During the first part of the Paul Awad Workshop (Beat 92.5 – Morning Show Radio Producer) at RAC, Paul spoke about some of the positions he had when he first started working in radio, followed by revealing some of his own techniques and others he learned along the way from his co-workers.
What’s an imaging producer?
An imaging producer creates short promotional clips, to promote the radio station or upcoming events. What many don’t know is that there’s a lot of production and processing being done, to create a larger than life sound to capture the audience’s attention. One of the effects they use to create a build up is a reverse reverb. Keep reading to find out how it’s done!
What’s a reverse reverb and how’s it done?
A reverse reverb is the process of taking the first letter or word, and flipping it around. For example of we take the word “Hey”. We would cut and grab only the “He” part and reverse it. Than we would patch a reverb directly onto it with the wet knob set to the max, we would use a long reverb setting of 2-3 seconds. We then apply a fade in to finish off our effect. Our goal is to have the least amount of dry signal possible, this way we have the completely wet signal fading into the dry vocal part.
When is it appropriate to use this effect?
A reverse reverb is generally used before a climatic part such as a chorus, bridge or breakdown of a song. However, this effect has also been used in films, especially in horror films. This isn’t an effect you would use at the start of every line or even every chorus. This is an effect I might use once or twice in a song to support a transition.
Many people only assume radio is strictly a talkshow and don’t realize the work that goes into putting together the intros or promo clips for the show each day. Have a listen to the sample clip an imaging producer creates daily. Listen for all the effects and layering used to create a larger than life sound. Check it out:
Beat 92.5 – Top 9@9 Imaging
Soundcloud
Another trick to add to the books!
Happy Mixing!
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