What Is Voice Tracking?
Voice tracking is a method from the traditional days of radio broadcasting. It is simply pre-recording shows for the radio station. However instead of pre-recording the whole show like a 54 minutes session, voice tracking is just the recording of the presenter which in turn will be played and linked to music and advertisements by a computer using radio automation software. To make it simpler, it’s tracking your voice into an hour of radio and it’s the bits that go in an hour from the radio host or presenter. Not everyone is aware but many music radio stations use voice tracking. The key to a good voice track is for a presenter to make it sound natural and as if it was a live broadcast.
Reasons For Using Voice Tracking
Plenty of music radio stations uses voice tracking due to the fact that it is efficient, saves the radio station money and let’s you fill in the slots where you don’t have a presenter such as the overnight show. Back in 2009, I did some voice tracking for Capital Life (the national UK DAB station owned by Capital Radio which is now Global Radio) when they were just starting to delve in digital radio and the pay was reasonable but much lower than what you get as a regular live presenter. The best thing about it was that I could work flexible hours. There were times I only needed to go to the station once a week to pre-record 5 shows.
Potential Voice Tracks For Free
Izabela believes that podcasting can potentially open doors for broadcasters to have voice tracks for free which will contain great content rather than just prerecording the usual lines. On the other hand I feel this concept wouldn’t work well as podcasters are more focused on a niche and wouldn’t be good or appropriate to most of the radio stations like hit music radio. However, Izabela argues that there still will be radio shows that are targeted for specific demographics and could be aligned to whatever niche the targeted group could potentially enjoy listening to.
I thought of our friend Mike Yunis from the VR2 Show. Currently, Mike is building an online station playing Classic rock from 1965 to 1985 and his idea was to play music and put relevant radio content targeted to the listeners. An example of this is his Tech Tip Tuesday show which is like a 5 minute pre-record. Izabela mentions that the key is to know your listener and really thoroughly research your market. Once that is done, she believes that you can find relevant content from podcasters that would be more than willing to record something for you as it would be additional exposure for them.
New Media and Traditional Media
If podcasters want to make their content available for radio stations, they could record their session in bits of chunks to allow the radio station to play music or insert advertisements in between. It is also necessary for the radio stations to respect the recorded content and not to edit the podcast’s branding or any sponsors. There maybe a potential branding issue but if you’re a radio station and you want to work with a certain podcaster then you can make a deal with them to make sure that you agree on the same terms.
Can You Get Voice Tracking Radio Jobs?
The paid voice tracking jobs are far and few between, especially in the online radio world, but it is possible to make a living from voice tracking. If you have enough commercial radio stations that are happy to pay for your talent services you can do well. It doesn’t matter if the radio station is in Dubai, Spain or the Isle of Wight as long as you have a microphone and fast internet connection you can produce voice tracks for radio stations from your own home studio.
You can get your break by doing some free voice tracking for internet radio stations.
Your Thoughts On Voice Tracking?
If you’re a podcaster, are you already doing voice tracking or have you thought of it? For radio stations, what are you looking for from potential podcasters or content creators as hosts for your radio station? We’d love to hear what you think.
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