Film Magic Made at KBVR

For the last two weeks I have been working as the sound tech on the student media film-noir "The Student Affair". The Producer of the film, KBVR's Margret Anderson, wanted me to record in studio the vocal track for the lounge scene of the film. Listen below and then read on.



We brought in the talent, the singer that would be on camera lip syncing during the scene, she was able to listen to the music in her headphones as we recorded just her voice with sync markers at the head of the tracks giving us complete control of the sound in post-production.

the resulting product sounds great and I can't wait to see what it sounds like in the completed film. Keep your eyes open in 2010 for 'The Student Affair', the film noir produced on the OSU campus by Student Media and Friends.

Summer Classes at KBVR

This summer my Program Director and I led 3 classes a day for 2 weeks for the 'Adventures in Learning' and 'Outside the Box' pre-collegiate programs.

Out of these 3 classes two radio plays were produced, one about a prediction about a train crash called the 'The Strange' and another one about strong man and his trip to the zoo.

The Strange

Stevie Goes to the Zoo


The classes spent the first week working on music, SFX, and rehearsal and the second week on recording and editing. For sound effects we took a mobile sound recorder boom mic and headphones searching for the best sounds, and managed to spread that equipment between three students at a time. The best catch was when we heard a train going by and ran outside to get the opening sound for 'The Strange'.

After the recording was finished we had only 3 days to edit, after 1 and a half days of clip editing the advanced class and myself managed to finish the sequencing in time for broadcast on the last day of class.

The work was tedious and vast, it was quite an undertaking not just to produce two radio plays in two weeks but to instruct 30 students on the process. The most rewarding part was the dailies, every class would end with the class coming together and comparing their efforts for the day and voting for which SFX or which clip to use.

Staff Retreat

At the end of the spring term the Ann and I organized a one day staff retreat (offsite day). We started with games and dinner and then moved on to business. The Promotions Director initiated a long discussion about the changes he wanted to see in KBVR's branding. The promotions department has since taken the suggestions and input from this retreat and has created a prototype logo with the attributes and features we were looking for. I shared with the team my goals for the next year and the production-focused changes I had initiated during the spring term and for the first time was able to make clear my goals for the coming year. And finally we made plans for what projects over the summer would take the highest priority.

Media Day in the Quad

Student Media took over the brick mall at the MU for Media Day. KBVR-TV had a camera and a Gorilla, the barometer and Prism had some literature, and KBVR-FM brought the funk! We were on the air from the quad for the whole day, we had live DJs doing their shows from 9-5 on our mobile CD mixer, some of them were even brave enough to try the mixers virtual scratching and mixing on their show. This was the first time I was the engineer at the location for a live remote, but with an ear to the radio and my bike at the ready I was also the one watching the broadcast back at the station.

With two of the longest XLRs I could find chained together I coaxed people who passed by into doing Legal IDs and PSAs and did brief interviews with the TV staff and unsuspecting New Media Comm. faculty.

The DJs seemed to enjoy doing their shows outside, although some were a little shy to go on the air the amount that a remote broadcast deserves, and I had a blast walking around with the remote mic. hopefully next term we can do a few more from the center of the quad, while its still sunny enough outside.



Morgan helping a TV staffer read a PSA

KBVR-FM and KBVR-TV Interview the Locals Live producer Dane D. at the same time

Radio Play from Linus Pauling Middle School

It all started with a bird was produced in the KBVR-FM performance studio during the 2009 spring term.

Ms. Sumners humanities class and the group led by Dick Winemen wrote the script and rehearsed their parts at school. I met with them a month ahead of time for a tech read-through in which we made decisions about how we would record and where to use live sound and pre-recorded sound effects.

When the class took a field trip to KBVR we managed to finish the recording in just three hours thanks to the organization and preparation. I had the music and sound effects ready so that the actors could play off of them. In the recording booth with me I had a sound tech running the CDs of SFX and music and a script supervisor making sure we recorded everything we needed.

The kids were a pleasure to work with and very patient through the sound checks and multiple takes. I edited it together in time for the class to hear their production before school let out for the summer and had a blast editing with such good material.
Big props to Maggie for selecting the music!


From Linus Pauling Middle School in Corvallis its:
"IT All STARTED WITH A BIRD"

Media on KBVR-FM Frontpage

Last Saturday I produced/engineered a performance in studio 3 that was arranged by my Promotions Director. The Performer was Emmerson Valentine Lyon. Later that same day I had the audio posted and by Wednesday night the video, after some painfull audio syncing.




Update: This was a test of the new OSU Media Manager video server and using their embedded player on KBVR's website. It work splendidly and was a very exciting breakthrough into multi-format content for KBVR-FM.
But in the years since OSU has terminated their video hosting and pulled all hosted content (probably because Student Media was the biggest user of the service by a landslide) so these videos are no longer available.

Talk Show Record and the 'Ministry of Love' Show

Here is another great KBVR show.
DJAkarta is the talent, I am the producer,
it is the second least informative, and most over-engineered on KBVR,
ENJOY




This show is the first show to be recorded with our new ‘Mics-Only’ method. Using the digital mixing setting on the Studer mixers I was able to record a master copy of the show as well as a copy with only the voices (microphones and phone-patch), essentially an Internet-Ready version of the show with only KBVR produced and owned content. Mervin’s show was used as a testing ground for the development and refinement of this method. His show, The Ministry of Love, was a perfect testing ground for this method because it was on the air twice a week for 4 hours total, with about 3 hours of talking each week and it had between 4 and 8 hosts and guests each week.

The implementation of this recording method was made possible by the complete retrofit of the station done two years ago by our chief engineer with full signal path schematics and completely adaptability through two patch bays. I had wanted to be able to record in this fashion for years but only after working as Asst. Engineer for a term was I familiar enough with the schematics and patch bays to be able to divide the PGM and REC signal paths effectively. After numerous tweaks and adjustments to make the method the best quality and as DJ-friendly as possible it was time to roll it out to more shows at KBVR.

When hired as Station Manager I created and hired a new position, Internet Content Engineer, in charge of overseeing the implantation of this new recording method and the online distribution of KBVR created content. During spring term 2 shows were encouraged to learn this method, archive content was made available online, and live performances and special events were uploaded. The plan for fall term is to get more DJs involved and to have an in house player for the KBVR.com front page that can update through the XML database of our files.


MINISTRY OF LOVE January 18th
MINISTRY OF LOVE January 22th
MINISTRY OF LOVE January 25th
MINISTRY OF LOVE January 29th
MINISTRY OF LOVE February 5th
MINISTRY OF LOVE February 8th
MINISTRY OF LOVE February 12th
MINISTRY OF LOVE February 15th
MINISTRY OF LOVE February 19th
MINISTRY OF LOVE February 22nd
MINISTRY OF LOVE February 26nd
MINISTRY OF LOVE March 1st
MINISTRY OF LOVE March 5th
MINISTRY OF LOVE March 8th
MINISTRY OF LOVE March 12th
MINISTRY OF LOVE March 15th
MINISTRY OF LOVE March 19th

Stream all episodes of Ministry of Love

Lee "Scratch" Perry - Scratch came Scratch saw Scratch conquered

Mad-Man Perry is no stranger to nonsensical lyrics so when the playful and horn heavy "Scratch is alive" started with "bomb government/police/soldiers Shazam!" and then moved from there to the "government get F---ed" in a manner similar to the eples and benenes song by Rafi I almost didn't notice the need to edit the song for airplay. This combination of danceable and characteristically oddball sound with harsh political criticism and rasta ideology runs throughout the album.

The newest release from the prolific producer dropped on September 23rd. The scathing criticism of United States economics could not have been better timed if it had been an overnight dubplate. An album containing the song "Heavy Voodoo", a track condemning dangerous and deceitful economic policies, hit the shelves less than a week after the Congressional bailout plan proposal. Hugo Chavez is not the only one laughing at the dropping dow.

The album has the solid beats and mad man vocal interstitials expected of The Upsetter, and the heavily produced techno pop sound that has come to characterize his newer albums. I am going to see Scratch perform in New York next week and his dance beat album "Repentance" released only two months ago had me wondering if i would recognize the new style of one of Jamaica's best producers. But tracks like "Having a party", "Saint Sellasie", and "Scratch is alive" reassured me that despite his continually evolving sound, Scratch is not going to leave reggae behind anytime soon.

Lee "Scratch" Perry
"Having a Party" (mp3)
from "Scratch Came, Scratch Saw, Scratch Conquered"
(Megawave)

Buy at Rhapsody

Perfect - Born Dead With Life

This is the dancehall album that i have been waiting for

it combines a live style with roots riddims and has a sound that runs deep. It isn't just hip hop beats with Jamaican accents, it isn't hateful and empty lyrics, it isn't a shotta's gospel; all these things have been called dancehall, but this album is it.

There is quite a variety of styles on this album but the diversions are not throw away tracks and the riddims are rootsy and bouncing throughout. A few tracks have more of a festival feel than a studio album; on "Hanging Day" when perfect shouts "I was awakened" - "by a whiplash" I can see him on stage jerking the mic and stomping his foot. "Unforgivable" sounds like a Sunday morning sing along and the next track "Rasta Dublate", a slow beat dancehall throwback, is opened with a massive crew introduction. This unusual pair is followed up by an unashamed Ska track "Unlock", complete with doo-wop backup singers and a horn driven rhythm. Despite the diversity of style this is an album that I can't stop listening to straight through.

The words of Marcus Garvey run through the whole album, not just in the interstitial excerpts from his speeches, but in the lyrical emphasis on black history. In a style similar to Burning Spear perfect recounts stories of slavery and black oppression from his own perspective in songs like "Hanging Day", "This City", and "Unlock"

Perfect is joined on the album by Empress, Gyptian, Turbulence, and Chezidek. These guests add to the album but the great selection of riddims and the obvious influence of the old dancehall greats is responsible for making this release a stand out album. The music video for "Rasta Dubplate" is a must see; it begins with Perfect siting down for bones with the originator himself, U-Roy, and then interlaces a goofy looking and goofy dancing Perfect with home footage of sound systems and selectas of old.

Perfect puts the roots and the love back into Dancehall.