The radio bumper I created was after I listened to the station for a few hours. I couldn’t really get a theme, but I was vague in my welcome. Also, is this a Christian station?

The radio show is cool, and the guy doing it seems pretty nice. It’s very random, and I really wonder if he has a script, or if it’s all just random stuff off the top of his head. This was also on one of the audio assignments for four stars.

For this assignment, were to create our own radio bumper for the DS106 radio. I used audacity to put the assignment together and download royalty free music from purple planet. I then recorded myself saying “You’re listening to DS106 radio. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Make sure to tweet along using the hashtag DS106!”

This is what I made.

This week, everyone in DS106 was tasked with creating a radio Bumper for DS106 Radio. Though it’s an assignment in the assignment bank, it doesn’t count for stars this week!

For this assignment, I had to first create a script for myself to follow, because I knew if I didn’t create one, it would end up messy; I’m not great with improvising any speech, even one as short as this one. For my 10-20 second bumper, I decided to simply introduce myself and the ‘Legendary DS106’ and ask the listener to stay tuned for more music and stories. I decided to include both music and stories in my bumper to make it a general one, since I know DS106 radio often includes music and story broadcasts, and no matter what’s being played there, there’s a story to be told.

The most difficult part of this assignment, was then finding music that wasn’t copyrighted to add to the background. Using freesound.org I was able to find a Fantasy Orchestra piece by user bigmanjoe, so credit goes out to him for my background music. I chose this music because I thought the fantasy element would be fitting of our theme and the music slowly swells into a more epic tone, which I wanted to convey for DS106 radio in our semester of legends and myths.

Since I now have some previous experience with Audacity, it was easier than ever before to edit my voiceover and the music together. I visited this quick Audacity tutorial to edit the music track to be quieter, so you could still hear my voice. I’d recommend you give that tutorial a watch if you’re having the same issue! My philosophy in life is, when in doubt, always google a YouTube tutorial.

This was my first assignment using Audacity, so I was a little worried about using it. I used freesound.org to download the radio tuning and background music. I added the tuning/static to add a sound effect and to make the bumper have something different than just my voice. I then looked through the music and found some jazz that was more upbeat and would be a good contrast to the static sound. I then edited them and my voice to fit together in audacity. This was a really good beginning project for me to try and I really liked getting to listen to all of the free sounds we can use.

Until next time,

Emily

Hi!

So after getting frustrated enough to want to drop kick my MacBook across the room, I finally had fun! This was a cool assignment, and my wife says that I have a future in radio so there’s that. I obviously began by getting familiar with Audacity. I remembered using it in high school (to make a music track for a girl, kid you not) so it didn’t take me too long to get warm to it again. Following that I went onto freesound.org to find a backtrack for the radio bumper. I knew that I wanted it to be slow so it didn’t take me too long to find a Beethoven knockoff. My thought process behind this is that being it’s about stories, I would want a old school eclectic feel to it and thats why the Beethoven knockoff was perfect! I think that this short bumper tells the story of a radio station you would tune into to relax, and slow down. Also there was a short play on words because this was made for a class, and I said “stay classy”. Also there’s the ode to Anchorman, obviously.

I exported the song into my Audacity file, cut out the extra with the cut tool, muted the remainder (so then when I recorded using my computers speaker I wouldn’t have two songs recorded), and then recorded my personal audio. After that was cleaned up it was a simple process of exporting and putting it onto Soundcloud!

I thought this project went really well, and like I said I had fun with it. In the future I might figure out a way to make it longer or do something a little more creative with it. I don’t know how to put sound effects into Audacity yet but I will figure that out and probably do that if I had to do this all over again.

So in preparation for our radio show I decided to use some of the audio assignment stars this week to create another radio bumper, but this time one that relates specifically to our groups show! The radio bumper audio assignment is worth 4 stars! Our radio show is going to be called Distress Symbol Radio/Podcast. With the help of my group members we came up with a few different versions of radio bumpers. That way they would be different and interesting, but follow a similar style so there was some continuity throughout our show! To create this new bumper I played some lyric free superman music in the background while I read my script. I recorded this bumper using the voice memo app on my iPhone and then uploaded it to SoundCloud! Hope you all enjoy, and look forward to hearing this bumper in our radio show next week!!

Most of the bumpers I remember hearing were quick, animated, and consisted of several vocal effects and fun sounds. I used the first 10 seconds of this video to help inspire the writing and speaking style I’d use. Then I recorded myself with my apple headphone mic.

Once I had a decent recording in Audacity, I added the echo effect in some places and searched through a couple of tutorials to figure out how to give my voice that through-the-phone quality in other places. I found a solid hip-hop beat and some game show sounds  on Freesound which I clipped, arranged, and even reduplicated. I had to speed up most of the sounds to match my rushed speech. It may have morphed into an advertisement but I’m okay with it.

Radio Bumper

This week I was asked to create a radio bumper for the ds106 station. Below is my bumper and the steps I took to create it:

1. I went to youtube to find a tune I wanted to incorporate into my bumper.
2. Once I found what I wanted, I proceeded to convert and then download the track.
3. I opened up Audacity and recorded my message that you are listening to ds106 radio and saved it.
4. I then opened up a new Audacity window and imported the music I chose and then imported my message.
5. I then used the selection tool and dragged the recording of my voice until it was halfway between the song and the beat drop (for dramatic effect).
6. I then simply increased the sound on my voice track so that it would be heard over the music and boom – done.

This week we were assigned to create a radio bumper. Although I hate these because they are the sign that the music has stopped for a while and I have to listen to ads it was pretty funny and fun to come up with my own idea for one! For this assignment I recorded myself with some super background music that I downloaded from iTunes to my computer. One I recored myself using the iPhone voice memos app I uploaded my file to Soundcloud and made sure to allow downloads! Enjoy my radio bumper!