnia sound - for talk!

Topics: broadcast audio processor

Password Reset for Omnia ONE

Folks who've forgotten the passwords to their Omnia ONE processors have been asking how to unlock their units and reset that pass to the factory default. Here's the procedure, but note that the Omnia ONE must be running software version 1.1 (25) or later for this procedure to work. (You can find out what version you're running in the Administrative menu / About screen.)

1) Rremove power from the unit.
2) Remove the top cover and locate jumper JP5.
3) Move the jumper from pins 1-2 (toward the rear of the unit) to pins 2-3 (toward the front ).
4) Power up the unit. Wait until it boots all the way up and the main menu is displayed.
5) Verify that the password has been reset to the factory default. ("omnia")
6) Unplug (remove power from) the unit.
7) Move jumper JP5 back to pins 1-2 (toward the rear of the unit).
8) Re-install the top cover of the unit.

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Topics: broadcast audio processor