Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts

Sunday, 14 January 2018

The Dreaded Voicetracking

Voice-tracking is the devil. The scourge of our industry. The thing that has de-humanised this once exciting living, breathing thing called radio. 

That would probably have been my view a few years ago as a spiky-haired awkward jock. Now, I believe it’s none of those things. Done well, it provides for impressive efficiency and high-quality output which helps to provide for the level of listening variety the UK now enjoys.

The first time you VT – let’s agree it feels odd. Imagining a real listener is quite challenging enough without having to imagine one who might be listening one foggy night next week. Mastering the art of the VT is a new skill which presenters have to acquire, where necessary. And like most things in radio, it’s a particular skill which some find themselves more at home with than others; and an approach which suits some formats better than others.

The efficiency is unquestionable. You can present a programme at a time of your choosing and only focus your time on the parts where you are needed. There's no need to sit drumming your fingers on the desk, moving around random sheets of paper and turning knobs needlessly up and down through nervous energy whilst you wait for Dua Lipa to end.

It also means that that you necessarily have to prepare well.  Opening a dry mic and recording a VT link without a direction in your head is impossible.  Preparation is necessarily done beforehand - and calmly, not hurriedly when distracted by a noisy song.

 A presenter recording a show for the weekend simply has to summon up the sense and mood of the day to come, and what their listener will be up to. It’s a train of thought that too many live presenters find it easy to ignore. In a sense, with VT, you can only put the listener first. 

Similarly, VT radio demands perfect operational programme management too. There’s no room for the sort of stations where three people issue contradictory emails to presenters about what’s happening on the station - and what needs talking up and how.  You have to make your mind up promptly if the programmes to be recorded this week for next week are to be accurate – and issue definitive single notes on what’s what.

Doing it well is an acquired skill.  Like most things in radio – one gets better at it with practice. The tone of links - how they begin and end - and delivering just the right energy each time. Sounding natural and getting the pace just right, even if it is the seventh time you'd had a bash at the same link.  On music-intensive formats, repeatedly delivering much the same message in a fresh tone and vesting real meaning in your station name; on chatty formats, delivering mountains of fresh content all at once. Presenters who truly master all the tricks can hear the full show in context in their head.  

Some days, links are instantly flawless, and a show is dispatched within minutes.  Other days, one particular link feels like a loose tooth you keep wobbling with your tongue even though it hurts. The difference with VT is that the listener doesn’t hear the version of the link that wasn’t very good.

It might be argued that VT means sanitised radio - a pre-packaged convenience food without any topical relevance. With good thought, it’s not. Indeed, content can be updated with ease when appropriate. The impressive Matt Deegan who runs Fun Kids, wholly voice-tracked with Zetta, says “Generally presenters are recording between 3 minutes and 3 days before their shows go out”.

As a passion project, I appear on a VT easy listening station called Serenade Radio on weekend afternoons (under the nom-de-radio of Ben Golding, named after the nurse two minutes into this memorable station launch!). When, after recording, the death of a treasured artist is announced or the Grand National won, it is simple to to insert a relevant replacement link.  I suspect this voice-tracked station is sometimes more ‘up to date’ than many live presenters sat insulated from the world on air in their concrete studio.

Many good community stations use VT well too.  Running on small staff, they can whizz around gathering fresh content whilst the output purrs on. Remotely, they can insert links and freshen stories, as they wish. And, let's face it, even the finest BBC current affairs programmes pre-record chunks.

It's not lazy, cheap radio, it can actually be richer, maximising the value of personnel.  As Matt Deegan points out: “With presenters not being paid to waiting for songs to finish, we can then use their time in better ways - like building a YouTube channel around the breakfast show presenter with 100,000 subscribers and over a million views a month”.

There are, of course, notable examples too of how VT stations can sound truly awful. Outdated content being repeatedly aired, or missing chunks and car crash junctions. But is that not simply about poor operational management?  VT, operated well, should result in fewer technical and editorial errors, not more. If a station cannot manage its automated output well, it shouldn't really be on the air.

Isn’t radio about interaction?  Clearly, VT stations cannot respond to listener interaction in real-time, but they can respond a great deal more quickly than they did in the days when you wrote in for a request in the so-called golden days of radio. Listeners can get in touch via the website or app, and content can be cleverly channelled and incorporated if necessary, within minutes.  You can’t get callers responding on-air live in quite the same way but, again, many 'live' programmes routinely incorporate pre-recorded segments. 

 And -  of course - there is no dispute about live radio always having its place for particular programmes or formats.

RCS gave us intelligent voice-tracking many years ago, offering a chance to hear the last
bite of the last song before performing  - and also other studio software like Genesys from Broadcast Bionics offer it too. There are also hugely impressive cost-efficient options: Station Playlist, Playout One or, from Germany, DigAS - from which the lovely Pat Sharp dispatches his content for his Norwegian shows. 

Many systems also allow for presenters to record remotely in their home studios too. Yes, away from the team spirit - but also away from the politics and the business end of radio; and a way of securing talent who would not be available 'full time' for you. Kenny Everett spoke of his idol, the great Jack Jackson, and the accidental value of him recording his shows from his holiday home in later years, away from all the things which put presenters in a bad mood.  The future for many stations may well be virtual. Alone with your listener in the back bedroom. That's intimate.

As a former jock, I’d agree that nothing can beat the kick you get from a live show. But is that kick more yours than the listener’s?

How often do you have the live show from hell, which everyone else tells you was the best one ever? We are not always the best judge of how a programme feels when we are in the midst of it.  When you listen in to your own voice-tracked programme as a listener, however, when you’ve forgotten what you’re about to hear yourself saying, your assessment of your own performance is altogether more valuable.

 This voice-tracking lark isn't as bad as I'd feared. Let's raise a much-deserved cheer for the people who really master it.




Grab my book 'Radio Moments': 50 years of radio - life on the inside. A personal and frighteningly candid reflection on life in radio now and then. The drama - the characters - the headaches - the victories.











Also 'How to Make Great Radio'. Techniques for today's presenters and producers.  Great for newcomers - and food for thought if you've been doing it years.






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Monday, 11 May 2015

Pictures from the Past

Disc jockeys are meant to be heard not seen.  But these pictures from the Getty archives really do sum up a time and a place.

Enjoy here, one of the launch pics from the opening of Radio 1 in 1967. Sir Tony staring into the camera lens, griping onto a pair of those funny BBC headphones. And what a fine bit of woodwork there from the BBC joiner.


 Rosko was the rebel in those days, with his lunchtime show. Look, he's barely clothed here.  John Dunn famously introduced  his news bulletin in Rosko's show with: 'now the news. In English..."

And on the station's first birthday, the presenters famously gather feet away from Broadcasting House, to return to the steps of All Souls Church.  For many of the characters, it is the closest they'll get to singing hymns. The assembly was a little diminished from the parallel shot a year before, not least because the fledgling Radio 1 policy was to hire everyone on four week contracts and see who worked out best.  Canny approach.


Down the road at Capital, in a rare 1973 shot in his office at Euston Tower, Chairman Richard Attenborough is likely none too pleased as he peruses the company's early accounts. 



And the early team at London's LBC were no strangers to challenging accounting. In this shot, a tech op watches as Janet Street-Porter and Paul Callan present 'two in the morning' (get it?) on that launch day in October 1973.  I'd prefer to have been the tech-op, as he got to hammer the buttons on the ITC triple stacks.



Commercial radio, in a fashion, had been heard in the UK much earlier, thanks to the wobbly signal from Radio Luxembourg, after it returned following the War.  Its influence was sufficiently powerful to make stars of people like Pete Murray, later on Radio 2 and LBC. Even the Teddy Boys looked up to him. And Pete's suit looks a lot better than a sweat shirt with your name on which his descendants puzzlingly chose to wear.


Back at Capital, surely 1974 mid morning host Michael Aspel does not surely need quite so many EQ channels on his mixer.



And colleague, Kenny Everett, is evidently aghast at the contents of the Capital Radio manifesto.



As Capital's Graham Dene celebrated 5 years with the station, a cake arrived. With Michael Aspel in it. Thank goodness those rumours of radio being rife with back stabbers are false.  Technics turntables were poised  - alongside the classic Neve desk which was a stranger to PFL.



Kid Jensen arrived in the UK from Radio Luxembourg in 1975, lodging at Nottingham's Radio Trent for a year before graduating to Radio 1. Here he is, in a novel pose.  It is certainly better than clutching headphones, or pointing to an alarm clock or cheque. 



By 1976, the cult of Wogan had begun; and this talented Irishman began to relax and enjoy it. Just keep your feet away from those Gates turntables, Terry. They were truly the best.



Surprisingly little audio exists of Chris Tarrant, despite his long rule at the Capital London helm.  Maybe he was more of a listener's presenter than an anorak's - and there's little wrong with that. Thank goodness we have pictures though. Note how many more screens there are in this 2004 shot, compared with the 1960s BBC shots. 


 Frank Phillips is the name of a BBC newsreader better known than many before him. Not least as it was Frank who became the first newsreader to announce his name.  All part of making British broadcasts immediately recognisable as such in times of War.  The habit stuck, and now every contributor of travel, weather, whatever commences their broadcast with a smile and a proud namecheck.  Even though the War's over.


You don't see many of those discussion booths now: minimalist acoustic rooms equipped with just a bouncy table, a mic and a talkback box, thanks to the show engineering happening 'through the glass'.  Pete Murray enjoyed himself here in October 1970, with a pair of those dinky little BBC cans clipped to his 'earoles. 




The old BBC desks were industrial in style. Like cars before power steering, you had to pull these faders down with force when your needed the next jingle from the ITC cart machine.  It was no problem for good old JY, even with the future PM looking on and crashing the vocal in February 1975.

You can always tell a jingle anorak when they  concentrate more on the cart labels in a pic rather than the person pictured. Try this Radio 1 shot from the early eighties. Ignore Adrian Juste at your peril, though.

Thanks to all the photographers through the ages who have patiently witnessed our medium. We are grateful.  

 One final shot.  How delicious is this. As the BBC moved premises in 1932 from Savoy Hill to the newly built Broadcasting House, a photographer paused to film the removal men at work. But why has than man got a crate on his head. And who is in the coffin?



Grab my book 'How to Make Great Radio' from Biteback. Proceeds to the Radio Academy

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Friday, 12 April 2013

Radio's Unsung Heroes


Am I allowed to write about radio station technical folk without risking being stabbed with a circuit tester before being hauled off in a large flight case, my mouth sealed with Gaffa tape?
Baggy cheap jeans from the Freeman’s catalogue; topped off with a sweaty over- tight, over-washed light-blue T shirt bearing a huge logo, riding up over an elastic snake-belt, to which a gadget is affixed.  

 The gifted Jon Holmes is oft-invited to give light relief at the annual Radio Academy TechCon conference, where he’s been known to refer to the dress-sense of our technical crews.  Most would concur that my wry vision here is outdated; and I actually envy some of the natty sartorial elegance displayed by technical brains.  Just maybe, now technology is easier to heave about, and technical blokes are allowed to be creative themselves, they are letting their feminine side show.   

At one station I worked at, the engineers were dubbed the ‘Programme Prevention department’.  When we leapt forward with a bright programme idea, they would create a fringe performance, leaning back in their chair, relishing the power of the moment, arms folded, before reciting a catalogue of reasons why the idea was a non starter, with dramatic huffy intolerance.

It’s all changed now, mostly.  If it hasn’t in your station, it’s time to have a stiff word.  In my last few gigs certainly, including Chrysalis, Virgin, and here at Free Radio/Orion, I’ve worked with some hugely gifted enablers. 

Dave Walters used to wander into my LBC office, sink into my black leather chair and ask 'how would it be if you could...’ before outlining some crazy idea he’d had in the shower that day. Thus the premium podcastingidea at LBC sprung to life, which became an appreciable revenue earner – and a great service to listeners.  If Press had access to those sorts of brains and insights a few years ago, they’d probably be in a better place.  And, full marks too to the great Lawrie Frayne at Orion.  After seeing radio through from its triple-stack* days, he still has the enthusiasm of a teenager and a tolerance I envy when presenters call him at 2.00 a.m. to correct something that is their fault.  

Wolves studio build 2012 by Nilesh and Alex
Our Orion IT guy, Jonathan Dean ('JD'), hotfoot from the brilliant Golden Square machine where Science meets Art seemingly all day long, is a master of that great skill of translating techie speak into words people like me understand.  Just like Bruce Davidson (Chrysalis/Global, now BD Technology) too.   And John Moon from Trent, a youthful enthusiasm to this day, having engineered music sessions brilliantly for decades.  The list goes on – and I reckon there are now more great people now than ever in this sector. Thank goodness.

For those who’ve been doing it a few years the job has changed beyond recognition. No longer do you get that delicious Scalextric smell of soldering wafting from the engineering workshop. It’s gone from stylii** to wi-fi in a generation; and those who've adapted with it deserve a ripple of applause.

I like the fact that Global Radio has a ‘Creative Technology division’.  It’s a great, fitting name.  I also admire many of the folk who work within it, who have significant larger brains than I have. A bit of me wonders whether there’s a more prosaic ‘Non-Creative Technology’ division hidden away somewhere in Leicester Square with isolated folk hunched away doing any necessary duller work.

There is maybe just one thing which hasn’t changed in generations of radio: the notes saying don’t spill Coke in the mixer.  Maybe the other thing which remains unchanged is presenters suggesting they never received that note.  Or indeed any note asking them to do something they forgot to do.   

The truth is that many technology folk are justifiably frustrated by the lack of planning ability of their programming colleagues and their lack of care in equipment usage. We drive them to distraction.

Similarly, from our end, it’s tough to explain the way a presenter feels when they ‘don’t sound right’. Naff mic processing or some dodgy cans affects the way you hear yourself.  It can depress a performer  which affects their next link, which depresses them further.  As every music jock knows, even new earpads on Beyers*** affect your show.  And, when something’s gone wrong, we really value you telling us what the likely prognosis is, and how to get round it – before you disappear from view to go off and fix it.

When technology is first developed, the technicians are also the folk making the content.  It was certainly true with the Marconi engineers in Essex in 1922. Witness the talents of the inimitable engineer-turned-presenter Captain Peter Pendleton Eckersley in my other blog.  Similarly, when the ‘online’ thing began, web pages were written by techy folk.  As the technology matures, it tends to be 'handed over'. Accordingly nowadays, those who originate on-air content are seeing it as part of their role to think of bunging things online and on social media, rather than leaving it 'that chap in online'. 

Maybe, though, because of the speed of technical change, the line between content and delivery is blurring the other way too.  Great technical folk can be assets in brainstorming – and self-originating content. A technical solution/platform can now be the answer to a creative challenge.  We're thankful for a new breed of frighteningly talented individuals ideally suited to the next generation of ‘radio’.  Step forward, James Cridland for paving the way.

The two divisions of the business are talking more.  At the annual TechCon conference, isn't it great to witness a few more familiar programming faces amongst the skilled technical crowd.  If you’re in content, you are missing a trick if you don’t spend some time with technical brains. They’ll help you understand how you’ll need to do your job within the forseeable future.  I also see a few more women sat on the hard seats at the Lowry too, which is the other welcome change.

The only emails about technical stuff used to be when something went wrong or was not fixed.  At last, the bright technical brains are getting the profile  and credit they deserve.  When something goes well, an OB or an award, the people rarely mentioned in despatches are technical teams.  And, almost without exception they’ll have helped in some way. 

So, in case i ever forget again, may I just say, on behalf of all programmers, thanks for all you do.  We appreciate it genuinely.  And, to the, now rare, awkward 20th Century techies still working in this field who've no idea what your job really is, get your act together.  Most of your colleagues have.

 *A three tiered tape cartridge machine - great for playing lots of jingles in a row out of the news. 
** Gramophone needles. Fit in record grooves to make noises.
***The best headphones ever.  Oh yes.
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