General Category > Tips, Tricks, Ponies

Voicework after scheduling

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Jay Lichtenauer:
Some of the other major radio software is doing something that we are not so far and that is programming a block of a few hours ahead of time and then going into that to record voicework to add into the program to make it sound live. It's possible one day that Radiologik will help facilitate this but I'm wondering if anyone is doing this their own way already. A related question is, are there small changes I can do sooner to help facilitate this?

Lane:
i already do this. workflow is fairly simple. what I really need to do this right is a separate pane to build the show in while the live one is cranking away. it would show length of the program I'm building, so I can get the timing just right.

what I do now is put in an interrupt to a time in the future to the existing playlist. so let's say it's 2pm, and I'm building a show. i'll add the first item at the end of the running show, and assign an interrupt for say 8pm on the first item. this let's me see when the new show would end, so I can time it all properly.

I add my tracks manually, or maybe even using a playlist i import. i'll shuffle order etc. like a feller would.

i then use audio recorder by Ben Shanfelder. i use it because i can automate a lot of the recording process. i have it set to auto name the file, and open the folder in the finder it saves it to. so when I voice track, i hit the record button, speak my voice track, and hit stop. the folder auto opens, and I drag that newly made file to the program I'm building, and move it into position. lather, rinse, repeat until I've done it all.

from there, I select my program, save the selection, and let the scheduler do it's thing with adding it in later.  i will usually remove the interrupt I had put on the first item before saving it, as I don't really rely on those very much for timing. it was only there to help me know the length of the program. once saved, I delete that from the currently running program. obviously, i make sure I'm finished before the scheduler runs again as it would fowl up seeing my later shows tracks there.

as I mentioned, this works quite well and fast. what would benefit me most is a separate pane to build the show and save it etc. so I don't have to dance around the running program. perhaps I could load an already saved show and makes changes, and save it again.

another thing (less important) that would be nice is some kind of notification or alerting to know if the next show the scheduler will run is done or not.  I'm really only thinking a week ahead, but maybe some thought for beyond the week time frame is important. what I'm thinking is a list of shows that the scheduler will load and play in the future, and have them red if they ran before and haven't been updated since then. if I did this, I might simply keep track of the last modified date of the program the last time scheduler ran it, and if newer, consider it new, and not colour it red. but flushing this out, I'm right now dealing with someone who will give me 4 or 6 shows at once, and I'll be modifying them slightly and will run them in sequence. I'm perfectly happy managing this myself each week, but would benefit from seeing some red in that list, and maybe even in the top on every screen to alert me. I'm currently dealing with the multiple week thing with itunes and smart playlists the best I can.

and of course, i would expect you'll have the recording built into this special pane so I don't need an external program. select a spot in the program, hit a button to record a voice track. cancel or save it, perhaps name it. it can be that simple. the audio recorder program lets me configure some settings, and save presets for various situations. mono, stereo, aif, mp3, bitrates etc. i have different settings for quick voice overs than I have for permanent song intros, which I also use it for.

looking forward to what you might come up with here Jay, and definitely notify me to beta test this stuff. i'll use it lots!

Loboradio:
I would definitely be interested in this.

asoundhound:
This is of immense interest to me. I'm working with a couple of community groups who are very interested in LPFMs  (recent legislation means there will eventually be more across the US) and I think Radiologik is a great piece of software that would be very useful to these small church and civic group stations. However, I come from a commercial radio background where as someone who would be assisting these groups in having professional sounding programming during otherwise unhosted dayparts, the need for good voicetracking tools is essential.

I've heard lots of sloppy voicetracking, playing at the wrong time, etc. And I don't want this to replace our local volunteers but I want it to provide an even more relatable, local product during times when the station might otherwise have no personality at all, or need some sort of specialist programming. Sometimes this will need to be produced up to a week ahead. I know it's probably complex on the programming end, but it's definitely something I'd be willing to pay for. The scheduling/voicetracking issue is at this point the only reason I'd even entertain something Windows based and I'd love to not have to go that route.

One thing that's essential to me is being able to do it from another system. I've worked a lot with LogMeIn and tools like that, and I'd love a version of RadioLogik that would mirror a station's logs and work like this:

I can log on with my copy of Radiologik and look at a future log - say, this Friday. It tells me what's playing this Friday - songs, etc. I record on my copy voicetracks that are then synced up for my "shift" that day. I need to be able to see what's coming up. And for that matter, if I'm PD, I need to be able to look at the advanced log and see what's playing for that day and swap out tracks that don't fit well together.

Lane:
remote voice tracking is indeed another kettle of fish. on the same LAN, not too hard to achieve in my opinion (which isn't worth that much, since I'm not the developer :) ), but over the internet, much more difficult.

the way radiologik works, it doesn't generally know what's playing in the next hour until 20 minutes before. but what you can do is build a show in advance by manually building/saving it. it doesn't automatically do this that far in advance. getting that sophisticated may be taking it beyond the LPFM type audience.

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