What you will need:
Creativity: Though I would assume you can learn how to produce without creativity, I would imagine Imaging would lose its appeal quickly. I’m a bit overboard, lol. If there is one thing I know I’m literally meant for on this earth, it’s radio, and to be a production director. at a cluster of stations/formats. It’s the one thing in life that gets me high and makes me tick like no other. You need to be able to write captivating copy, voice it, or have a VO artist or artists lined up, and be able to produce epic shit. To me, all of those things take great amounts of creativity.
A Windows computer with some what decent specs. If your running Win 10 or 11, at least 8 gb of ram, a solid state drive and at least a 2GHZ processor.
A DAW, digital audio workstation. I will be using Reaper and Goldwave throughout this course
Though I will give keystrokes to drive these applications, I expect that you may already know how to use your audio production software. My hope is that you may also carry over concepts to other DAW applications if you use something else.
A few VST2 fx that I use, all originally free b’s)
10 Band Graphic Eq v1.3.dll
Reaper sees this as:
VST: 10 Band Graphic Eq v1.3 (x86) (Marco Nelson)
AradazMaximizer5.dll
VST: Aradaz Maximizer5 (x86) (Aradaz)
FreeClip.dll
VST: FreeClip (x86) (Venn Audio)
Limiter6.dll
VST: Limiter No6 (x86) (Vladislav Goncharov)
(Yes limiter and maximiser sound different.)
A software called Sonic will assist in speeding up the rate of the vO without introducing a lot of artifacts. I do not have good websites for the software listed above. They are plugins I’ve tried over the years and they were the best, or what I stuck with for one reason or another.
If you are going to voice your imaging, A Microphone: First things first, use what you have. Don’t go blow your money on a high dollar mic. Train your voice, work up to having high end equipment. Having all the bells and whistles in the world won’t help you much just starting out. If you don’t have a mic at all, I would suggest a Zoom H1 recorder. The mics are decent, the noise floor is low enough, it’s small. You will record your VO onto the SD card and then download the wav files to your computer.
If you just have an iPhone you may use it. Microphones generally come in two flavors, dynamic or, condenser. Dynamics may be generally speaking, a cheaper option, will not, require fantom power, and may be more directional and not pick up as much outside noise. On the flip side of this, they do not provide the larger than life sound, crisp highs that we are used to hearing, and trying to push the EQ to get this will sound fake. You must be on top of most dynamic mics which will bring in the proximity effect right away. This effect may make your voice sound muddy. You’ve heard it when you have been to a church or karaoke event and people are eating the mic. Generally speaking they require more volume power to drive the mic which may introduce noise into the dry recording. Condenser microphones, are built into most digital field recorders, such as the Zoom H1, the iPhone, most USB computer microphones and headsets. IF you are plugging a condenser into an interface or mixer console via XLR, the console must provide 48 v of fantom power. Weather dynamic or condenser The sound you are going to capture, depends on which mic you have.
A Quiet space to record VO. Do you have a walk-in closet available filled with clothing? Use the hell out of it! Can you put blankets on the walls about face level up in a bed room? Can you afford a mic shield that fits behind your mic and is filled with acoustic foam? You are going to be processing your voiceovers with EQ compression and maximization. Sounds such as room reverb, that you don’t hear from the original recordings will show up in the finished peace.
Production fx and beds: Find out generally speaking what formats you may find yourself imaging the most for the first 6 months or so, Listen to the demos of FX libraries and pick one that may suit you.
If you are imaging CHR, top 40, or hip-hop formats StickyFX has epic libraries
They also have very nice freebee’s.
If you are imaging rock radio Alien-Imaging may be your jam
If you are imaging country radio, a lot of the libraries I like aren’t sold any longer from Alien-Imaging. I love to use Fuse Reloader It’s got the huge tuning sweeps that rise up. Sticky FX freebee libraries have a few good selections.
I know it’s older but Future FX free from radio mall
If you can get your hands on it,
The Killer Hertz libraries.
Also,
Sonic Infusion 2 and 3 libraries From Radio mall. There pricing has dropped.
Artist drops: Easy cowboy, you may over use these quick in your imaging.
https://radioexpress.com/shop/imaging/buyout-libraries/showbiz-central-artist-drops/
Time: To learn, to write, to record and rerecord, to be creative, to make sure each peace you produce is similar but different from the last.
Imaging is a process for me. I write, I voice, I produce. Don’t give yourself as someone just starting out to close of a deadline to get the finished pieces out. As you gain experience, timelines can shorten.
Drews Sound 