LO2: Technology and Processes (M)

 Digital Technology And Radio Production 

Analogue to Digital 

Like all media, radio has been radically altered by the transition to digital production methods.

The term DJ stands for Disc Jokey 

DJ's do present radio shows as well as introducing and the play songs.

Traditionally, all radio productions was dominated by analogue technologies.

Songs were played using vinyl records or 8 track tapes.

The song had to be manually cued by the Disc Jokey. This was very time consuming, along with having less storage space due to how many had to be stored. 

Pre-recorded packages, idents, trailers, adverts, would have been recorded using analogue tapes and the spliced that were manually done by cutting up the tapes and splicing it back in the right order. If you were to cut out a part you wanted to keep, you would have to re shoot then entire thing to ensure in keeping that part of dialogue. Gathering the recordings and tapes, were also very expensive for those who were independent radio stations, and would often re use footage. 

C.D.

C.D. stands for compact Disc

In the 1980s Compact Discs start replacing analogue formats such as Vinyl's, due to their sound quality being more superior and robust.

In the 1990s, recordable digital formats such as mini-discs and Digital Audio Tape. This made digital media radio productions far more easier than ever.  

In the 21st century digital technology has been used more commonly on radio productions.

Some CDs are still sometimes used most radio music is stored on computer servers called "Play Servers" that made it far more easier to play songs, rather than having to manually change it every time, As you could que different songs which would save a lot of time. 

Digital mixing desks control the live mixing of the programme. Such as changing the volume of audio, having the ability to switch from one audio to another. Also, you can fade audio to either quiet other people talking, or toning down the people talking and transition into the song that is about to be played. 

High quality digital music formats such as WAV and FLAC are used for digital broadcasts, as they have much better quality than standards. However, they take up a lot more storage for how good it is. 

Non-Linear editing packages such as Pro-Tools, Adobe Audition or Soundbooth, and Cubase are used to edit recorded programmes, packages, idents, adverts.