How to do Radio Edit

One of the first editing tasks you would encounter is editing a radio script.

The goal here is to

1. Remove unwanted noise, such as pops, swallowing, inhaling/exhaling before the first word, and lip smacking.

2. Keep a natural sounding reading rhythm, e.g. between commas, etc.

3. EQ the tone of the voice talent to be pleasant, e.g. not too boomy, thin, etc.

Editing

For editing, in Pro Tools we would need the Pencil utility tool to draw new lines and remove the wiggly pulses, which are what the errors look like. These errors sound like when the CD skips.

Tips

1. Do not remove the silence if it adds room tone. Try using the "silence" room tone from other parts if needed.

2. Use fade in and out to make the start of room tone natural.

3. The pause in between words, commas, and sentences need to be checked when you decide to remove silence gap.

Mixing

For mixing, we can use:

1. Compressor: To achieve a consistent volume of all the words

2. EQ: HPF at 90Hz to remove any rumbling, slightly dip the low mid to remove the muddiness.

3. Gate: To completely remove all unwanted background noise between words, e.g. chair moving, soft breathing. Be sure to NOT let the gate close too fast that it cuts the ending of the actual words.

4. Desser if needed, depending on the voice talent.

Bouncing

If it is just 1 speaker and a dialogue, always bounce in .wav mono format.