Practical Radio

Over the past two sessions, we have been gathering and editing audio for radio news and, so far, I’m loving it! Partially because I feel like I’m doing really well and understand it but mostly because I find it both interesting and fun. What I didn’t find fun was talking to actual members of the public… 

Let me start at the beginning. After our session on different types of radio news, we were asked to come up with a question and record the answers given to us by ‘the man on the street’… which would’ve been fine if I didn’t hate talking to people I don’t know. Stick me in a room with friends or in front of my own video camera and I can talk for England but ask me to talk to a stranger, whether individually, to a crowd or over the radio or television and you’ve got no chance (though, thinking about it, I read the news on the radio a couple of times before Christmas, so… slight exaggeration)

Before that though, we had to set up the Marantz. People that have only used the pocket tracks seem to be of the opinion that these are big, scary and complicated – they’re really not. All you have to do is put the microphone in the socket saying mono, the headphones in the bit that says headphones and you’re pretty much ready to rock (though you want to check it’s recording in the right format and it’s not set to internal mic). Saying this, we got out, turned it on and decided it didn’t have battery – in the future we’ll remember to check before we leave, though it was a brilliant excuse for a coffee break.

So, once that was sorted and I’d conned Emma into doing the talking, we set off to ask the world, only to be rejected by it. Like, completely. Which is when she decided it was my turn…

We got back with 4 really good responses and, before the next lecture, I got bored and downloaded some free audio editing software to have a go. Apparently, I’m quite good at it. I think this is largely due to my previous editing experience from a-level media and video club (video club = youth group who filmed things and had better equipment than the local TV station place). Anyway, by the time we got to the lecture, I already knew what bits of audio I wanted and roughly how to use the software so creating the voxpops was fairly straightforward. We then recorded a short piece to introduce them, voiced by Emma (because if I had to ask strangers, she had to introduce it – it’s only fair).

How to use the radio booths:

1.       Turn on mixer & mic

2.       Turn the 2 grey master faders on the right all the way up

3.       Ensure mic is plugged in (should be in the far left, the fader below controls it)

4.       Turn on laptop & open Adobe Audition

5.       Record by pressing red record button on transport controls. Select 44100 stereo, 16 bit

6.       Ensure speaker is off/muted to stop feed back

7.       To play back, stop recording, switch mic off and speaker on & press play

For next week, we’re finding instrumental music to use as a bed (I would assume that’s what it’s for anyway).

I got bored and had a go home here…

(Bed: Daedelus - Make It Drums. Licenced under a creative commons attribution licence. Link to FMA site: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Daedelus/Bonus_Beat_Blast_2011/15_daedelus-make_it_drums)

We also learnt about techniques for a good radio interview. It is essentially dependant on having good questions and the ability to operate the equipment well.

Equipment:

·         Ensure it works before using it (ahem…)

·         Hold microphone firmly and keep steady to avoid mic rattle

·         Keep recording; pausing it won’t lessen your editing at all and you may miss something interesting or important

Questions:

·         Try to make it sound and flow like an unscripted chat

·         Listen to answers given and adapt around them

·         Research your interviewee and subject first

·         Avoid closed questions

·         Encourage interviewee to continue by looking interested and nodding (even if it makes you look a bit stupid)

That’s it so far; looking forward to learning more next week.