XM HEADQUARTERS A TOUR...

With all the great programming, sounds, and equipment that XM has to offer you should intuitively know that all of this has to come from somewhere?

Yes, XM has it's satellites beaming back a signal to it's 9 + million subscribers but all of this has to originate from somewhere. This somewhere happens to be from our nations capital! Right Place. This beautiful brick building in an unassuming part of the city. The one thing that you can't help but notice is the rather large twin satellite dishes, 20 plus feet in diameter. These two round white giants boldly display giant XM logo's atop one wing of the building right from the heart of Washington, DC which is located not too far from the National Mall at 1500 Eckington.

The building's history has it as being a printing facility for National Geographic. The buildings facade is rustically rugged, art deco as in industrial architecture. This part of the building is still apparent under a layer of modern interior design. Ceilings are lofty high, often with exposed beams and snappy light fixtures, which gives the place an open, relaxed, and airy feel. In stark contrast, the XM headquarters is furnished and decorated in futuristic modern styles. The truth is that you find yourself in a rich, solid, modern facade over rugged, industrial construction.

Everywhere you turn hallways, stairwells, elevators, and lobbies you will see memorabilia everywhere. One of the cool aspects of the facility is the domes that hang down from the ceilings. Underneath each dome there is a circle that is painted on the floor. Stepping into one of these circles, you find out that each dome is playing a different XM channel. While your standing under a dome, you can easily hear the music. But, if you step away a foot or so, No sound!

The real work takes place in 82 sound studios, this is all housed on the building's second floor. They vary in size, from small closet-sized rooms containing just a music programmer's (high-tec term for DJ) workstation, to larger rooms that are capable of housing a programmer and a number of VIP'S or several guests. Songs are pulled from XM's central computer library every programmer is able to access the entire song library of three million + pieces of music at any time. That's right. Their song collection consists of three million + pieces of music and it's growing every day.

Control Room At XM Satellite Radio Studios

Each and every broadcast studio is super duper soundproofed and built on a suspended floor. This helps to prevent any outside sounds or digital artifacts to be picked up in a channel's signal. The signal from all of the studios are transmitted from an intricate network (one of the world's largest) of fiber optics. This is what helps give the XM signal CD quality sound. While you wander around the studio you can't forget all of the "On Air" lights outside of each studio. A glass pane window allows you to see magnifico DJ'S at work. One of the neatest things I experienced is a set of headphones that hangs on the wall outside the studios so that you can hear the live channel feed that's being broadcast at that moment. Most all of the studio rooms are artistically decorated to reflect the attitude, latitude, and personality of that channel's DJ'S.

On the next BLOG I'll cover the Production Studios!
*BIG Daddy Heartbeat*