College radio???
oh_really
71 Posts
a friend of mine is a dj at the university radio station and asked me if i wanted to start doing a live mix show with him, me doing the mixing and him talking and doing all the other technical radio stuff. Our first show is this fri. I've never done any radio work before so i'm not really sure what to expect, I'm planning to run my Microwave, but i was wondering if I could get a little info. help, inside tip, on anything I should know/do. I know there has got to be some people on here with the experience to lend a hand in making sure i don't come off too amature. Maybe a good way of getting radio edits, or possibly doing your own radio edits. anything...school me...thanks.
Comments
Oh, and #1 mistake made by all college radio DJs: too much talking, not enough music. Unless you have something really great to say, shut up and give the people music.
-The on air personality will get most of the credit for the show. If you're okay with that, then cool.
-It may be tempting to play that dopest hottest freshest beat while he's talking, but that'll take away attention from your man and make for a confusing listening experience. Play someting laid back and non agressive, then when he's done rambling, flip it into something stupid hot.
-After 10PM, FCC rules still apply, they're just more relaxed. You're permitted to air indecency during safe harbor, but never obscenity. Or at least that's what the law says. Lots of DJs don't give a fuck about the rules (myself included) but technically, you're not allowed to violate their non-obscenity regulations, despite the fact that they fail to define obscenity. It's a very big and very lame grey area, but that's how it is.
-If you're using microwave, then a real easy way to edit your own shit is to download Audacity (it's free) and use their reverse tool. Waaaay simple. I used to do this to a lot of my tracks, so I've got a bunch of custom edits of song that say shit, nigga, and bitch all the time (indecent) but have all the fucks, pussies, cocks, dicks, etc... (obscene) edited. Very strange stuff.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Kyle
you could play a record saying "fuck you" after 10 pm.
you cannot let a record play that says "im going to fuck you" ever.
If you know the record you can just hit the instant reverse button on Microwave at the right moment. when you let it go it plays the part of the song that you would have been at if you never pressed the button in the first place. very handy for this. just an update of the live editing I did on my show (transformer switch or I used some cuts a la premier)
have fun with it amd make sure the show is DIFFERENT.
I'm looking forward to doing this i got some ideas myself and i think we could have a lot of fun with this.
What do you think about trying to reach out to labels and/or artists for promo or anything. Is this something that anybody here has had experience with?
This is something I'm wondering myself. I'll be starting a show of mine in the next month or so on WPSC Long Island University
That's gonna be up to the music director at the station, though you can give it a go. Labels are always cost cutting, so unless you really press them for the goods they're gonna be skeptical about giving you their promos, especially vinyl. At least that's my experience, but that may be because our station is dominated by indie rock and barely reports and hip-hop to college radio charts.
And yes, the obscenity rules make no sense, fuck the FCC for many reasons, this just being one of them. We usually just take the safe harbor zone and do whatever we want, cause honestly most good music isn't obscene to the point that anyone would try to fine you for it.
doesn't this get into the 'free goods/payola' area?
when i was working at kalx, this was the last thing they would have let fly
have fun. i've been doing college radio for 6 years (i've graduated and am still doin it)
its shouldn't be too hard to get promo mp3s. and usually they'll have edited versions for you.
College Radio is st8 fun.