INTERESTING VOICE TRACK STORIES

[nightfly61]

Ever sit in a bar that had your station playing & your voice tracked shift is scrolling along & you hear yourself & no one else knows it's you & you wish they'd pipe down so you could hear how you sound through their system?
I once bet a guy a shot I knew what the next 2 songs would be. (he thought I called ahead to the station & set up the scam but refused to believe the voice was me.
Used to notice myself standing in line at the checkout & my weather comes on & i have to stop what I'm doing & say to girlfriend..."wait a second I wanna hear me"...and get strange looks from the cashier.

Got any similar ones?

 

[Beejus]

Ever sit in a bar that had your station playing & your voice tracked shift is scrolling along & you hear yourself & no one else knows it's you & you wish they'd pipe down so you could hear how you sound through their system?
I once bet a guy a shot I knew what the next 2 songs would be. (he thought I called ahead to the station & set up the scam but refused to believe the voice was me.
Used to notice myself standing in line at the checkout & my weather comes on & i have to stop what I'm doing & say to girlfriend..."wait a second I wanna hear me"...and get strange looks from the cashier.

Got any similar ones?

This one actually timed out perfectly.

I was voicetracked one Saturday from Noon-6... and had a wedding to DJ at 6:30. I stopped in a local mini-mart on my way to the gig about 6:15, and they had my station on, and the cashier recognized my voice. I played it up as if I just left and was on my way to job #2.

She bought it hook, line, & sinker. And next Saturday, I gave the store a shout-out during the shift, stopped back in "after my shift" again and she was extatic@

 

[Roger That]

Wait...I thought voicetracking was the bane of radio's existence... ???

 

[gr8oldies]

Neighbor said "I thought you were live until I heard you on the radio and saw you walk by at the same time".

Don't..whatever you do..rely on a long-term forecast while tracking over a holiday weekend. Back in the old days of voicetracking with carts with reel to reel tapes, a coworker saw the forecast which showed it would be dry for the entire Memorial Day weekend. You guessed it..he's talking about the beautiful sunny day with rain pouring outside.

 

[nightfly61]

Neighbor said "I thought you were live until I heard you on the radio and saw you walk by at the same time".

Don't..whatever you do..rely on a long-term forecast while tracking over a holiday weekend. Back in the old days of voicetracking with carts with reel to reel tapes, a coworker saw the forecast which showed it would be dry for the entire Memorial Day weekend. You guessed it..he's talking about the beautiful sunny day with rain pouring outside.

That's when it's time to give the ole "passivecast":
50% chance of rain all weekend, slightly cooler & less humid at night with a 50% chance of partly cloudy skies thru Sunday night.

I really freaked someone out and TALKED ALONG with myself once on my weather-same inflection & everything. It was on at some woman's garage sale who had our AM station on & she looked at me like I was the antichrist. My gf was amused though.

A friend once had his shift voicetracked & the guy who was supposed to be on a remote DURING that shift had something come up & couldn't do the remote so the voicetracked guy went out & did the remote, so when it came time for a break, to the average listener he was 2 places at once. At least he didn't make the mistake of "pre-intro-ing the other guy & would have had to re-do or doctor the tracks. Would've been funny if he disguised his voice to try to sound like the other guy though ;D.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Voice Hack Stories

As I read these stories, I am no longer mystified by the fact that TSL and cume numbers are both shrinking - especially among younger listeners.

Any PD should be ashamed to present some of the product discussed above.

 

[nightfly61]

Re: Voice Hack Stories

As I read these stories, I am no longer mystified by the fact that TSL and cume numbers are both shrinking - especially among younger listeners.

Any PD should be ashamed to present some of the product discussed above.

Might as well have fun with the facade. This isn't the 50's where listeners believed everything was live. Once a listener hears one voice track malfunction or the SAME wx get played every hour all day they already know what's going on. If companies are so cheap they make you track a shift so you can be pulling double(or triple) duty down the hall running the board for your AM sports game then they deserve to have it sound like that especially after canning half the staff.

I always liked to bank & save generic liner voicetracks & use them over again & again. The more v/ts you saved the better.

 

[Beejus]

Re: Voice Hack Stories

As I read these stories, I am no longer mystified by the fact that TSL and cume numbers are both shrinking - especially among younger listeners.

Any PD should be ashamed to present some of the product discussed above.

I absolutely hate the fact that my station is voicetracked outside of morning drive... but it's a cost thing for us. My trackers are usually good about making it sound live... and I've even had people come back to the station to re-track weather if the forecast changed or severe weather was approaching.

While I hate voicetracking in general, I think it takes away from the listener, there ARE times where I believe a good voicetracker is better than a crappy live jock.

 

[12 In a Row]

Re: Voice Hack Stories

As I read these stories, I am no longer mystified by the fact that TSL and cume numbers are both shrinking - especially among younger listeners.

Any PD should be ashamed to present some of the product discussed above.

Might as well have fun with the facade. This isn't the 50's where listeners believed everything was live. Once a listener hears one voice track malfunction or the SAME wx get played every hour all day they already know what's going on. If companies are so cheap they make you track a shift so you can be pulling double(or triple) duty down the hall running the board for your AM sports game then they deserve to have it sound like that especially after canning half the staff.

I always liked to bank & save generic liner voicetracks & use them over again & again. The more v/ts you saved the better.

Man I'm sick and tired of those blaming the company and or management.
"If THEY didn't have me doing so many things, I would do a better job."
How bout going above and beyond. Cream rises to the top.
Take the time, take pride in your work. Stop making excuses!

 

[nightfly61]

Re: Voice Hack Stories

As I read these stories, I am no longer mystified by the fact that TSL and cume numbers are both shrinking - especially among younger listeners.

Any PD should be ashamed to present some of the product discussed above.

Might as well have fun with the facade. This isn't the 50's where listeners believed everything was live. Once a listener hears one voice track malfunction or the SAME wx get played every hour all day they already know what's going on. If companies are so cheap they make you track a shift so you can be pulling double(or triple) duty down the hall running the board for your AM sports game then they deserve to have it sound like that especially after canning half the staff.

I always liked to bank & save generic liner voicetracks & use them over again & again. The more v/ts you saved the better.

Man I'm sick and tired of those blaming the company and or management.
"If THEY didn't have me doing so many things, I would do a better job."
How bout going above and beyond. Cream rises to the top.
Take the time, take pride in your work. Stop making excuses!

Who the hell else is to blame, dude? Especially when voice tracking made you UNEMPLOYED...oh wait...I'll think like you a second...maybe if I hadn't sounded so good & kept it live & local I'd still have a job. I took time, took pride & that just made the station easier for the new owners to purchase & trash everyone. Sugar gets dissolved. This is supposed to be a fun thread not a suck as* posting session for wannabe know it all corporate lovers. :

 

[12 In a Row]

Ouch, sorry if I hit a nerve or two?

For the record, I'm more like over-employed.

There IS a future, it's called voicetrack "artists."
Those that can easily sit behind a mike in their home studio, place themselves in any city, any format than look in their mailboxes for those nice checks.

I wish you well.

 

[nightfly61]

Ouch, sorry if I hit a nerve or two?

For the record, I'm more like over-employed.

There IS a future, it's called voicetrack "artists."
Those that can easily sit behind a mike in their home studio, place themselves in any city, any format than look in their mailboxes for those nice checks.

I wish you well.

it's called voicetrack "artists."

i.e...fake crap anyone with a little voice inflection can do. Unless you're Seacrest, Casey or one of the 57 person morning show at Z100 who v.t every CC morning show in the country I'd be looking for another line of work. Definately not in public relations.

 

[12 In a Row]

Sorry you're so bitter.

Considering their enormous professional and financial success, I don't consider Seacrest, Casey, or the other 57 members as fake crap.

 

[akradiozjs]

Back on topic, two stories:

I used to VT the afternoon show on a CHR in Fairbanks, AK while going to college up there. I figured one Saturday that my haircut wasn't so hard to duplicate on my own - why pay someone right? So I started buzzin away, and before I knew it I'd cut my hair into all different directions, had to go to the local Super Cuts! When I showed up, they had my station cranked in the shop, when I started speaking I was asked if I was the jock on the station......embarrassing to say the least!

This one just happened two weekends ago. I VT a couple weekend shifts for our Country station, and on September 28 I was promoting the November 6th Montgomery/Gentry concert as "Montgomery/Gentry live in concert September 6!". C'est la vie...

 

[SirRoxalot]

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Voice tracking is a poor substitute for a live, local jock who either has, or knows how to develop a relationship with their audience. But, it certainly is a fact of life.

With that being said, GOOD voice tracking requires enough acting skills for you to put yourself "in the moment" that a particular program will be broadcast. You have to think about what people are doing at the time of day that your tracks will be broadcast, and what shared experiences you can talk about. Getting your head into the right time and place for the track will prevent the "today/tonight/tomorrow" kind of errors that you hear to frequently. Of course, it's dangerous to make any more weather-related comments than absolutely necessary. There's nothing like hearing a jock say "wow, what a beautiful day" in the midst of a freak hailstorm that accompanies a thundershower that seems to have popped up from nowhere.

Of course, management won't want to pay you for the time it takes to prep adequately for a VT shift, and you won't be able to "bank & save generic liner voicetracks & use them over again & again". Not if you want to be a "voicetrack artist" instead of producing "fake crap anyone with a little voice inflection can do".

 

[12 In a Row]

We would all like to return to the day, but there are so many reasons why we won't.
The number of stations has increased, the population and advertising revenue has not, economy, technology, just to name a few.

That being said all of your points hit the bullseye.
Great "artists" can place themselves in the moment.

At one of my first v.o. sessions the director said, "You have a great voice but stop sounding like a radio guy."

 

[radiophiler]

Not an interesting story, just an observation:

When I was growing up in the 70s, AM-FM combos would have the AM jock record carts for the FM automation. An early form of VT.

What's the difference? The jock was in market and in the building at the time the recordings were being made.

Why can't stations do that today? If you've got a five-six-seven-or-eight station group in a market, keep one live person there. Then, if the rest of the stations run over the weekend, or nights, by VT, there's a live person to correct things like updated severe weather forecasts, VT computer malfunctions, etc.

Hard to believe that if you've got a large group in a market, you can't keep ONE live person in studio from 5 am to midnight seven days a week. If you're not making enough money to do that, there's a larger problem then using VT.

 

[nightfly61]

Listening to & enjoying a "voice track artist" is like enjoying the contents of an empty department store display beautifully wrapped gift box under a display Christmas tree.
There's nothing there except crafty jocks who used to be live & now have to swindle listeners into thinking they're there so the live morning show can divide up the money for giving celebrity gossip & birthdays 4 hours a day.
I wonder if religous stations voice track?

 

[gr8oldies]

Guess I never should have enjoyed Casey Kasem. And yes, religious stations voice track, including KLove.

Is there really a difference between listening to a "voice track artist" vs. a guy sitting in a studio reading the paper between on-air breaks?

 

[SirRoxalot]

Making a Difference

Is there really a difference between listening to a "voice track artist" vs. a guy sitting in a studio reading the paper between on-air breaks?

You bet. If the guy "sitting in the studio reading the paper between on-air breaks" is actually "in the moment", and is any good, he'll be timely, topical, and reacting to what's going on the world NOW, not what was happening yesterday, or 12 hours ago, or 6 hours ago.

What's the biggest story RIGHT NOW? The stock market. Let's see you VT a comment about the latest stock market moves hours ahead of time. And, if you think that people aren't interested, you must not have a 401K, be shopping for a car, or a mortgage, or have a credit card. I'm not saying that you need to do a talk show, but to ignore the situation altogether isn't far from rolling a VT on 9/11/2001.