Calling all producers/engineers on here! Can you help?????

[shpongled]

Basically I've just been offered a radio show on Megapolis Radio in Moscow, Russia. It's a huge audience, pretty unbelievable - broadcasting to about 15 million ppl.I kid you not. This is pretty huge. Carl Cox actually did the last show but I will take over now every week.

I'd been looking to do my own show on this very site so this all ties in nicely but basically I now urgently need to get fine tuned tips and trick on recording a really pro radio show. I want to have my studio all set up perfectly and then just send the show to them every week.

I know about recording the whole this so that's no problem but I know nothing really about mics. What mic do I need? I need something to take away the p's and s's. Obviously this can't be a plugin cause the mic is live over the mix, so is there a special mic with some sort of screen designed for radio? Or so special radio mics exsist that do this automatically?

Then I need to know about reverb on the mic! I'm reckoning a nice short ambient reverb that makes my voice sound in a nice sexy place. What do you lot reckon?

Also, what would you all do about fader riding? Whenever I've done pirate I always remember just pulling down the volume ever so slightly each time I speak. But someone today mentioned sidechaining on the compressor. In theory this sounds really interesting. Does anyone know is this a standard way commercial stations work?

And also, would you compress your voice? This would surely help make it sound more powerful. I'm just thinking out loud here.

Anyway I'm sure there's more issues and if you know of any, I'd sooo appreciate your thoughts!

At the end of the day this will also help when we set up BOA Radio, especially as a I can then make a sort of 'list of things that will make your show sound more pro' for everyone.

Help me out here ppl! This is a huge thing for me ;)

you know what would be cool...I'm not sure if it would work, but...have an eq preset set up that is basically where your voice sits when you talk normally (test it on a spec analyzer for various styles of talking), and have it do some subtractive eq on the track everytime you talk, that way your voice might be able to become part of the track more.
If you were to do that, you'd definitely want to compress your voice, so you could talk at a certain level easier I would think. Maybe sidechain it a bit too, use all of them subtely (sidechain, eq, compression) so maybe it would work the best.

[JamieBall]

I use an AKG S3000 for vocal stuff (and most other stuff too).

I used to work in a studio and I reckon, for your cash, this mic out-performs pretty much everything else in the price range and also sounds better than 1k mics etc.

You should be able to get one for about £150. Try this up against a shure or any competitor and I pretty much guarantee it'll nail 'em, regardless of what the spec says.

It'll capture every nuance of whatever you throw at it (careful about loud explosions, though, it's quite sensitive!)

All you need then is, as someone has already mentioned, the coathanger and tights attatchment. However, some stores will chuck in a pop shield anyway.

[tekkers]

well the radioshow sounds good however ya managed to record the mic..


i recently myself had to try and figure out the radioshow thingy - it was all pre recorded so just added mic talk when needed...just a simple shure c606 mic - looks kinda professional but not really! - i dont think ya need a mega mic not unless ya tryin to record singing or proper bbc4 radio play vocals... used abit of eq on ma voice - mostly some bass roll off - abit of hi boost for more air ....not tooo close and shouty at the mic - and some compression and reverb to try and sound less of a twat...

tracked it all out in acid - and for the radio ducking effect i'd pull down the volume of the music audio - makes it sound like its ducking and all that when ya just turnin the volume down abit....

waves l3 compressor on the whole thing...


it all sounded fine i thought - just couldnt stop sounding like a twat tho!

[tocsin]

Hehe. Mic quality really doesn't matter that much for broadcasting. The frequency response of the good ole Shure SM50-57-58 is fine. Most of the time, for the recording purposes, it's normalization/compression to get the volume. Same with commercials.

BTW, Mark, just get a filter for the Ps and Shhh sounds and don't talk directly into the mic. (I'm talking about a real kind of screen filter, not a plugin).

At the same time, I'm reading that you are mailing them the show to play? If so, why couldn't you use software? You've got a multitrack recorder (either hardware or PC) right? Send the music equipment to one audio track and the vocals to another. It'll give you the ability to record the whole thing live and then fix the vocals later if any sound anamolies come up.