I’m not entirely sure how the radio imaging obsession got started.\u00a0 One day I was listening to some voiceover demos and analyzing the production levels of different genres.\u00a0 It’s worth noting here that not all voiceover demos are created equal.\u00a0 This is by design. I’ll elaborate a little bit here:<\/p>\n
Explainer and eLearning demos are extremely smooth in their delivery.\u00a0 Sometimes they contain humor, more often than not they are demonstrations of the kind of voice you would expect to hear for hours on end while learning how to insert widget A into socket B.\u00a0 Piece of cake.<\/p>\n
Corporate and Medical Narration (categories that I spend most of my time in) are a bit more on the “stuffy” side.\u00a0 Where an explainer video has some room for a bit of humor, medical narration as an example is very strictly business.\u00a0 There isn’t much call for comedy in the realm of double-blind ovarian cancer medication studies or the proper application of dressings on an open surgical flap.<\/p>\n
Things get a bit more exciting when it’s time for Commercial demos.\u00a0 The music and the voice are both “louder” both in terms of actual volume and presence.\u00a0 The volume is as easy as using a knob to make it louder.\u00a0 The presence is by use of devices that squish the audio so that their peaks and valleys are closer to the center and the end result feels more “dense.”\u00a0 These devices are called Compressors.\u00a0 They work as labeled: they compress audio.<\/p>\n
I’ll save the technical explanation of the compressor for another post as that could drag on for a while.\u00a0 These louder tendencies are built to reflect the type of listening experience you would have on the radio or television.\u00a0 Or YouTube preload.\u00a0 Or un-skippable Hulu break.\u00a0 They are designed to get your attention by use of louder and more bombastic techniques than the previous types because it works.\u00a0 The brain is funny that way: Louder = Better.<\/p>\n
And then there’s Radio Imaging.\u00a0 Here we go down the the obsessive rabbit hole.<\/p>\n
I’m glad you asked.\u00a0 Or I asked.\u00a0 Someone asked.\u00a0 The hypothetical you.\u00a0 Radio Imaging is what you hear when you’re at the top of the hour on a radio station and they are required by law to announce their frequency and call sign.\u00a0 “You’re listening to 99.9 FM, KISW.\u00a0 The Rock of Seattle.”\u00a0 There it is in its simplest form.<\/p>\n
Frequency and Call Sign letters.\u00a0 The branded nickname is a bonus. That is one example of the many components of Radio Imaging.\u00a0 “Be caller number 10 and win ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!”\u00a0 Also Radio Imaging.\u00a0 “Catch BARRY MANILOW Live in Concert! This Saturday at the Climate Pledge Arena! Tickets are on sale now.”\u00a0 Radio Imaging!\u00a0 We’re starting to get into the realm of Promo so we’ll reign it in a bit and stick to the more traditional imaging.\u00a0 Side note: Seeing Barry Manilow Live at the Climate Pledge Arena would not be awful.\u00a0 He puts on a great show!<\/p>\n
Why are these their own category?\u00a0 Wouldn’t they get the same loudness treatment that commercials get?\u00a0 You would think so.\u00a0 I sure did and I was staggeringly incorrect in my assumption.\u00a0 If Commercial audio is “Loud,” then Radio Imaging is “REALLY Loud.”\u00a0 For lack of a better description.\u00a0 Radio Imaging is super hyped out in a way that grabs attention even more than the standard commercial.<\/p>\n
Part of it is legalistic; Radio Stations absolutely must do a Station Identification once every hour.\u00a0 Part of it is brand recognition.\u00a0 If there is a requirement to do something a minimum of 24 times a day – assuming 24 hour play –\u00a0 without fail, may as well do it in a way that is worth listening to, right?\u00a0 Taking it a step further, no reason to not promote the station brand multiple times an hour to remind people who they are listening to in a way that gets them to stick around.\u00a0 Hopefully.<\/p>\n
Terrestrial radio hit a significant boom during pandemic life.\u00a0 In spite of reports of its demise, it’s still here.\u00a0 More listeners means more advertisement sponsorship.\u00a0 More advertisement sponsorship means opportunities to increase listener engagement.\u00a0 Increasing listener engagement requires something to get and keep their attention.\u00a0 Entertaining Imaging spots, contests, interviews, giveaways, all a tiny component of the machine that drives radio to continue to exist.\u00a0 While away from the era of Radio Drama – The Shadow really does know – the radio still maintains a captive audience of those who cannot be entertained by other means or choose not to.<\/p>\n
Back to Imaging.\u00a0 Not every station is going to have loud bombastic in-your-face imaging.\u00a0 The Classical Music station would be out of place with the attention-grabbing techniques used on Rock and Alternative radio.\u00a0 Easy Listening doesn’t need Top 40-style sweepers.\u00a0 They’re still all required to announce once per hour.<\/p>\n
Rock\/Alternative and Top 40 (which is now apparently referred to as Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR)) are more flamboyant with their techniques to get you to listen.\u00a0 Sound effects, multiple voices, edgy content, sometimes even things bordering on what the FCC allows to be aired, and all of it LOUD.\u00a0 Compressed to within an inch of its life.<\/p>\n
I wasn’t sure at first.\u00a0 Part of it was the loudness, I will admit.\u00a0 The brain thinks something is better when it’s louder.\u00a0 Easy trick. It’s deeper than that though. HOW they got it that loud without distorting is the rabbit hole.\u00a0 Then the EFFECTS.\u00a0 Flangers, Choruses, Doublers, Stereo Widening, Filter usage, Pitch Shift; virtually every effect trick in the book is crushing in a way to make the reads stand out.\u00a0 I wanted to know how they did it, why they did it, and that meant I had to DO it.\u00a0 Watching a YouTube video of someone else flowing through their production templates only gets my brain so far; I have to try it myself.<\/p>\n
It turns out that having a background in audio engineering came in super handy.\u00a0 Listening to examples and mimicking their content turned out to be surprisingly easy.\u00a0 The writing part?\u00a0 Not nearly as simple.\u00a0 Basic IDs are easier.\u00a0 More creative content requires a level a higher degree of copywriter capability.\u00a0 Which took me even further down the rabbit hole of learning about and analyzing some of the great names in Radio Imaging.<\/p>\n
John Frost is a legend and deserves that title.\u00a0 I downloaded every single piece of content I could find that he had his hands in and listened to it in the car for weeks; first to get through the HILARIOUS writing, and then later to analyze pacing, sound effect usage, dialogue timing, and structure.\u00a0 This meandered to listening to content created by Miles Hlivko, Malcolm Ryker, Net Spindle, and imaging houses like VooDoo Sound in Australia.\u00a0 There’s an entire industry around this medium.<\/p>\n
Radio Imaging scratches every single itch that I have where audio is concerned: Voice over, creating\/using sound effects, editing audio, chopping things up, using effects, writing custom music, writing scripts.\u00a0 Then combining it all together and making it ultra hyped without distorting.\u00a0 It’s an entire checklist of all the things that fascinate me and give me the goosepimples every time a test project is complete.<\/p>\n