I got my first Radio show.

Every other Thursday at 12:00 noon. 27 minutes of commercial free airtime with the freedom to program it how I choose.  I will be broadcasting out of the local public radio station, 96.7 WVXA in Rogers City Michigan.  

I am producing the show here at UltraSound, I am formatting it in 3 segments, interview on topic of local interest, a local artist gets to air their work on the show, and then a story, hopefully humourous, of local or historic interest.

It is the first time I have done anything like this since college.  If any of you would like to offer any advice please do so, I want this to be as good as I can possibly make it.  

Please help me make Sunrise Side Matters into the News magazine I dream it can be.

I am so excited I can't even sit still.    

It's kind of hard to give general advice for a first-time.  But I'll give it a shot anyway!

Relax.  Obviously this show is a big thing for you, but don't let your excitement get out of hand.  Burn off as much as you can before the show so you sound like an old pro.  

Prepare, but don't over-prepare.  The reason for being prepared is obvious.  But you don't want to over prepare because you will sound mechanical.  I don't really think you will lose interest in the show, but it's possible to lose interest in the subject matter.  

Forget mistakes.  Don't dwell on them or you will only make more.  Remember that mistakes are what make us human.  Your listeners are human and your mistakes let them know that you are just like them.  An OCCASIONAL flub of a word or stutter is a good thing.

Have fun.  It sounds simple, but it's easy to become overwhelmed by pressure.  Remeber that it's radio, not brain surgery.

Don't swear.  

I hope you will post some sample audio after your first show so we can help you a little more.  Good luck!

Hey well done Ultra150  

Is it pre-recorded or live?

Pre-recorded is how I am going to start.

I have the option of doing it live if I choose.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Show up for work sober.  Or not.




 

mgrox

r

Show up for work sober.  Or not.




 

mgrox

r

First time I'll have done that in years.

It's that whole "self-employed" thing.  

Pre-recorded is how I am going to start.

I have the option of doing it live if I choose.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Well there's an 'edge', a sort of controlled tension that you can hear in a live voice that sounds exciting, difficult to reproduce when you're recording. When you're recording you're very aware that it doesn't matter if you screw up, you can always do it again and no one will know, but you have to sound like it does matter to get it right, otherwise it'll sound laid back and lazy, it'll be noticeable in your breathing and pace. If you have the luxury to record it, that's great, what you produce will no doubt be flawless, and you have the opportunity to hear yourself doing it well and you can learn from that. Going to upload a sampler of your show here?

All the best!

BFM has a good point. I usually have the person be more animated when they are recording. Many times I have them bring a picture of someone and talk to it while recording. I also encourage them to use their hands, point and be more animated while they speak.  

Sample of the intro is attached.

Don't be to hard on me, it is my first time.      

Nice contrast between voice and music, though I'm not sure if the voice might be just a bit on the bassy side.  I don't have radio experience but plenty of others here do and they'll know better, plus, I'm listening on headphones.

What I really like: the imperfect whistling... not getting a full whistle on all notes lends a nice relaxed feeling, like whistling just for pleasure while you're involved doing something else, or walking a road just thinking or looking around.  It all goes to lend a sense of peacefulness.

Two thumbs up.  (wish I had some thumb smilies --   )

Thanks Cal for your feedback.

One comment I received on it was "It sounds perfect for public radio".

Since it is going to be on public radio, I thought that was a good thing.

 

The intro sounds good - You might want to focus a little more on ENUNCIATION and not zipping through some phrases - I'm no pro, but I think you need to be more deliberate in your speech to make it easier to understand over the backgound noise of the 4X4 Turbo MudSlinger tires in the next lane. - I find that is a big difference between rookie voices on the local college station and more seasoned folks.

The intro sounds good - You might want to focus a little more on ENUNCIATION and not zipping through some phrases - I'm no pro, but I think you need to be more deliberate in your speech to make it easier to understand over the backgound noise of the 4X4 Turbo MudSlinger tires in the next lane. - I find that is a big difference between rookie voices on the local college station and more seasoned folks.

I think you nailed it!

I restarted 3 or 4 times, telling myself to SLOW DOWN each time.

Thanks for your input.  

I wouldn't slow down any more.  Your pace is good.  You want to sound conversational, but still clear.  You seem to have a minor case of "mushmouth".  Work on opening your mouth a little more when you speak.  At first it will feel strange and wrong, but remember:  No one can see you!  I don't know where you're from, but mushmouth is most common in the midwestern and northern parts of the US.  Your accent sounds a little northern to me.  But I'm probably way off and you're from California.
Work on opening the back of your mouth, rather than the front.  Opening the back will naturally open the front of your mouth as well as open up the throat, so you will get better tone.  (Not that there's anything wrong with your tone now.  You sound good!)
Also, breathe from your gut instead of your chest.  That will help your projection tremendously.  When you breathe, you want your abdomen to blow up like a balloon, but you don't want your shoulders to move at all.

Those are all things that you can work on.  No hurry though.  You sound good as it is.  Take your time and tackle one thing at a time.

This whole enunciation/speed issue throws quite a few people until they get used to it. It gets to be a real issue when recording voice-overs, which tend to be longer in length - and I've spent years producing and coaxing those out of people who didn't think they could do it - and virtually all of them could, of course... with most of them it was just a few little details that need attention, and when you're starting out is a good time to do this! Emmett's advice is clearly along the right lines as far as the voice production itself is concerned, and once you've learned to do that, the rest comes quite naturally to most people.

Speaking too slowly isn't always a blessing at all - for a lot of people, it's quite frustrating to listen to. People assimilate the meaning of what you are saying during the pauses in your speech - the ones at the natural breaks at the ends of sentences, phrases and paragraphs. So most people are happiest when a sentence or phrase flows smoothly, and there are natural length pauses between them. One thing that you can try (I noticed the odd slip in the recording) is to make a point of deliberately sounding the beginnings and ends of words - especially in phrases like 'I'll be your host', where the last two words ended up as 'yourost'. As much as anything, it's not that you aren't speaking most of them, it's that they are slightly too quiet, so we hear the middles of words but not so much of the whole word. And this tends to break up the natural syllable rhythm, which is what 'flow' actually is.

The other piece of bog-standard advice that might be worth mentioning, although you don't in the small extract appear to be having a problem with it, is that if you are going to write and then read longer scripted pieces, then don't write down a thing until you've spoken it alound, and them wite down exactly the word sounds you made. Now this may sound as though it's going to contradict what I just said, because some words do naturally run together - but these are ones where people are used to hearing them in that form. I have a couple of good examples to quote - 'this'll' is what most people would speak naturally instead of 'this will', and my favourite one, which is 'shouldn't've'. That is three words rolled into one - but once again, this is the way it's generally pronounced in colloquial speech. These words work like this though, because the syllable flow is maintained in both cases. What you will find, though, is that the sentences you write down will be shorter, and with more pauses - because this is the way we speak, and it's designed to aid comprehension. There are other things that happen, too, but you'll find those out for yourself!

But in general, I think the whole thing sounds quite promising - okay, it's not high-octane jock-speak, but that's clearly not where you're going with this, and that's absolutely fine. And most of these little things we've mentioned you will yourself modify quite naturally if you listen critically to a few playbacks, and analyse what's happening, I think.