Author: Jude Porter

In this session, we were tasked with creating a live broadcast to the class who were listening in another room. I took part in reading extracts from the radio play Dingus by Mike Cooter. This was my first experience reading and “acting” from a script so it was important to be as clear as possible. We communicated with the rest of our class over message so they could give feedback on our performance by telling us if we’re standing too close or too far from the mic and general notes. The experience was a lot of fun and gave me a good understanding of the pirate radio format and radio plays as a whole.

Considering the naturally dramatic quality of radio, we should enhance this aspect to create more powerful art. Even boring sounds and topics can be made exciting by exploiting this dramatic potential. For our piece we want to look at enhancing the space in which the voice sits in, we can use radio techniques like exaggerated voice acting and playful sound effects to our advantage, enhancing the overall impact.

Listening to the radio is like opening a door to a world full of voices, music, and stories. It’s a widely accessible way to connect with the world around us. Whether we’re driving, working, or just hanging out at home, the radio keeps us company and helps us discover new things. Even though we can’t see what’s happening, the sounds paint pictures in our minds. It’s like having a friend chatting with us, even if they’re far away. In a world where we’re always looking at screens, the radio reminds us that sometimes all we need is our ears to enjoy something special.

Things to consider when producing radio:

• Who is the target audience?
• What is the story? (fiction, non fiction?)
• Size of the broadcast (local? national? personal)
• foley? how are these sounds created?
• who owns the frequency channels? can we create our own pirate station?
• Should it be live or pre-planned structures?
• how do we listen? (headphones, speakers, online?)
• equipment? (mics, transmitter)

For the project, I have decided to work with transforming acousmatic content using an old radio and modulating effects. As opposed to creating a fictional scenario I want to use local and live radio as my foundation as it leaves room to create a fictional space within a live news broadcast. I’ve been tuning my FM radio to classical music stations and listening for a few minutes then repeating the process but using delay and pitch modulation. I found that although interesting to hear with effects, the quality of the radio is worn out enough to naturally create a sense of dystopia.

Wireless nights is a program hosted by Pulp’s frontman Jarvis Cocker. The show blends story telling, music and soundscapes in an attempt to capture themes of night, dreams and the surreal. Each episode transports the listener into late night experiences, featuring interviews, fictional narration and real-life stories from people he meets along the way. Through evocative sound design and Cocker’s very distinctive narration, I have always enjoyed listening with my eyes closed.

The show offers such a unique and immersive experience it can be enjoyed in any mindset and often helps me to visualise the world I’m listening to. To produce the show, Jarvis Cocker uses a combination of field recordings, studio interviews and narration which are all layered together during post-production along with ambient noises and compositions. For my own practise, I have been interested in recording sounds and moments throughout my day using my phone as a way of documenting and creating new associations with my sonic experiences.

In preparation for our piece, Patrick and Arad worked on a draft script which helped outline each of our tasks. Using the script I can map out key points throughout the narration where sound can be used in aid to comedic or dramatic effect. Through general discussion over our group chat, we planned out the recording sessions and what we ideally want from them. My job is to create an alien like transmission which interrupts the fictional caller skit. I’m looking forward to experimenting with these prompts and ideas as this will be my first time working with a script. I am curious as to how challenging it will be to create a whole atmosphere using a radio as an instrument.

Notes:

• Montage of distorted news clips and soundbites
• Layered audio of people speaking in multiple languages
• Soundscapes of city streets and distant sirens
• Ambient recordings of natural environments
• Industrial
• Manipulate advertisement to make unappealing to buyer
• Field recordings of reverberated areas
• Excerpts from old radio dramas and sci-fi shows
• Samples of political speakers
• Broken Conversations
• Alien vocabulary

Using a cassette 4 track, I played around with recording the radio accompanied by an ambient sample I created with my guitar. Here are two notable clips I made.

In this session we were tasked with using the Foley studio to produce a range of sound effects. This is the first time I’ve encountered a method of producing fire effects. The sound was built from two objects, paper and cloth. We used the cloth to produce the main flame like effect while layering it with crinkled up paper which produced the crackling of the fire. It surprised me with how simple this effect is made and how realistic it sounded once I closed my eyes and imagined a roaring fire in front of me. Creating foley can be challenging when not considering the feeling of the source materials. Adding too much textual detail can take away from the resulting effect. It was also interesting to consider which microphones were used. We used a pair of AKG-C451 stereo pencil mics which have a cardioid polar pattern which is excellent for minimising background noise as they pick up sound from the front and sides.

A while back, while walking home one night I stumbled across a beaten up and vandalised Roberts radio on top of a bin. To my luck it still worked, through prior knowledge of routing my guitar through a bunch of pedals, I hooked up the old radio through them instead. Due to the prior mishandlings of the radio, the sound quality is harshly affected, however, I found trawling the megahertz to be a therapeutic experience.

In order to keep the clarity of the radio’s dry output, I used a minimal selection of pedals to modulate the signal. I found the best sounding results using this setup:

The whammy DT modulates pitch and harmonies, the Space Echo creates delay feedback and the freeze latches onto the signal and drones the sonic content. This is a clip from an improvisation session: