Monthly Archives: November 2007

Custom Made Jingles, Commercials and Music for Television and Radio

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Posted by Roy Sencio on November 30, 2007 – 8:58 am
Filed under Radio Commercial Production

Custom Made Jingles, Commercials and Music for Television and Radio
By Tom Gauger

Looking for the right sound and company to produce that sound can be somewhat tricky, especially if this is your first run with TV or radio. While there are a number of things to look out for in terms of getting the best price with a great sounding commercial, don’t let the cheap price or the “We can just put in some “free” industrial music in the background,” take the lead.

The fact is, that great sounding commercials and effective commercials that really do in fact raise the bar with increased sales, are no stranger to great production work with seasoned and experienced writers. Our number one goal is to make great sounding commercials and jingles even if it costs us more in the end than originally anticipated. You don’t build business on half baked productions and you won’t build your business with cheaply made or in-house radio and cable made commercials. Saving a dollar almost always costs you the same dollars if not more without the increased traffic to your store front.

The number one rule when looking at broadcast media is credibility. Without the credibility you might as well throw in the towel. People like to shop and buy from companies with good reputations and they buy from who they’ve gotten to know first. Over 90% of consumers buy from who comes to their mind first. The next rule to follow is, consumers buy from who they’ve heard of first, but also with who they trust – In other words, who has driven home the credibility attribute.

Does your commercial drive home credibility? You can create credibility with credible sounding commercials. Image is everything they say and hopefully the way you do business will accommodate that image. Great sounding music with professional voice overs make the difference so much of the time that I wonder why companies will advertise on radio and TV when they throw together a cheaply made and viewed to be as cheap commercial.

Great sounding jingles and productions don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. If you remember nothing else from reading this article, remember that if you want increased sales with an image that looks like number one and with a rememberable jingle that will truly put your company first in the minds of your listeners, then get your commercial done right. Get great music with great voice over and music beds and you’ll be well on your way.

Mr Gauger is an accomplished TV and radio writer with too many credits to list here. You may contact the author at tgauger@reelmusicianpro.com or 615-300-5030. You may visit the author’s website at http://www.reelmusicianpro.com This author works with small business to national brand names.

Voice Recording Today

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Posted by Roy Sencio on November 27, 2007 – 9:26 am
Filed under Voice Recording

Voice recording and its applications have immensely grown with many people today recording their voices for commercials, narratives, audio visual presentations, business presentation and even home movies.

Recording your voice has gotten easier and simpler, especially with the availability of tools and technology that allows an ordinary user to record voice.

In the old days recording voice was done on a recording device or apparatus, this was the machine that would capture the sound, of course you needed a microphone for that. The sound was usually captured on a tape recorded, open reel tape machine and even beta.

These days sound can be captured and stored directly into your computer as data, for quick integration into digital movies, presentations or whatever applications needed.

Many people also include voice on their websites; majority of these are online marketers selling products on a sales page. Now, knowing how sales pages are, they could get quite lengthy and tiring to read, so some marketers provide their visitors with the option to simply click a button and play an mp3 or wav file that is a voice narrative of the content on the sales page.

I have not yet done that on a sales page, but I have included audio on some of my sites and some of my blogs. The statistics show, that audio used properly on a website or sales page, increases conversions. The only other reasons why I record my voice is for radio commercial and voice over jobs, a hobby I have been into since 1993.

Since it is now easy to get the equipment and software needed, many people create their own small voice over studios in their own home, mine is even inside my bedroom. To ensure that no other sound is captured, the room has to be sound proofed and properly insulated.

If you are planning to record voice, for whatever reasons there be, here are the thing that you would need.

1. A Microphone

When you are first getting started I would not suggest getting an expensive microphone. You can just get a cheap computer microphone and work with that; it would be good enough for recordings that are going to be uploaded into your server.

Eventually if you become more discerning about your sound, you might consider investing in a real microphone, however othing expensive. Some microphones may require a mixer and some don’t . I used to record straight into my computer with just an ordinary Electro Voice 635, cabled into the audio port. But that was years ago, since I produce a lot of radio commercials that need to be of good recording quality, I had invested in a more expensive microphone, a tube pre amp for the mic, a good sound card, and a compressor / sustainer device. You don’t really need to get all that, unless you make some serious money from voice recording.

2. A Computer

Most of the modern PC’s are powerful and fast enough to handle audio editing applications; if your PC is not up to date a Pentium 3 running o 256 RAM would be sufficient for simple voice recording and editing tasks.

3. Audio Editing Software

There is a lot of audio editing software in the market, some are simple recording applications which allow you to record your voice, play it back, do some cut and paste, and maybe apply some special effects to your voice like reverb or echo.

However there are also some software which are professional grade and are actually entire virtual studios that can be used to record and master entire bands or mutliple instruments, with multiple tracks.

I have been recording digitally since 1997 and I have been with one brand ever since. The software used to be called Cool Edit Pro once owned by the Syntrillium Corp, but later on it was bought by Adobe and thus, today’s Adobe Audition. This works well, whether for simple recording for commercials which may take not more than 5 tracks, and can be as flexible as 64 track mixing.

I would have recommended free software for beginners, if only I knew any, but I don’t and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t recommend them if I had no working knowledge of the software. But most software is really easy to learn, it just takes a little messing around with and practice.

After recording and mastering the file, Adobe Audition gives me the option to save the file into wav, mp3 or a lot more. It depends really on what you want to use the file for. WAV files are ideal for mastering into CD and mp3’s are what I usually upload on websites.

So basically, that is what you need to get into voice recording.

Writing a Successful Radio Commercial

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Posted by Roy Sencio on November 27, 2007 – 8:56 am
Filed under Radio Commercial Production

Writing a Successful Radio Commercial
By Scott Perreault

When you enter the copy department of a radio station you see stress and creativity intersecting to form a radio commercial. This is an art form that is developed over time. When I was nineteen, there was an opening in the copy department of the regions number one station. The commercial load was heavy. It goes without saying, the station with the most ads is typically the favorite station. Advertisers need to reach the perspective consumers, and the best value for your advertising dollar is always with the most popular stations. The real test of the stations excellence is the copy department.

Handing copy to your radio personalities and then saying a prayer that it “turns out” acceptable to the advertiser is sadly a common occurrence in many stations.

Here are a few tips to help your write an effective radio commercial. The bottom-line fact still remains, the more talented the copywriter, the better quality of the commercial.

First, know your voice talent. Writing a script for a “Italian accent” without having someone on your staff who can effectively perform such an accent, renders the commercial a failure. Second, keep it simple. Too many commercials lose the intent with long explanations. You need to give the listener credit that after hearing the commercial, they will catch on. Third, never look back. Keep the commercial forward thinking. Positive. Finally, the object of the commercial is to sell. Ask for the sale. The commercial was sold to an advertiser by a sales representative who had to ask for the sale. Most copy writers spend all their time being creative with ideas. The exceptional radio copywriters spend the bulk of their time being creative on how to ask for the sale.

Scott Perreault (http://www.scottradio.com) is a commercial voice veteran with over twenty years of copywriting and voice work experience. From the writing, production and development of radio campaigns like the award winning “Oh Yeah©” campaign, Scott has experienced many facets of the voice business. Scott Radio offers free demo voice work. If you remember Promo code #98, the commercial is free.