Aircheck advice

[marioj]

After 5 and a half years doing just about everything short of sales at a small town (market 240) cluster of 4, I got the dreaded ax yesterday. I've done Spanish and English production and been on the air in both languages live and (mostly) VTd, but I never once participated in an aircheck session. I have a few tapes of my morning show, but I'm not sure if they'll be good enough to send out to prospective employers. Is there a website where I can upload mp3s of mny airchecks and get constructive criticism and ways to edit them down to something manageable for my package? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

Maybe someone here will offer to listen to them by email. The true professionals, Imsure, will be glaqd to help...

 

[SUPERCASTER]

After 5 and a half years doing just about everything short of sales at a small town (market 240) cluster of 4, I got the dreaded ax yesterday. I've done Spanish and English production and been on the air in both languages live and (mostly) VTd, but I never once participated in an aircheck session. I have a few tapes of my morning show, but I'm not sure if they'll be good enough to send out to prospective employers. Is there a website where I can upload mp3s of mny airchecks and get constructive criticism and ways to edit them down to something manageable for my package? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Try free www.podomatic.com to archive, promote, and play your MP3 audiofiles. Then put your automatic player link on your (also free) www.myspace.com webpage with your pix and data. You will get lots of comments, even some from professionals, and you don't even have to send out all those audition tapes. Just point prospective employers to these websites. If they are truly interested, they will check you out, and you can always follow up, with resume and tapes.
There are also several employment websites (media and general) where you can post your resume and links.

 

[dmargalotti]

I never once participated in an aircheck session. I have a few tapes of my morning show, but I'm not sure if they'll be good enough to send out to prospective employers.

Marioj,

Sorry to hear about your situation, hang in there. This should be a lesson to everyone in the biz or thinking about a career in radio. Be prepared, always! Make sure that resume is up to date and always have current air checks and material ready to go...just in case. You just never know.

As for marioj, if you don't have enough quality material to put together a great demo, you need to figure out a way to get some. Do you have access to a studio? Can you record stuff at home? Do you know anyone at other stations that can let you into the studio for a couple of hours at night?

If you're going after both on-air and production jobs, you need to have a different demo for each one. Keep both demos to under two minutes. If a PD or GM wants to hear more from you, they will request more.

For the on-air demo, you need to make sure your personality and style come through immediately. You've got to offer something more than just back-selling songs, reading the time and temp, and a scripted promo. Interaction with phone callers, traffic and news people, or guest interviews will show that you're more than just a liner card reader.

For your production demo, what's your strength? Are you better at writing, editing, imaging, voice work? All of the above? Make sure your demo reflects those strengths. And you need to demonstrate that you can adapt your style to reflect the image/format of the radio station you want to work for. Keep that in mind when going for your next gig.

Lots of luck to you!

Dave