The third week of my practicum definitely has been different from the first two weeks. Part of that was the unexpected surprise of a minor health issue on Monday (dealt with and doing good now). I’m having so much fun with everything I’m doing.
I’ve done a bit of everything this week. Putting JUT80s together, cleaning up remote cut ins, and commercial spots. It’s everything that I want to do in radio.
Now that I only have a week left… and not even that because of Good Friday, I don’t want it to end. It’s been so much fun! Now if there were jobs in Alberta I could get I would be very happy indeed. Looking for work will be a process in and of itself but I know I can do it.
Now play us out to the weekend George Harrision
Week 3 Day 11, March 22, 2021
Today started not so great. A quick digital doctor visit and turns out I needed some antibiotics to deal with something and if it doesn’t look better in about 24/48 hours, off to urgent care with myself. Any who… I got the “remotes” ready to go for the FHHL that airs later this week. I didn’t get as many done as I wanted since I wasn’t feeling well, something that Rob reminded was okay.
I did get so of the cut in done and got shown some tips for dealing with a file that’s about a sec too long. Enter the waveform editing. Something that I tried later and was the nice final touch to the piece. So the tip was using the stretch effect and speed it up only by a second using a bit of math to figure out the percentage needed. Looks like there is more math involved in radio then first thought. (Richard you big fibber!You said there was no Math 😛 ) Rob also showed me using the spline curve (a curve that rounds off audio, something I didn’t know) which was helpful editing in waveform.
Another I didn’t think of was to leave a bit of a tail at the end so a EOM can be place so not make the computer’s marker of the EOF glitch. Something that I can take forward while loading files into the system at school.
Tomorrow I’ll hopefully feel better and get the rest of the cut ins done. (If not there is going to be a very interesting report about urgent care) Then it’s off onto the JUT80’s for next week.
Week 3 Day 12, March 23, 2021
Today was a finish and start day. I finished up the cut in and started the new round of jut80s.
I did learn a cool sound design technique with having one as normal voice with an echo and under that a delay track. It adds a cool shimmer. Learned this from a promo rob was making for something a bit later. Something else i got to see was the promo for the 20k contest today was really fun cause a clip from the question was about Rob threw in at the end and still bleeped the answer. I learned how to do a bleep using the tone effect on a piece of audio.
It was a good watch day. Upside I’m feeling a bit better today over yesterday and that means my antibiotics are working (fingers crossed).
Week 3 Day 13, March 24, 2021
I get to be a fly on the wall come Monday for the jack production meeting! Networking and meeting past sait grads here I come!
I got to do another donut spot for Medicine Hat today. Never have I faced a popping s in a piece. Turns out eq can hide them to a degree. All I could hear in the back of my head while listening to the rare audio was Richard saying mic placement. I now know at least how to deal with cellphone(?) recorded audio. My new spot airs this Friday till the end of April.
Tomorrow is a free range day for me to finish JUT80s and then Rob sent me some listeners id’s to voice. They’re something fun the station runs. Rob says to have fun, do them causal and if I want to make a character with it.
Something I learned about commercial s today while doing the spot today was don’t put any car/ambulance noises in pieces. It makes sense since people listen to the radio while they are in the car. And the last thing you want to do is panic people when they’re listening to your station.
Week 3 Day 14, March 25, 2021
JUT80s work day, hopefully I can get it all done today.
In our morning meeting talked about where I’m applying to, and the reality right now of radio jobs. Rob said I could send him my cover letter to go over for me. And he’s going to send me a few emails for folks he knows in Harvard and Patterson. Networking isn’t my strong suit but I think as long as I’m open and honest it will hopefully work out.
I’ve gotten a commercial I get to work on tomorrow once I finish JUT80s. That will be another thing I can put into my updated demo.
Rob had to freshen up a promo for the long weekend next week and had me sit in to watch it. All the elements and build up of momentum was really fun. There was a beginning middle and end that just kept it going. A cool think he did at the beginning to build it up was dropping the eq on the songs then having it back up to make a point/impact on the listener. Since Rob had to make one saying tomorrow, today, and all weekend he pointed out that it’s important to keep a listener informed even if you as the producer know what’s going on.
Week 3 Day 15, March 26, 2021
The morning marching orders were to finish up JUT80s which took me a bit longer then I would have liked but there were a few things I needed to fight with to get it sounding right.
Now onto that commercial for a rock station. It’s kinda funny that the bed is very rock to seeing as it’s a industry supply store. It’s a new voice so that means some tweaking to the presets 😊 This is gonna be fun.
The afternoon turned into a “Fun Trick Friday” of Audition. I filled three pages in my notebook. We pretty much went down the list of plugins and Rob told and showed my all the ones he’s used and how they affect audio. I can’t wait to try them out this weekend. A
After that it’s back to working on the commercial. Turns out the vo is from out east so I got to hear my first different take on the works “line up of products”. I can say I haven’t heard it like that before and it was good exposure for me.
Radio in Training 