In these Radiowaves-exclusive articles, legendary presenter Pat Courtenay shares his views, ideas, experience, and tips with our visitors…
This article looks at some of his own experiences with voicetracking…
VOICETRACKING
I think people get a bit “unnecessary” about Voice-tracking. I first used Wizard’s V/t in Auckland (NZ) during ’99 and 2000 doing Drive and really got to love it. We had to use it. In my own case, I was doing two different shows (one on the 24-station national network and one, with local references, traffic, in Auckland only) at exactly the same time.
Drive was 3-7 and I’d get into the studio about 2:00 and start putting bits down and recording incoming calls. There were requests, eyewitness traffics, funny calls from punters; everything you’d expect from a Live broadcast, and you’d never know that I was actually well ahead of myself.
Calls can be recorded and edited as they would be in a Live situation; (except faster, thanks to the digital Production facility) calls can be saved from the day before and built into “today”; personal Production-pieces can be inserted, and you can even tell selected punters what time they’ll be on!
Admittedly, I like to work closer to Real Time (sometimes by a minute or two) than most but although my shift ended at 7:00, I could be Off the Bus before I was Off the Air! (The other cool thing is, you can go out and drive in the City and listen to yourself! Instant aircheck!)
Like any technology, if you use it the right way, it’s all good.
Having said that, my favourite quote at the moment is:-
“For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press 3.”