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!