Clarifying the difference between soundboard, FM & pre-FM
From DimeWiki
An article by Geof aka tonsorock
As a musician, long-time collector and having worked in radio, let me try and clarify the categories of FM, pre-FM and soundboard (SBD).
FM: the source is recorded off the radio, plain and simple. It might be a live show only airing in one city aired by a local station or a syndicated show like King Biscuit Flower Hour or Westwood One Superstars which are pressed up, in the old days on reel-to-reel, then vinyl and then later on CD, and sent to hundreds of stations across the U.S. to air on a specified weekend. They have ads contained within the show and an announcer. They are mixed and edited.
pre-FM: this would be if someone such as a radio station employee has an actual reel, LP or CD of the radio show that was sent to the station, etc. and makes a copy directly off of this, which wouldn't have any compression or any filtering etc. that might be added to it when the station airs it.
Soundboard (SBD): a soundboard recording is one made directly off the mixing board (aka soundboard), usually by the band, a member of the roadcrew, someone who works at the venue where the show is taking place, etc. The instruments are very clean and loud, and the mix is usually very dry—no reverb or effects—as the recording is just being made possibly for the band to check out how the show sounds, not for public listening. The mix is frequently a bit odd, especially during the early numbers where they still might be adjusting the levels of the instruments. You rarely hear much audience, even between songs, as the mixing board generally has just the direct instrument and vocal lines with no mic for crowd noise. Any audience noise is usually very much in the background.
True soundboards are rare, as they have to be leaked by someone with an 'in' to the band, the crew or the venue or a friend who got it from one of those sources. Anyone can tape a radio show, and the actual radio CDs, LPs, etc. sent out to stations can be purchased fairly easily from collectors, as station employees usually take them after they've aired and may sell them at record conventions, in Goldmine or on eBay.
The mislabelling of FM shows as "soundboards" is unfortunately one of the most common problems on DIME and other sites (and on boots themselves; errors on boots aren't exactly uncommon). Obviously, any non-audience audio recording comes through a soundboard, be it a radio broadcast or an officially-released live album, but a true soundboard-only recording will not be produced with announcers, ads and loud crowd noise/applause and the sound will be very clean and dry.
This still may be confusing to some, but I hope others have a better understanding of the terms.
