Audio Production Worktext

Chapter 9 Production Situations

People who work for advertising agencies and radio stations are likely to be involved with producing commercials. At some stations, dealing with commercials is a full-time position, and at many stations the disc jockeys spend a portion of their workday doing commercial production work. Reading over sound effects is similar to reading over music, in that the sound should fade up and down. For radio spots that consist of a mixture of the announcer’s voice and a background music bed, the voice should be dominant, because it conveys the important information of the spot. Music constitutes the largest percentage of radio station programming and is usually introduced and coordinated by a disc jockey. Recording music is a fairly complicated form of audio production that often involves numerous microphones and long hours of recording. Sports announcers need to know about sports in general, as well as the particulars of the sports for the area in which they are reporting.

9.2 Producing Commercials

Looping Sound Effects

Sound effects are usually short, however, they may need to be looped in order to cover the 30-second length of the commercial. This is easy to accomplish with computer editing. The sound can simply be copied and laid on the time line as many times as needed.

Single Copy Of Sound Effect

Looping Sound Effect

9.4 Announcing Music

Walking Over the End of a Song

Make sure you have previewed your music, especially to know how songs begin and end. This will insure that you avoid walking over (beginning to “outro” a song before it’s really over) a false ending.

9.5 Recording Music

Recording Music Track-by-Track

9.6 Preparing and Announcing News

Editing News Related Recordings

Don’t change the meaning of what someone says while editing. Elimination of a single word can significantly alter a news report. Appropriate reasons for editing are either to shorten or remove irrelevant material, but care should be taken that the result, along with being accurate, still sounds natural.

Original Recording

Edited Version Changing Meaning

Projects

Project 1: Record and Air Check

Download the music project files Download the sound effect project files Download the project specific files

Click above to navigate to the Music folder, where you will find an example of an Air Check.

Please note: The music and sound effect project files only need to be downloaded once and used for all projects.