As I’ve already made some contributions on voice demos on the Internet on a number of occasions, I thought that I’d start my own ‘Radio Blog’ dedicated to this subject. By the way, when I say demo tape, I don’t actually mean a ‘cassette tape’, not that there is anything wrong with that…
Over the years I have been involved in radio, I have been sent, quite literally, hundreds of demo tapes to listen to… Everyone wanted the same thing, a job in radio.
Here are a few of my tips and tricks on how to make sure people listen to yours. Most times you only get one shot at this so if someone does actually get round to listening to your demo, you need to make sure it is going to get their attention.
Before I go about giving you ideas on what you should do, here are a few tips on what not to do. The reason I can list most of these is because all of these examples of what not to do were actually sent to me as genuine demo tapes.
Quality – I once had a voice reel demo sent to me for a job in our production studio. The quality was absolutely awful. The levels were all over the place, I’m not sure how it had been recorded, but it sounded like an old cassette player was just put in front of a speaker. This demo didn’t even warrant a reply it was that bad. What on earth was that person thinking??
If you are applying for a job in a production department, this means that you probably need to be able to edit audio, check recording levels and know what audio quality actually means. If you can’t manage that in a demo. then you don’t deserve the job, in my opinion… Audio levels need to be correct and the quality needs to be good. There is no excuse! As I said before, most times you only get one shot, don’t blow it!
Size – I’m talking MP3’s here. As a person looking for work, you need to be sending your demo to as many people as you can, right? Right! I agree with this. But imagine the flip side… Imagine your email inbox being filled up with huge email attachments on a daily basis… Imagine having to send an urgent email to someone but your email account is jammed trying to download a massive email attachment? If you are going to send an email to someone and you want to send them your voice reel, think about all of this. There are other ways of sending voice demos. Read below to find out more.
Content – One of the demo files I received once was an hour long… It was a full hour show, from start to finish. Managers/Producers do not have this amount of time to listen to a demo. It contained full songs, even adverts! Most decisions are made in the first 20 seconds of listening to the demo… If the first two minutes is filled with music and adverts, people won’t carry on listening further… Again, below I’ll try and give some pointers on what could be done better.
So, what can be done to improve these points? What can you do to make a good demo tape? Well, here is what I would have expected with a few variants depending on what type of audio demo you are sending (presenting, production, news reading, etc…).
I’ll start with how to send your demo first. As I pointed out, employers do not want their inbox clogged up with unsolicited emails with huge attachments, I clearly remember cursing people who had sent me emails with over 10MB worth of attachments that took ages to download, imagine how mad that made me if I was out and about waiting for an urgent email and was only on a 2G mobile connection?? Very mad is the answer (just in case!). What would happen in this situation is that the email would get deleted… Never to be seen again… So that could well have been your one and only chance to get noticed well and truly gone.
What you need to do is find yourself a file hosting service, a place where you can upload your audio demo and then just send a link to your audio file. This way, you are not clogging up someones inbox with huge attachments. 99% of people would prefer that you did this. Your audio demo is now only a link away, it is not a huge email file and it will be quicker to download this way rather than as an email. If you are attaching your CV, make sure that this document isn’t huge too. I’ll discuss CV’s in another post, as this is a whole different subject. If you are looking for somewhere to host your audio/video files, then drop these guys an email (tell them I sent you!), they’ll do you a cheap deal on file hosting.
OK, when you are compiling your email, remember that most of the time, your email will be unsolicited, so you will have to be courteous and preferably, slightly apologetic for sending what in some cases is seen as spam. Firstly, apologise for the intrusion and ask that if you have sent it to the wrong person, that they kindly ask who the correct person might be and if possible, forward it on? If they are the right person, again, be polite and ask them if they would be kind enough to take some of their time and have a listen to the demo you are sending them. You only have a few lines of email to actually get them to listen, make sure you don’t blow it with spelling mistakes and phrases like ‘this is the best thing you’ll ever listen to’ and ‘gizza job’. This will not work! You should also tell them that you will be following up the email in a couple of weeks, ask them if they would mind giving you some feedback on the demo? You might as well! This has two benefits, firstly, you will encourage the person to actually listen to your demo and secondly, you will get free feedback on your demo!
So, be courteous and polite and make sure there are no spelling mistakes. Do not attach huge files and make sure you attach your CV. Make sure that your email and subject clearly display your name (not JulianDJ69inthemix or something similar). Add your name to the subject and clearly label it as an ‘audio demo’. This will make it easier to search for when you email back for your feedback.
About the quality issues… Make sure that it is a good quality recording. If you are sending your demo by email, it will be an MP3 file. There is no reason whatsoever for it not being of good quality. When I mention quality I am not referring to the content, I am referring to the recording quality. Please, make sure that the levels are correct and it is not distorted or anything like that. There is no reason for not being able to make a decent quality recording. I’ll remind you again… You may only get one shot at this, make sure it is a good recording.
About the content, this depends greatly on what position you are looking for really. I’ll deal with radio presenting at the end. Let’s discuss your content if you are looking for a job as a news reader, for example. If this is the case, then what we want to hear is you actually reading the news. Mix down various demo’s of you reading different articles on different days, make it clear when you change from article to article (with a beep or a whoosh) and record different types of read (news, sports, articles, interviews, etc…) For this type of audio demo, I’d say the maximum length of your file should be no more than 3 minutes long. If you are sending a demo for production work, then give examples of your production work, such as adverts, jingles, etc… Anything that you have produced yourself. Your demo has to be of very good audio quality, make sure you take the time to give examples of only your best work.
If you are looking for work as a radio presenter, edit down one of your best shows (or different parts of various shows) but put them into the order of a full hours show. I’ll explain!
Start with a passage maybe coming out of the news/jingle with you talking and going into a song, then out of that song (or another song) with more talking, maybe throwing forward into the next part of the show or a competition, etc… If you have any content where you are talking to callers, add a bit of this, show how diverse you can be but only mix down a short part of each bit. Do not include full songs, news breaks, adverts, etc… DO NOT record a full demo that has not been taken from genuine live shows, most of the time we can tell the difference! By all means take the best bits from all your shows to put together a good demo, but do not be afraid to include anything that has a small mistake, if the demo sounds too perfect, it probably means you have recorded it ‘not live’ which won’t get you anywhere! Anyone can record a demo and edit it together until it sounds absolutely perfect, but it won’t get you anywhere in the long run!
All of this may sound like common sense and most people will read this and think ‘I already do this…’, if you already do all of this, good for you! But you would be surprised at how many people made some (or all!) of these basic mistakes and it completely ruined their chance of their demo even getting listened to.
Many of this advice assumes that you have the ability to record a demo from shows you are already doing (or have done in the past). If you have never ever done a radio show and are therefore unable to edit down an audio demo then realistically, you need to be finding someone who has access to a studio to allow you to make a recording. What you will have to do in this situation is do do a whole mock show (an hour or two show) and try and make it as realistic as possible and edit this down to make up an audio demo.
If you are looking for a radio presenter job I’d go for a demo of around 2-3 minutes in length, this should allow plenty of time for someone to get a good idea of your presentation skills, if they like you, they can ask for more…
If you are sending in your demo via tape, mini disc or CD then you might want to take the time to at least add some kind of label to the media you have sent, I remember a couple of CD’s sent it labelled ‘demo’. When there are lots of demo’s flying around, sometimes they get mislaid or we go back to them at a later time/date. Imagine if someone did this and then didn’t know who you were or how to contact you?? At least put a basic label with your name and contact details on both the media AND then case it is in. Ideally you should make up a professional label for it, it will show that you are taking it seriously.
Again, if you are sending the media in by post, make sure that you send in more than the CD, attach a copy of your CV with it and, where possible, a cover letter personally addressed to who you are sending it to.
Try and get a name of the person you are sending the material to, this also goes for sending emails. Many times people to not take the time to find out who the correct person is, this leads to emails and media getting sent to ‘the station’. This will probably not help you.
Right, that’s it for now. I hope that you find this of interest if you are thinking of submitting your audio demo to a radio station and you have found something interesting here.
I’ll be documenting much more as and when I can. Feel free to get in touch if you want, either by email or by leaving a comment below. I’ll try and answer as much as I can.
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