Let’s Track It

Introduction.

You will find these days in professional radio environments that many shows are “voice tracked”. The presenter is not live in the studio. Instead, she can record the speech links between the songs and upload them via the internet to the station. If the presenter has lots of tricks up her sleeve, you may not be sure when listening if the show is live or recorded.

It is these “tricks” that are a large part of the focus of our training course “Let’s Track It”. But the course is also for people who have never hosted a radio show using this format before. If the station is equipped with StationPlaylist’s remote server, you do not need to invest in software which you will not use. The financial investment is minimal. It is only necessary to purchase a high quality microphone (and naturally, this training course!)

There are two types of voice tracking. Remote voice tracking means that you will connect to a computer at the station and record your programme links. However, limitations may be imposed on you by station management and maybe the software itself.

On the other hand, with local voice tracking (and if you have StationPlaylist Studio Pro), you are responsible for the entire show which will be streamed from your computer. This gives you a good deal more control and means that station management can book you to produce a radio show and you are entirely responsible for the way it sounds.

One of the advantages people often advocate in favour of voice tracking is the speed at which a show can be prepared. While this is true, our view is that investing the necessary time for programme preparation and recording makes for a better sounding and entertaining show. The training course will discuss some of the many ways you can do this and give your programme that extra special polish.

We’ll also discuss the differences between local voice tracking and remote voice tracking outlined above. Which is better? The truth is that there are an equal number of advantages for both types which will be explained.

While our previously produced training course “the StationPlaylist Workshop” discussed voice tracking to some extent, technology has moved on considerably since then to include far superior facilities in this area. In the most recent version of the client and server, that functionality is extended even further. So the time is right to host this training course.

Finally, we focus on the administration of this from the server side. If you are responsible for the technical aspects of a station, how are you going to set up the software so your DJ’s and presenters can do what they need to do?
Note that additional JAWS scripts are included with the training course to make the administration of users much easier.

What Else Will I Learn?

The training course is divided into two lessons, each of which is approximately 90 minutes. In addition to the subjects described above, the topics will include:

• Installing the voice tracking remote server and client.
• Administration. Adding users, viewing the timetable and setting permissions.
• Viewing the days and hours.
• Which option is best? Manual Outgoing/Incoming, Manual Outgoing, Manual Incoming, No Overlap, or Automatic.
• Searching for songs in the station’s library.
• Uploading your own songs or jingles and the warning associated with it.
• For Administrators. The intro, the outro and the importance of both.
• Why it may not be necessary to mark the intro and the outro.
• What constitutes an intro and an outro. The station Administrators are not always correct.
• A reminder of the outgoing and incoming songs.
• Recording your voice breaks while listening to the songs or as individual items. The former gives you far more control.
• Adopting the appropriate tone for your voice break.
• Pausing the recording and previewing the finished item.
• Recording a voice break using an external sound editor and the advantages of doing so.
• Talking over a music bed.
• Saving and uploading voice breaks.
• A discussion of time. Consideration of your location within the hour and what it means.
• Rearranging items.
• What you cannot do with songs in the station’s library despite allegedly having full permissions.
• Keystrokes to quickly get you to where you need to be.
• For Administrators. Adjusting the volume of music and spots against voice breaks.
• The Recorder. Manipulating the settings.
• Replay Gain and how it can be used to good effect.

Alternatively, please send an Email to brian@hartgenconsultancy.com, whereupon a PayPal invoice can be sent to you. This can also be paid using any major credit or debit card.

Conclusion.

This training course is for people who have always wanted to host a radio show but may not necessarily wish to invest in tools such as StationPlaylist Studio in order to do it or perhaps those who are not confident enough to broadcast live. However, it is equally useful for seasoned broadcasters who undertake voice tracking on a regular basis. We’re very confident you will find in the course some things which you did not know about the software and moreover, perhaps some approaches to this method of broadcasting you had not previously considered. Dive into the world of voice tracking and we’ll show you the best ways of ensuring your radio shows sound as good as they can be.