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Playing Live on the Radio.


Sugarskull

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I remember T broom mentioning that he was going to do a New Years Eve gig on the radio... anyone else play live on the radio?


We'll be playing live on one of our
on February 24th.



Any thoughts on your experiences? I'm a little nervous about my dynamics. I don't want to wreck anyone's computer or radio.

 

 

 

Just remember that every input and output in a broadcast chain is compressed to bejeesus and back. Output compression can go into the 60dB range. Of course, a bit of compression on your bass part wouldn't hurt either.

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Just remember that every input and output in a broadcast chain is compressed to bejeesus and back. Output compression can go into the 60dB range. Of course, a bit of compression on your bass part wouldn't hurt either.

 

 

The bass I'm not too worried about. I'm afraid of oversinging. lol.

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We did it a few times. I was always uber nervous about the interview parts. I hated talking on the radio - I felt like a moron :D

 

Playing live was always fun though. Hopefully the folks there will be knowledgeable enough to help you with your sound. But it would be kind of awesome to blow up some radios....

 

:evil:

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I've done it a few times. I never even worried about it. I just sang and played my heart out. I let them worry about volume and compression and that stuff. It's their job to take care of it, they know what they are doing.


 

:thu:

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Did in the late 70's in New Orleans on 101 LIVE a few times. PACE Sound did it twice: once great sound, once acceptable but not great. On the best mix, I can hear or drummer's bass drum trigger the compressor in one spot. He's still doing it(below) but when he did ours, they had a van outfitted with all their gear and snaked out to it.

david-klutz-PACE-sabine-rack.jpg

 

COSIMO(Jazz City Studio? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosimo_Matassa ) did the other. He said: "You guys play a song for me" and he listened for a couple of minutes, walked back into the control room, and VIOLA!!! What went over the radio was what we sounded like except with a tiny bit of compression! He duplicated with two speakers what he heard in the room we were in.

 

Enjoy it, don't be nervous, and have fun. If the engineer doesn't have wooden ears or tinker with YOUR sound, you'll be fine.

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I've done it a couple of times (LONG time ago though). The weird dynamic is that the performance is definately live, but you get zero audience reaction - just a bunch of dead air space at the end of each song. One time we had our manager/producer/engineer/etc. guy as the sole member of the "audience" - he hooted and hollered for all he was worth. It was bizarre and corny but kinda fun.

 

All in all though, it's a blast playing live on air. MAKE SURE someone tapes/records the broadcast. One of the best recordings I've ever done was from one of those broadcasts (in Boston mid 80's).

 

Have fun wid'it!

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We did it in '07 on an AM station in SoCal. I know at least 1 person heard us, because he won a pizza by naming the song we just did :lol:

 

It was Saturday, it was my birthday, I was already hammered.... proly sounded like {censored}. But dayum it was fun! :thu:

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Some good advice. Thanks guys, I'm glad to see I'll be in good company.

 

 

However, I never thought about the live interview part. That's going to suck!!

 

Interviewer: How do you feel your role as a woman has changed since you became the lead singer? Has it affected your parenting at all?

 

me: ummm... yeah .. so like ummm... yeah... but no, not really and yeah and stuff. :rolleyes:

 

*sigh* Oh well. I will let you guys all know so y'all can make fun of me when I'm done. Ha ha.

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My suggestion? NO dead air. Ever. My singer couldn't manage to grasp the concept. There are recordings of us... but it's horrible.

 

 

That's a great suggestion. I've never been on the air, but speaking from the perspective of the listener it's always awkward listening when there's dead air in an interview/performance

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That's a great suggestion. I've never been on the air, but speaking from the perspective of the listener it's always awkward listening when there's dead air in an interview/performance

 

:idea: I'll be sure to fill in the dead air with lots of heavy breathing then.

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We just did one last Friday... Small, small studio, full band, 80% acoustic, (one guitarist played electric), gathered around two mics... no soundcheck, and one mic was also used for the interview, so the DJ was adjusting the mix on the fly... My upright came through fine... The vocals and harmonica hit pretty hard a coupla times, but all-in-all sounded better than it had any right to!

 

I just got the board recording from him the other night and am pleased... It really helped to talk through things with the DJ before going on... mapping out the timeline and whatnot. Really, other than that, about the only advice I could give you would be to enjoy the hell out of it!!

 

-robert

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