Jingles Made Easy

One of the first synthesizers I ever owned was a KORG. I downloaded the KORG iMS-20 analog synthesizer app for iPad today and love it. Looks great on my iPad's retina display too! Check out this video to see it in action: http://youtu.be/h_aay6wTwyA

Have you ever used the flanger effect in a radio jingle? Where does the name come from and how was it achieved in the days before digital audio workstations? Audio engineers would use two separate tape machines and place the audio on one slightly out of sync (by a few milliseconds) using their thumb to slow down one machine. I demo aural flanger and 'hell's chorus' in this episode - some effects that come preloaded in Adobe Audition CS6.

Describing effects you hear in jingles and music can be a hard process. It's better to give an example. I was recently asked how to change a music track from blurry to becoming crisp and clear. Pretty hard to understand! Describe is as the intro to PSY Gangnam Style and I know exactly the effect you're after.I show you how to do a Gangnam Style intro here: http://youtu.be/elkSnWQBJkg

Jingle sound effects can easily take over your production library if not stored and sorted properly. You know, the whooshes and bangs that go into the production of many jingles and sweepers. If you're an audio producer and want to access FX easily put them in to different category folders so you can get just the sound effect you need when you need it! I use the following sound effect categories:Beepy, good enders, long stuff, phoney, rewindy, rocky, scratches (and more!)Watch more audio production videos and tutorials at: http://www.youtube.com/user/musicradiocreative

If you get a great jingle share it. Use social media to syndicate it out and share it for your friends to listen to. Social audio networks like Spreaker and Soundcloud have wonderful intergrations with Facebook that allow a listener to listen inside the Facebook news feed. Encourage your friends to re-share and comment on your audio.

Always put the one thing you want your listener to remember at the end of a promo. Say you're making a promo that's 30 seconds, 60 seconds or even 90 seconds the listener will always remember the one call to action you give at the end of a promo. Spoken endings work but a sung jingle at the end of a promo will stick in the mind of your listener for longer.

Only put one call to action in each jingle you play. If you give one strong call to action it will be far more effective than asking for three or four actions in a single jingle. Don't say 'visit us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and remember to rate us on iTunes' just give one strong message. The best call to action possible is asking the listener to visit your website then, from there, you can send visitors on to social networks and ask them to rate and review.What's my call to action? Leave a comment on this episode!

Radio stations use radio jingles to sound super cool! Does the general public really pay attention to jingles on a radio station? The use of jingles has changed over the years. The 60s and 70s was the era of the sung jingle, voice imaging came in during the late 90s and early 00s and it looks like contemporary sung jingles are coming back into fashion today. We use jingles to brand our audio and make it sound professional just as a YouTube publisher would use an intro or outro logo and a Kindle digital publisher would have a good looking front cover designed to attract customers to purchase their book!Get a radio jingle designed at: http://www.musicradiocreative.com

A radio stinger is something that you could use to split up one section of content and get to another. A radio station may get from an interview to a song using a stinger. A podcaster may get from talking to someone into the show outro using a 'stinger' or 'sounder'. Shotguns are similar to stingers in that they are short but instead of spoken jingles shotguns tend to be sung jingles. They are usually used by music radio stations to get out of ad breaks and into music. In some countries (such as the USA) stingers are legal requirements to identify the radio station every hour.

Voice overs are generally voices laid over something like music for a TV or radio commercial, movie trailers, public service announcements and so on. In jingle terms I use voice overs for idents, commercials and even in the lead up on sung jingles. A debate rages on about voice over... is it one word or two?I did some research: http://www.musicradiocreative.com/jingles/is-voice-over-one-word-or-two/VoiceOver is a screen reader for Apple devices and voice over IP can be used to make calls on your broadband which makes the issue even more confusing!How would you define a voice over? Share your thoughts in the comments!

What is a radio bumper? Often referred to as bumper music, podcast bumper or simply bumpers. It's one of the most confused terms in jingles as jingle companies often bundle the word 'bumper' in amongst the words sweepers, jingles and IDs. Radio stations in the USA would use radio bumper music to pad out commercial breaks when they are taking a network show and don't have enough commercials to fill the designated commercial breaks. The music is often a signature theme or logo music. Commercial bumpers, however, are announcements made by the show host or voice over.

EQ is short for equalisation (American: equalization). A bunch of audio frequencies you can adjust to improve or degrade sound quality. I can enhance a poor quality voice over by increasing or taking away different EQ bands to improve clarity or eliminate a background noise. The main EQ bands are high range, mid range and low range. Radio imaging producers use EQ to get voices to really pop out of music and sound effects.

A bus is a way of putting many audio tracks through a mixing desk on to one fader (or track in Adobe Audition / Pro Tools). It enables you to control everything in one place. AUX sends (or just sends in Adobe Audition) will then isolate one sound from your mix and send that clean sound (with no other sounds from your overall mix) into something else. Like perhaps a dynamics processor.A real world example of using an aux and bus would be so that you can get a voice over to automatically control a music track by ducking it every time speech is heard.Adobe Audition YouTube tutorials: http://www.youtube.com/user/musicradiocreative

http://www.musicradiocreative.com/music-jinglesIf you're closing a podcast or making an exit to an 'outbreak' (radio station commercial break) you may want to consider using a ramp jingle.What is a ramp? In real world terms a ramp helps you to get somewhere and that's exactly what it does in the audio world. A piece of music starts up which you can talk over and use to tell your listeners what's coming up next or in your next episode. Many radio DJs love to talk up to the vocals of a ramp - it sounds really pro - but be careful not to slip into using filler words like, "right here", "only here" or "keep it locked!"A jingle ramp contains music leading up to sung or spoken vocals which could identify your podcast or radio show name.

http://www.musicradiocreative.com/podcastHappy Pancake Day! A radio donut is not a jam filled delight but, in radio terms, it's a piece of production with singers or voice over at the start, a place for you to talk over, followed by a similar ending to the start of the donut.As the host you fill the gap in the middle of the donut with the juicy content. For example what's coming up on your radio show or podcast!

http://www.musicradiocreative.com/radio-imaging/radio-sweepersA radio sweeper is not the person who knocks about the radio station corridors cleaning up after hours. It's a tool you can use to transition between songs hence the word 'sweeper'. You literally use it to 'sweep' or segue between two songs in any music playlist. Radio sweeper effects can be whooshes, bangs or crashes mixed with voice over and no longer than 20 seconds in duration.You can use it to identify the radio station and the radio station tag line too. Radio sweepers are great for transitioning from fast music to slow music or vice versa. You can also play them over the intros of songs too.Find radio imaging FX at AudioJungle. I made a video to show you how to do it: http://youtu.be/Ntba03kGWTk

Jingles - http://www.musicradiocreative.com/jinglesA jingle is best known as a short singing tune that advertises a brand with a call to action. Over time and with the rise of people creating their own radio shows on platforms such as Spreaker there is a wider demand for radio jingles which voice over, vocal effects and sound effects. In reality these are not really 'jingles' in the truest sense of the word as they doesn't contain jingle singers. The technical term would be a radio sweeper or radio ID.I'll tell you what sweepers, stingers, stabs and IDs are in future episodes of Jingles Made Easy.