Over the past few articles, we have looked at how the virus has impacted writers, comics and even independent publishers. One thing I hadn’t considered until I finished my last article was how they had impacted Television production or radio production in local, independent radio stations.
“Myself and the rest of my team at All FM had only recently started to broadcast from our long awaited brand new studio within Levenshulme old library, and just celebrated the launch of a second recording studio” Ruth O’Reilly, presenter at Levenshulme’s All FM Radio began when asked about how Covid 19 had impacted the way she was working.
“I had often joked to my co-host Nat, ‘I bet something will happen to stop us from using our studio’, purely because with it being an old Victorian building it had taken ages to get planning permissions to adapt our side of it, as we share it with another community group”. She carried on “Because we are a community radio station, our manager Ed wanted us to continue broadcasting from the studio as vulnerable locals needed to have up to date information about where they could get help and advice, but as the weeks went on, due to lack of space for social distancing, droplets on the microphone etc it became obvious that it was not going to work out.”
As a fellow artist myself, the onset of the virus forced me to change a lot of the ways I look at my own work recording and mixing Podcasts as was happened to Ruth also “Our manager said it was essential that we tried our best to keep going with our shows, but now from home, as community radio stations were closing down fast. This meant for the first time ever I was going to have to do a pre-recorded show. I had always meant to learn how to do the more technical stuff but I kept putting it off, now I was going to have to do it, and without any one to assist me.”
Working on my own Podcasts, I do these through my laptop mixing and mastering with fairly straightforward. Ruth didn’t have this option as she explains “As luck would have it, my laptop had stopped working 2 weeks earlier and my co-host isn’t very tech minded either. I was about to give up on the show, because the online tutorials our manager was doing, were all based on the assumption that you had a laptop then I remembered hearing that Ed Sheeran recorded an album on his phone once thought ‘ what if I don’t need a laptop?’
I have recorded a number of sessions over the telephone myself and in person, but wasn’t aware myself of the amount of apps you can download to assist you “I started experimenting with recording & editing apps on my phone till I got a format together that I could use. “She explains “I record in the smallest space at home which is the little storage room, where I keep my CD collection, so it was always my radio related area. To my surprise the sound quality worked really well from there, without me needing to use duvets etc as sound blocks”
I have used myself socks to do the buffering to assist with the recording but never thought of doing things like that and as Ruth explains next, she learnt how more new skills
“Without having a regular co-host as usual, I decided to do recorded interviews with guests over the phone, which was something I’d never done before either!” before carrying on
“Because the creative industries are the ones most suffering during this health crisis, I felt passionate about speaking to authors and other artists about how lockdown was affecting their work process etc.”
Working within a different area of work clearly would result in the work taking longer which she advises “Obviously, it takes a lot longer to do a show these days as I’m not just going into the studio and saying what I want on the spot or playing music. This means that a 2hr show ( with a co-host mainly) now takes me 4-6hours to prepare and edit because I’m doing everything myself, and have to check that each segment flows as smoothly as possible. It makes me feel like more of a radio producer and sound engineer than ever, but it’s nice to be able to say that I have learnt a new skill during lockdown. I’ve had some good feedback, even a few ppl in other countries told me they tuned in and enjoyed the show so it encouraged me to record a show most weeks during lockdown.”
“A few friends asked me was I back at the studio the other week because it sounded so clear” She concluded “Everyone it’s amazed when I tell them that all I’m using is my phone.”
Ruth is on every Sunday (with Nat) on All FM Radio between 2pm to 4pm. This can be streamed at https://allfm.org/listen
(Originally published on the Sunday Tribune on 28 June 2020)
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