Entries Tagged as 'audio production'

that’s what christmas is all about, charlie brown.

Charlie Brown Christmas_ All Right and Trademarks Acknowledged

The world of voice over is full of unique, creative people.

As I have often said, voice talents do not compete against each other, we compete for the subjective ear of the producer. That’s why I enjoy my friendships with so many voice talents around the globe.

Talent is one thing, heart is another and most of the VO’s I know have large amounts of both, like Philip Banks.

He initiated a project Monday on the VO-BB which was akin to a festive audio chain letter among board members. Requesting we alternate between male and female voice talents on the board, he wrote out the poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and asked us to read two lines each. Philip started us off and chose DB Cooper to read the next line. DB read her lines and sent it to me, I did my lines and sent it to Kara Edwards and on it went until Philip had the entire production beautifully completed within 24 hours.

That was his gift to us. My gift to all the voice talents who participated is some “link love” so that you may know even more about these talented voice actors with whom I am so proud to be professionally associated.

LISTEN HERE TO: Twas the Night Before Christmas presented by the voice over talents of VO-BB.com

Merry Christmas to all –
1. Philip Banks
2. DB Cooper
3. Peter O’Connell
4. Kara Edwards
5. Bob Souer
6. Diane Maggipinto
7. Todd Ellis
8. Connie Terwilliger
9. Brian Hart
10. Moe Egan
11. Greg Littlefield
12. Mary McKitrick
13. Michael Rhys
14. Liz de Nesnera
15. Frank Frederick
16. Tammy McDaniel
17. Greg Phelps
18. Caryn Clark
19. Greg Allen
20. Marcy Worthington
21. Frank Frederick
22. Liz de Nesnera
23. Michael Rhys
24. Mary McKitrick
25. Todd Ellis
26. Liz de Nesnera
27. David Monteath
28. Mary McKitrick
29. Philip Banks
30. Kara Edwards

radio’s tractor beam

tractor beam from star trek courtesy- www.ornl.gov

My friend and re-newed Mom (welcome baby Daphne) Stephanie Ciccarelli posted on her Vox Daily blog a fun question: “What Attracted You To Radio?” At the risk of parroting my voice over compadre David Houston who has previously done what I am about to do (and probably did it better) here is my response to the post offering you a little peek into my inner geek (oh, you KNOW you wanted to look, admit it!)

“I was in kindergarten in 1969 at Mount St. Joseph Academy (well, it was called the Medaille School then but it changed and…aw you don’t care).

Sister Donna Marie took the class on a field trip to a radio station – WEBR. Now up until that point, I was under the distinct impression that the music coming out of the radio came from a building where all these musicians stood around waiting their turn to play their songs live on the radio.

Imagine my surprise.

We stood in the control room and watched the broadcast live and I was mesmerized. Knobs and lights and oooo what’s that? A microphone! I want me one of those!

Wait, it gets geekier.

Some kids like to draw….space ships or cowboys….I drew pictures of radio and TV studios….100’s of them. Microphones, cameras, technicians. Paging Dr. Freud!

Um, it gets geekier.

I’m in 2nd or 3rd grade and I come across an audio production catalog which has….microphones! Oh I thought that was the coolest thing. Lots of em to broadcast my voice. I finally got a used one and I thought it was super cool. It didn’t work, it wasn’t hooked up to anything but I had me a microphone.

Fast forward early high school where it occurred to me after everyone said I had a nice voice (my Dad had won public speaking awards in high school and my mom wanted to work in Television before women were really permitted to do such things…do you think the broadcasting bug I have was genetic?) I started reading copy from magazines like they were radio scripts. And I gave them pretty good reads. The quizzically look my Mother gave me one day when she heard this was priceless (“what are you doing?”) But I was too far gone.

College time rolls around and I am looking for a broadcasting program. I thought I would head right to one of the best broadcasting programs in the east, Syracuse University, until they said “no” (who wants to be an “Orangeman” anyway…what the hell is an “Orangeman”). The University of Dayton I liked for many reasons not the least of which was their 50,000 FM commercial (non of this public radio stuff) station broadcasting to three states with a professional GM, PD and sales staff….and all student air staff.

WVUD-FM was the equivalent of Geek Bingo!

What an amazing introduction into broadcasting and my future in radio and voice over. Sadly, the University sold the station and now one of the big radio chains owns it, WLQT (an old competitor, Kim Faris, a staple at Z-93 for years now does mornings on Lite 99.9…very nice lady).

But what an introduction and what a ride.”

walt disney sound effects and other early audio tricks

reel to reel audio editing

I get funny looks for audio production students when I tell them that when I started in radio “100 years ago” we edited audio on audio tape with a wax pencil, razor blades and ¼” editing tape.

“You mean like sticky tape to hang things on the wall?”

Um, no. Never mind.

I had to have sounded the same way when I first started out when I heard about the audio tricks of those who came before me. Those ladies and gentlemen were true pioneers, not in the Conestoga Wagon kind of way but in the wonderfully inventive “MacGyver” way.

I bring this up to share with you a site I’ve come across that features a variety of technical articles reproduced for your reading pleasure on a blog called Modern Mechanix which I believe (correct me if I’m wrong here) was a tech mag “back in the day” (you do realize that today will be “back in the day” for someone in the future, right? Just checking.)

The post that first drew my attention was an article from 1937 on how Walt Disney Studios designed its sound effects…written by the folks who did it. There are a ton of other great radio and audio related articles with the hits and misses from creative people who tried…and to me, that’s the whole ball game. Try and succeed, try and fail but just “try”.