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Radio – it ain’t what it used to be!
We learn something new every
day. Take Radio, for example.
I grew up on Long Island in the 60’s and my mom always had the radio on in
the kitchen. As she enjoyed her morning coffee and throughout her day, she
would listen to live radio shows which featured more talk than music. I
remember listening to Herb Oscar Anderson, Clavin & Finch, Rambling with
Gambling, Joe Franklin’s Memory Lane and of course she listened to the Met’s
on WABC-AM. I had my own small transistor radio and I was devoted to the
WMCA Good Guys and of course, Cousin Brucie.
Radio, you turned it on and immediately you were not alone; you were part of
a conversation, an audience and sometimes during a call-in show, you became
the show. Radio stimulated the mind, yet there were times when it was
mindless stimulation; Ahh, the best of both worlds!
In the old days, radio shows and programs were live; the DJ’s, show hosts
and newscasters were all in, or around, the studio. Today radio is very much
like everything else; a majority of programming is pre-recorded, packaged
and then delivered to radio stations to be edited and aired, as needed.
On the morning of Saturday, January 17th, I went to The L.I. Maritime Museum
to attend a demonstration of the process of digital audio editing, it was
hosted by The L.I. Wireless Historical Society (for information email:
BillMozer@gmail.com). Could anything, aside from possibly
watching ice melt, sound less exciting than a demonstration of the process
of digital audio editing? VERY WRONGO, Buckaroo, nothing could be further
from the truth! Remember: We learn something new every day.
(Before I begin, though - if you have not been to The L.I. Maritime Museum
by now; well, shame on you. We are privileged to have it in our own
backyard, so get a move on! Go now, I’ll wait …Oh, maybe not, but I will be
here when you get back.)
Two professors from C.W. Post – Bernie Bernard (aka Radio Diva) (www.berniebernard.com)
and Daniel Cox (the Station Manager of WCWB at C.W. Post, LIU) gave the
demonstration and they are first-rate presenters – informative and engaging,
while also being clever and interesting. They took us ‘back in the day’,
when radio reporters would carry around heavy and cumbersome tape recorders
as they covered their stories and conducted their interviews. After an
assignment, the journalist would bring the audio tapes back to the radio
studio in order to edit them and finalize ‘the story’. In the studio, a
sound engineer would place the tape on a reel-to-reel and together the
journalist and engineer would play it, listening all the time to decide what
audio should be kept for the broadcast. The tape would then be edited by
hand (actually by ear & hand as the editing was done by manually moving the
reels back and forth to determine exactly where edits should be made).
Editing was done with a grease pencil and razor blade – the engineer would
mark on the tape, with the pencil, the exact locations where the tape needed
to be cut, then he would cut the tape with a razor blade and the tape ends
would be spliced together and Voila - a news or entertainment story was
radio-worthy and ready for air.
Today, in the digital age (doesn’t everyone know analog is so yesterday?!),
many radio reporters carry around microphones which enable them to not only
record – but edit, as well – in the field. Gone are the days when a reporter
actually had to physically return to the studio in order to file or turn in
a story; today a radio reporter can report, edit, and transmit the final
product back to the studio electronically, while still in the field.
Ok, that is one aspect of radio – what about everything else done via radio
– advertising, for example?
The Radio Diva and Dan, the Station Man, did a live demonstration to show us
how digital audio editing is done with a microphone and a computer. A
volunteer recorded a line of copy into the microphone; the recording was
then uploaded to the laptop (which of course had the Adobe Audition program
installed). Dan and the Diva, then took us step-by-step through the process
of combining and mixing audio copy, music, and sound effects in order to
produce a twenty second radio spot. To just say this demonstration was
interesting is a gross understatement, I learned so much about something
that I never knew would be of interest to me, digital audio editing and the
wonderful, and still, exciting world of Radio.
I am not gifted in the technical sense, so I may not have used the correct
terminology in all the appropriate places, or exactly and accurately
described the ‘editing process’, but that is a failing of mine, not these
very exciting and knowledgeable instructors – Radio Diva and Dan, the
Station Man!
You can listen to Dan, the Station Man’s C.W. Post college radio station by
going to www.liu.edu
and clicking on the WLIU/WCWP Long Island University Public Radio Network
box. I’m listening now to Rita Huston hosting a show about Carole King and
selections and interviews from Carole’s Tapestry album (1973 – I remember it
like it was yesterday).
If anyone is interested in listening to some old radio shows or broadcasts –
Jack Benny, Abbott & Costello, Burns & Allen, or FDR and Winston Churchill,
to name a few – you can obtain tapes and CD’s at the library. You can also
go on the web to
www.radiospirits.com, and listen to some
oldies but goodies right on your computer and it’s free.
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