6 - Technologies

In my preliminary task, and also my final radio production, I recorded all of the voices through a 'pop guard' on the Shure SM58 microphone. It was never perfect first time around, therefore using the 'Adobe Audition 1.5' I was able to use the editing software to edit the recordings, taking out pauses, mistakes and gaps. 

In the process of recording, I had decided to neatly label each file to clearly show what recording went where, and so it was easily accessible when mixing. 

There are separate folders for recorded, finished and edited sounds. Also a separate folder for sound effects and music. Using the audio editing software "Adobe Audition 1.5", I took out unnecessary breathes, pauses and compressed the voices down. 

On the editing software, the multi-track feature meant I was able to mix separate tracks together with music and sound effects. This layering enabled sound effects and dialogue to be heard at the same time and to appear to the listener to be on one track, when in fact it could be on 4 or 5 layers, mixed and compressed into one. When recording my adverts, jingles and especially outside broadcasts this was vital as the timing had to be perfect and the segment had to sound as real as possible. 

My tennis commentary is the best example of the ways in which the technology helped me be creative and use many different sounds and editing techniques to generate features such as the echo of a tennis court, rallies, serves, and the hushed (and sometimes, cheering) crowd.

I used a teacher from my college who was well spoken and sounded perfect for the part he had to play. 

Most of my recordings took several times to get right, for example a member of staff recorded my jingle in a number different voices, with varied tones and pitches to sound correct. Once I found the right sound for my jingle -  I took out all the pauses, added some effects including an 'echo' so that the voice sounded more 'booming' then added this to an extract from a music track (which I cut using the software). Here is an example of the before and after editing.