Binaural Stereo, Playlisting, “I Get A Kick Out of You”
The Advanced Microphone Workshop exposed us to different kinds of microphones used by producers. It’s a pity there’s no similar demand for such expertise in Singapore’s radio scene – we could certainly do with more exciting audio projects!
An interesting mic I saw for the first time was a lip mic which rests on the lip (duh!). It’s a ribbon, bi-directional mic used in commentaries. Fantastic: one side for commentary, the other for background.
A novel way of using clip mics is to attach two of them, each one around one ear (or clip them to the spectacles) to create something called “binaural stereo”. This replicates what the ear hears. Apparently it’s great hearing it with headphones on.
Now, I didn’t know that clip mics are designed to capture sounds from the chest cavity. If someone had explained this to me earlier, I wouldn’t have bothered projecting my voice for TV.
Since radio drama is such an institution here, it’s not surprising that specialized drama studios have been built to recreate effects like church and living room. They also have a “dead” room.
Playlisting was the subject that was covered by someone from Power FM, a CHR commercial radio station. There’s big time music research done here, with Power calling up 120-200 people every week to test 30 songs. Age-old problem of accepting business deals – do you agree to play a lousy song more often just because the record company is willing to sponsor a huge prize?
How many songs should you have on the playlist? Apparently 70 – 80 songs could work quite well for a CHR station. I remember the time when we had this number on Radio 1, 90.5FM, and it was painful. It just doesn’t work for a classic/oldies format!
I was very surprised that these 3 movies are banned in Bournemouth – The Last Temptation of Christ, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, and Crash. Must be due to the high proportion of senior citizens living here. This was a prelude to a lecture on media ethics. I hadn’t realized it before, but radio and TV have the greatest responsibility because of its ad-libs. A slip of the tongue could prove fatal.
Know Frank Sinatra’s song “I Get A Kick Out of You”? It’s a song about sniffing cocaine. Now that you know this, would you play it?
Question was raised as to whether it’s acceptable to manipulate pictures, no matter how minor. Tough one. But if anyone wants to give me Nicole Kidman’s body, I’d say go ahead!
Some interesting points I gleaned from my readings this week:
• Many of the differences between stations are exaggerated. Think soft rock, soft AC.
• In the US, Adult Contemporary, Country & Talk account for about half of all stations.
• In the US, the most popular format is News/Talk. Will we ever see this happening in Singapore?
• The more freedom given for diversity, the more homogenization there will be. Everyone crowds around the same markets and formats.
• Radio formats are really a way of packaging audiences in a comprehensible way to advertisers.
• Where previously other media companies bought into the radio business, radio companies have grown big enough to reverse the trend and become active buyers in the marketplace.
• It’s the large national public service broadcasters that have been central to the early development of DAB. Cost is prohibitive.
• Digitilization embeds radio more firmly within the multimedia world, but simultaneously reduces its status as a medium and as an industry in its own right. Definition of radio changing?
An interesting mic I saw for the first time was a lip mic which rests on the lip (duh!). It’s a ribbon, bi-directional mic used in commentaries. Fantastic: one side for commentary, the other for background.
A novel way of using clip mics is to attach two of them, each one around one ear (or clip them to the spectacles) to create something called “binaural stereo”. This replicates what the ear hears. Apparently it’s great hearing it with headphones on.
Now, I didn’t know that clip mics are designed to capture sounds from the chest cavity. If someone had explained this to me earlier, I wouldn’t have bothered projecting my voice for TV.
Since radio drama is such an institution here, it’s not surprising that specialized drama studios have been built to recreate effects like church and living room. They also have a “dead” room.
Playlisting was the subject that was covered by someone from Power FM, a CHR commercial radio station. There’s big time music research done here, with Power calling up 120-200 people every week to test 30 songs. Age-old problem of accepting business deals – do you agree to play a lousy song more often just because the record company is willing to sponsor a huge prize?
How many songs should you have on the playlist? Apparently 70 – 80 songs could work quite well for a CHR station. I remember the time when we had this number on Radio 1, 90.5FM, and it was painful. It just doesn’t work for a classic/oldies format!
I was very surprised that these 3 movies are banned in Bournemouth – The Last Temptation of Christ, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, and Crash. Must be due to the high proportion of senior citizens living here. This was a prelude to a lecture on media ethics. I hadn’t realized it before, but radio and TV have the greatest responsibility because of its ad-libs. A slip of the tongue could prove fatal.
Know Frank Sinatra’s song “I Get A Kick Out of You”? It’s a song about sniffing cocaine. Now that you know this, would you play it?
Question was raised as to whether it’s acceptable to manipulate pictures, no matter how minor. Tough one. But if anyone wants to give me Nicole Kidman’s body, I’d say go ahead!
Some interesting points I gleaned from my readings this week:
• Many of the differences between stations are exaggerated. Think soft rock, soft AC.
• In the US, Adult Contemporary, Country & Talk account for about half of all stations.
• In the US, the most popular format is News/Talk. Will we ever see this happening in Singapore?
• The more freedom given for diversity, the more homogenization there will be. Everyone crowds around the same markets and formats.
• Radio formats are really a way of packaging audiences in a comprehensible way to advertisers.
• Where previously other media companies bought into the radio business, radio companies have grown big enough to reverse the trend and become active buyers in the marketplace.
• It’s the large national public service broadcasters that have been central to the early development of DAB. Cost is prohibitive.
• Digitilization embeds radio more firmly within the multimedia world, but simultaneously reduces its status as a medium and as an industry in its own right. Definition of radio changing?
posted by BIG! Mama @ 11:31 AM
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