“In addition to my job as Production Director for a station group, I voicetrack a Sunday night shift on a small town station in another market.
“I do this shift for free because the program director is a buddy of mine and I’m just helping him out.
“What can I do to spice up the show a bit?
“This station doesn’t have much to promote because they don’t have the money for big events.
“I can’t do weather, because I’m voicetracking from 100 miles away.
“It gets boring just doing ramps between songs and a pre-break sell.
“Any ideas (keeping in mind that I do this for free, so hours of show prep isn’t what I’m looking for)?”
Even if the radio station doesn’t do big events, presumably they do something on their airwaves.
Your PD friend should make sure you know everything that’s happening at that station, all the staff, and can talk about the station, its programming and its people as though you’re right there.
“It gets boring just doing ramps between songs and a pre-break sell.”
Assuming you know what songs are being played, there’s no limit to how creative you can be in relating to the music — even in a brief time.
“Hours of show prep isn’t what I’m looking for.”
The secret to any good show — live or recorded, paid or unpaid — is show prep.
Your listeners don’t know (or care) that you’re not being paid; you’re the disc jockey on their radio station.
I say this seriously and without any sarcasm or criticism: If the fact that you’re not paid means you can’t afford to do enough prep to deliver a good show, “just say no;” stop doing the show.
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I voice-track 7-to-midnight on our group’s country station. I script every break, which allows me to play with creative and (I hope) interesting ways of talking about the same records, contests, and events night after night. “Lady Antebellum has 5.5 million likes on Facebook, which adds up to love, and their new song is next.” (Took me 10 seconds of prep to find that bit.) Browse the local paper’s website for events you can mention—you don’t have to talk them up for a full minute with all of the details, just toss in a mention: “If you need a nightcap after Taste of Madison today, here’s Kenny Chesney with ‘You and Tequila.'” And since you’re a production director, presumably you can write creatively in a hurry, so use that skill to your advantage.
Because your PD is probably urging you to keep your breaks short anyhow, hours of prep aren’t necessary, although some is required. I’d echo Dan here: if you don’t want to do *any*, you should probably give up the show. (I wouldn’t do a show for free for anybody. Hope your buddy is buying you a few dinners, at least.)
I voice track for years on both an AC and a Country station, and it’s all about prep, I have 12 years of phone calls that I can use whenever I need them, that “spice” the tracked show, they’re local, they’re still relevant and generic enough that adds locality to the broadcast, with the bazillions of prep sites (including Dan’s), and with just a little bit of prep work you could and should make this your own. I sentiment jb, I would never ever track for free on a station outside the market, I would at least get dinners or at the very least a Case of Heineken a month 🙂
You can trot out any excuse you like, voice tracking is lame. Nothing beats local and live. Satellite Radio is often presented by good talent with access to big stars or famous people with great stories, but nothing local. If given a choice between Satellite Radio or a local station running a voice track, Satellite Radio will always be a better choice. If it’s simply about the music, the best music director in the world is the individual that owns an iPod. No radio station can beat that. BUT, no iPod has an interesting personality between the songs, telling great stories and sharing facts about the area they share with the listener. PDs and GMs and owners that use voice tracking just don’t understand radio or are too timid to break out of “sheep mode”.
No. By using theatrical props like pre-recorded phone calls, interactive bits and the like, you can creation an ALIVE presentation. I voice tracked a total 5 1/2 years part time at two stations and I refused to just mail it in. If you know the climate of the area you Dan hit brief weather highlights with temp updates and if you know the automation clock and its stable, you can time check with reasonable accuracy. So in short, you can sound not just live, but alive.
No, spend a few minutes in the studio before you track and take some calls. Track those in.
I did 3 years of voicetracking for a network on the other side of the world – and managed for the most part to have most people still believing I lived around the corner from them.
Good prep makes a big difference.
funny how now one really says what this “prep” is? I’d say it’s to know the area…and at least act like you’re living in it when you’re Vting. That’s where being a bit of an actor comes into play. There are certainly resources online that you can personalize most any area to your own on air personna and you don’t have to be there.
Almost every larger town has an online newspaper… you can often get to know local characters and plot lines through such a resource.
“Acting” like you’re from my area is called “lying”. If you’re going to “act” then go BIG! Say you’re from the moon or something. That way its not as obvious as you would be if you were “acting”. Its lame when a company makes someone voice track.
@Sean – like we never ever lied about something on the air. Every endorsement all of ever have done has been the God honest truth. Every time we said Best Variety or Best Mix or Another Superset of Strong Songs…. we were telling the honest truth. Or was that okay because it was just marketing and promotions but voice tracking? Oh that is just the most terrible thing in the world. Some stations have to do it to stay alive as they can not afford a 24/7 staff AND make the debt payment, pay the bills and stay on the air if they did.
I know a girl who Vts for a number of stations. she creates a personna for that area. Where she would live shop hang out the local landmarks etc and it makes it local. I like that idea as it truly entrenches the talent in the community. Is it honest? Probably not but realistically who really cares if the listener is entertained and engaged and all the appropriate items are told truthfully. I’ll leave it up to experienced talent as to what should be told truthfully
radio announcers shouldn’t be radio announcers if they are not ‘being themselves’ in a big way. Anything else is just plain false. That doesn’t mean you can’t be yourself and voice track at the same time by the way. Having fun and being creative should be the first tool in an operators toolkit.
Which bring it down to are you an announcer or a personality? Announcers announce often local info do the time and temp thing you know. A personality to me can almost be anywhere and anything but is best when is related to by local audiences if you are on a local station. Its often easier to be an announcer if you are a personality but not necessarily if you are an announcer being a personality. Ideally you want to be somewhere in between and be able to adjust your ability based on the stations format requirements and PD coaching. Voice tracking isn’t going away anytime soon. The cost benefits will keep it in existence even past the tough economic times. You either deal with it or not, regardless if you think it makes great radio or not.
Scott… Although like most Americans you think the world ends at the US borders, it MIGHT, just might be that in other parts of the world (yes, they actually have radio signal in manynfar flung corners), people who work in radio might just be cLled, gasp, shock, oh the horror the horror, radio ANNOUNCERS. In fact, can’t say I’ve often or ever heard ‘personality’ used as a job describer where I come from… rather, it’s a job requirement. And before you write me off as a moron, I did work (sucessfully) on air in the largest metropolitan market of >5 million in my country of origin.
Uh just check where I actually before you assume I am a American. You’re right though, as a lot of Americans seem to focus on that issue. I’d like to think it’s because of their culture and that it is truly changing for the positive because of the Internet. Unfortunately announcer and personality are not in everyone on the air today. They seem to be more and more exclusive to each other when they shouldn’t be but it seems they are not for whatever reason. Be it format, they work cheap or another reason.
Oops that should say actuaaly am from
I put away my snarky self in the presence of a fellow commonwealthian!! Sorry Scott – my sarcastic self gets away from me from time to time!!
Radio is acting, no matter the location or the form. Ever done the best shift ever, at least it sounded that way listening to the aircheck, and felt like crap? That is acting. Worked satellite many years. Made believe. Later had to VT on a satellite net. Really made believe. I would challenge anyone to tell whether it was live or Memorex. If one takes pride, one does what it takes.
Even making believe, I was myself.
You should never stray from being yourself. That’s anyone’s strength. You can only be you. you should also understand what works for you and what will work on the air that is you. I have no problem with anyone on air “embellishing” reality a bit for entertainment purposes. The best show prep is what you live and tie it into your show. You should be able to sound like it’s off the cuff if it is or not no one cares, but it should sound natural, not rip and read prep and awkwardly getting in and out of the bit. I’d rather hear a jukebox of music and liners then that on air, yet schools keep turning the time and temp kids out. I can see the industry going more and more content based and that’s where personality will matter.
Make believe?
When i voice track the evening shift, i do it as if i were live, never re-tape, with the only exception that i dont talk about the weather, or the time of day. I think that when you ¨make believe¨ that’s when you sound fake.
Biff:
Here’s what you miss. Radio is, and has always been, live or not, about “theater of the mind”. How good of an actor are you? I suspect not that good, because you don’t seem to think on that plane.
It’s that “theater of the mind”, combined with proper show prep about the music, about the town, about what’s going on there today (or the past weekend, or whatever) that can make a voice-tracked break sound live.
If it’s been raining all day (and the forecast says more rain that night), heck yeah you can talk about the rain…in generalities.
But not doing this…can keep you one inch away from the unemployment office. And if you refuse to do it, (or try), expect you will be a casualty. If you’re expecting “live and local 24.7” to come back…don’t hold your breath. Ain’t gonna happen. Those days are gone.