# XM Sirius 70's on 7 playing music speeded up (not tempo)



## robmadden1

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,115149.0.html

Post 1 from that forum:

For the last two days, I swear that some of the songs they play on 70's on 7 sound sightly speeded up. Not the tempo, just the beat. Since the music channels don't play commercials, I am wondering why they would do this. I am very sensitive to pitch and speed, and it's very annoying. Anyone else notice this? Perhaps my radio is flipping out?


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## jal

The link doesn't work


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## robmadden1

The link works just click on it.


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## paulman182

Not for me.


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## robmadden1

Edited my first post.


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## Dolly

I don't normally listen to this channel. But I will give it a listen for a while and then get back to you and let you know what I think.


EDIT: Man that didn't take long. The first song I heard was the last of a Herb Albert song. I was a fan of his, but was not that familiar with the song they were playing. And, of course, there were no words to hear on the instrumental song. But next up came Carole King's Jazzman and I was a huge fan of Carole King and loved the song Jazzman. You and the poster you linked to are correct. It was faster. Why they would do that I don't know?


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## paulman182

I don't know if the satellite channel is really doing this or not, but it was common for radio stations to do it in the 1970s to sound more lively than the competition.

Nowdays it can be done digitally and keep the pitch normal, which couldn't be done 30 years ago.


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## Richard King

I suspect that radio was speeding things up so that they could cram in more advertising in any given hour. Lexicon developed a product (the Lexicon 1200 Time Compressor) that was aimed to do the same in the television market. With this box they could speed up a movie or television show and "gain" three minutes of programming time in every hour.


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## Hardin Thicke

Another thing that obvious to me with these particular channels is they often don't air the original cut, but a re-recorded track, perhaps one that is in stereo as opposed to the original monaural version. This irks me to no end, and I've email them several time regarding it. It apparently falls on deaf ears.


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## Jimmy 440

95.5 WPLJ in NYC is notorius for this.I 1st noticed that in the mid 90s


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## DJConan

My dual CD player I used for DJing has the ability to speed up the beat w/o raising the pitch. It's very easy to do. Why they might be doing that is the question I guess.


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## Dolly

DJConan said:


> My dual CD player I used for DJing has the ability to speed up the beat w/o raising the pitch. It's very easy to do. Why they might be doing that is the question I guess.


Well they certainly don't need the time to run ads. I hope when I next listen all will be back to normal. I heard a song yesterday on the 70's on 7 of the Jackson Five and it was so fast they almost sounded like the original Alvin and the Chipmunks--for those of us old enough to remember the original Alvin and the Chipmunks  :lol:


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## DJConan

Dolly said:


> Well they certainly don't need the time to run ads. I hope when I next listen all will be back to normal. I heard a song yesterday on the 70's on 7 of the Jackson Five and it was so fast they almost sounded like the original Alvin and the Chipmunks--for those of us old enough to remember the original Alvin and the Chipmunks  :lol:


From my reply in another thread, I was going to mention that I used to play my LP 33 of the Chipmunks at 78. lol Pure entertainment to a child. :lol:


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## Dolly

DJConan said:


> From my reply in another thread, I was going to mention that I used to play my LP 33 of the Chipmunks at 78. lol Pure entertainment to a child. :lol:


My idea of entertainment would have been to have played the Chipmunks at 45 :lol: Now why didn't I think of that back then


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## paulman182

None of the stations I worked for did it to add commercials--they would just throw out songs for that.

It was always done to speed up the tempo and make the song sound "draggy" on the competitors.


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## ejjames

I used to work for a radio station and we would get our music from satellite on weekends. the national DJ's would cut local inserts with the call letters to make it sound local. they gave a 3 minute window where you could insert a local commercial break. if you didn't the satellite would play a 3 minute song. often they would have to speed up the song to fit 3 minute window. 

I have no idea why sirius would do this.


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## Dolly

ejjames said:


> I used to work for a radio station and we would get our music from satellite on weekends. the national DJ's would cut local inserts with the call letters to make it sound local. they gave a 3 minute window where you could insert a local commercial break. if you didn't the satellite would play a 3 minute song. often they would have to speed up the song to fit 3 minute window.
> 
> I have no idea why sirius would do this.


:lol: This thread has been a real education to me because I had no idea anything like this could be done. But whatever happened everything is back to normal now


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## machavez00

It's called positive pitch, and they did it to get more ads in. I'm guessing SiriusXM is going for the true 70' Top 40 AM sound. I hate that the Decades channels went from playing all music genres from a decade to Top 40, although the play list seems to have loosend up in the last week.


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## Dolly

machavez00 said:


> It's called positive pitch, and they did it to get more ads in. I'm guessing SiriusXM is going for the true 70' Top 40 AM sound. I hate that the Decades channels went from playing all music genres from a decade to Top 40, although the play list seems to have loosend up in the last week.


I think things will get better with Sirius XM, if only people will give them a chance. And not keep cancelling which will only hurt the chances of Sat. Radio being around. They had to make changes to try to keep the company afloat. But there have been signs that even with all the debt they are beginning to listen to their subs. They are bringing back a couple of channels already. If they could get the debt down, they could do even more I'm sure. The music alerts that some people were talking about seem to be coming back. Give them feedback by all means if you are unhappy, but please give them a chance to try to work off the debt.


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## cartrivision

robmadden1 said:


> http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,115149.0.html
> 
> Post 1 from that forum:
> 
> For the last two days, I swear that some of the songs they play on 70's on 7 sound sightly speeded up. *Not the tempo, just the beat.* Since the music channels don't play commercials, I am wondering why they would do this. I am very sensitive to pitch and speed, and it's very annoying. Anyone else notice this? Perhaps my radio is flipping out?


Can you explain better what you mean by _speeded up_? Tempo and beat mean the same thing, so I don't know what you mean when you say that tempo is speeded up but the beat isn't.


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## Dolly

cartrivision said:


> Can you explain better what you mean by _speeded up_? Tempo and beat mean the same thing, so I don't know what you mean when you say that tempo is speeded up but the beat isn't.


The best way I could describe it was that there was no breaks in the songs at all. No place for a singer to take a breathe in the songs. The words just followed one right after the other. It would be like me typing this post like this : Thesongswerejusttoofast. But I haven't noticed this happening anymore.


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## IggyDad

Well, it's now 2013 and Sirius 7 and in some cases Sirius 8 are both definitely speeding up the tempo on certain songs. Not only that, but apparently they're not using the latest technology because the pitch is slightly different too. WHY???? They don't sell commercials. This bastardizes the music I grew up on. Any insights? Anyone?? Do they thing we're just too stupid notice? In some cases, it's so offensive that I feel the need to change channels. I mean, come one, isn't Andy Gibbs' voice high enough already?


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## gjrhine

Better check your speakers.


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## Davenlr

I listen to "70's" in my work truck every workday while driving. I really hadn't noticed this. Ill be listening for it next week. Don't know if it will be noticeable in the loud work truck tho. No idea why they would do it, however.


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## ThomasM

Dolly said:


> Well they certainly don't need the time to run ads. I hope when I next listen all will be back to normal. I heard a song yesterday on the 70's on 7 of the Jackson Five and it was so fast they almost sounded like the original Alvin and the Chipmunks--for those of us old enough to remember the original Alvin and the Chipmunks  :lol:


Uh, Simon? Theodore? Alvin? Alvin? ALVIN!

OK!!


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## AreyousiriusDan

November 2017 and it's still happening...extremely annoying...tempo and pitch both affected


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## nightowl1

October 2020 and this is still an issue. I emailed one of the DJs at the 70s on 7 station and they compared it to old 70s radio stations speeding up their music and they said they wanted to replicate that type of feeling. I didn’t like his answer, but at least I got an answer. Again, it drives me nuts because I can definitely hear the difference. Some of those songs were not written to be played at a speeded up tempo. I suppose it’s just one of those things that we can’t control.


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## gjrhine

nightowl1 said:


> Some of those songs were not written to be played at a speeded up tempo.


And many were. I like hearing them now like I heard them then.


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## harsh

gjrhine said:


> And many were. I like hearing them now like I heard them then.


The reason the songs were played on the radio was different then. In the days of yore, airplay was a tease to promote record sales and the more songs they played, the greater the exposure.

The memories come rushing back just as well when sped up.


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## James Long

Memories ... nightmares. Content sped up so they can fit in more advertising? So they can fit in more songs they were paid to play? Is a side effect of payola really nostalgic?

Hearing a song on the radio and then buying a record that played at a different tempo sounds like false advertising. Fortunately most of the people responsible for that "trend" in the late 70's are long gone.


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## Eva

I have noticed when we had XM. But fired them long ago. In my pub some night we have DJs playing music from that area and one of them used to do that trick until I told him this is a bar, not a radio station. He was a DJ from way back when.


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## Delroy E Walleye

When I put on a record or a CD I haven't heard in decades it _already_ sounds a key or two higher than I remembered it for some reason (ageing brain?).

I certainly wouldn't want music to be sped up any more than I'm currently perceiving it to be!

(For TV shows and movies on the other hand, some of those _need_ a little speeding up in order to get through them in a reasonable amount of time, and I willingly use tech to help with that.)


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## gjrhine

harsh said:


> The memories come rushing back just as well when sped up.


Even better. Because it is exactly as you remember. I want to hear that iconic Frankie Valli voice now exactly as I did then not some other version of it.


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