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Radio? Yes. Part 15? Perhaps…
Radio? Yes. Part 15? Perhaps…
“Talking up a record” describes what happens when a Disc Jockey gives the time and temperature, mentions a sponsor, gives the performers name and the song title, then gives the call letters while a record is playing BUT before the vocals start.
Some consider this an art form and the very essence of effective record and station promotion.
I was delighted to discover two magnificent audio snippets, one featuring a ledgendary DJ I had read about but never heard and the other a delightful peek into the past of a popular media personality who is well known in a completely different medium.
The first tidbit is from the legendary Alan Freed, doing his Moon Dog show on WJW.
If you look closely you can just make out the Moon Dog cuff link.
Alan Freed, the Moon Dog ShowWhat amazes me about the Moon Dog is that he does it all with no FX, bumpers, stingers or even a buzzer or a bell. He just guts it out, all Alan, all night long – amazing
Next was a big surprise for me, having lived on the West Coast my entire life. You might remember the George Michael Sports Machine, the sports highlight show that ran for 27 years.
Imagine my surprise when I learned the George was once a famous and popular DJ, and one to the best talk-ups in the business, in his day.
George Michael on WAVAI have the full Alan Freed file with music tracks intact, let me know if you wanna hear it 🙂
Total posts : 45366Yes, talking up a record is a true art form and it does take a while to learn. I got pretty good at it, but occasionally, I would walk on a vocal. How Long by Ace is a great record to talk up; it’s got a 45 second intro that builds into the vocal.
The concept is based upon the idea that the music never stops. Spots are fully produced with no dry voice, and music segues under the announcer as he/she promos the station and announces the next song. It’s very high energy and takes a lot of skill. A lot of the best Top-40 radio in the ’50’s thru the ’70’s followed this concept. The interesting part is that most stations were playing music from 45’s with only the spots and jingles on cart. Keeping that high energy sound took a lot of work!
The production department kept busy, too, because they’d have to audition every record that went on the air to get the intro time. Not every label would mark the intro time on the record’s label. There was more than once occasion where I would play a song in cue to get it’s intro time.
Total posts : 45366Good software helps you know when to shut up. Our automation software displays a counter to let you know how much time you have before the vocals start. That is assuming you enter the queue points correctly.
It also lets you record voice tracks between two songs, and control when the recording start during the first song, and control when the second song starts. For even more flexibilty you can slide the tracks around on the timeline to make sure the overlap is exactly where you want it. It then automatically pulls the music down to a set level when the voice track plays (could be days later). This is how a good portion of the commercial stations are run, especially on the weekend (’cause no one likes working weekends).
I know SAM broadcaster allows this, and we use BSI’s Simian software, not sure if ZARA lets you do this.
All that said, the software only helps… You still have to be good to sound good! In the days or records and reel to reel tapes, it was truly an art form.
Total posts : 45366When I was involved with a campus radio station as a techie, I would fill when the DJ went to the bathroom (or went outside to smoke something) and learned to do this. Another thing was to start the record based on the play time so it would end at the break and to fade in while it was playing so it ended when scheduled. The magic for the listener was that the song ended excactly on the break and they never noticed that the beginning was chopped. We called it “cueing to the clock”. Lots of fun, but the real pros did these tricks so well that it was always seamless.
Oh the smell of the dust from the hot tubes and vinyl discs and mylar tape in the overheated unairconditioned studios. It’s a wonder we all didn’t get cancer.
Neil
Total posts : 45366I remember having to lay out the playlists by the hour using the playing time of each cut along with the jingles and commercials so the song ended at the proper times for news on the hour. I allowed so many seconds of chatter in between to make up the difference,which was sometimes a lot to fill,you had to be good at this game as well. I kept a lot of little snippets from the Ap or UPI wire to fill it with. Add to the smell of hot tubes the following:stale cigarette and cigar smoke,thermal printer paper,alcohol scented litho paper,
spilled coffee and stinky pits….ahhh,the good old days!!?!
Regards,Lee
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