So today in my office hours, not only did I make a new EPROMO for our sweet wall challenge at Wings Etc. The copy points were 1. November 16th, 6-8 2. wings are 45c each 3. wvur is going to take on vutv in the wall challenge. 4. its going to be awesome.
Also, video of the week! here it is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdFMBpseRiw
It’s M2M with ‘Don’t say you love me’ circa 2000. I love them!
peace
Harry
Two weeks ago, my assistant Katie Hennessey and I went to New York City for the annual CMJ Music Conference and Festival. It was my second time attending the conference, and it was a great success. The schedule for nearly every day was as follows:
Wake up/get free hotel breakfast
Go listen to panels/speakers talking about the music/radio industry
Meet up with the record promoters we do business with weekly
Sightsee a bit
Go to concerts
It was a busy, busy week, but it was a lot of fun, and a good experience. Some of the speakers and panelists were really cool to hear. We heard a panel on environmental sustainability in the music industry that was probably my favorite. Some of the facts about how wasteful the industry can be was pretty shocking, and learning a bit about it can help us make the station more green. Also, Andrew W.K. was an excellent presenter, and gave a pretty great motivational speech. One of the phrases I remember was “just keep doing what you love with maximum intensity.” Good advice.
One of my other favorite times was the industry vs. stations kickball game. We met up in a park in Brooklyn for a kickball game that put station music directors up against a bunch of the record promoters we talk to each week. It ended up being a lot of fun socializing with these people, and finally meeting them after nothing but phone conversation for a long time. We try to focus on having quality relationships with these promoters, and this was definitely nice.
After that, the evenings were all about concerts. Lots of fun was had, and many awesome new bands were discovered. Here are the top five bands I would recommend checking out that we saw at CMJ: Au Revoir Simone, Headlights, You Can Be A Wesley, Still Flyin’, and Free Energy.
Chris Zaplatosch
Music Director
When I first started with WVUR, I was a DJ with my friend Nate. We had no previous experience and knew none of the terms. So for the good of mankind, I’ll explain the terms that are commonly used.
Ramp - Not what you walk up, it’s talking over the end or beginning of a song as it is playing. If you perfect this you can sound really professional.
Sweeper - This is a 3-10 second audio clip that makes the transition between songs a little smoother. Often times this includes station information.
Voice Track - Recording your show ahead of time with your voice and music pre-loaded. This is commonly done for late night shifts.
Well, I hope this little article brought some insight into the world that is radio.
Have a nice weekend! The weather is amazing!
-Jeff Lange
WVUR Programming Director
Hi all,
First off, thanks for checking the blog. I hope everyone is enjoying their time at WVUR and having a wonderful first semester. I look forward to hearing all the DJs, News and Sports staffers put the finishing touches on a great semester and looking to start a new one.
Well, I’m Mike Targonski, the Events Director at WVUR; I am also a member of sports staff. As the Events Director, I had a pretty important job at the beginning of the year and that was to put on SourceStock. Let me tell you, I never thought in a million years I’d be throwing a concert. I began working with Cameron, our General Manager, and Michelle Niehaus, the past Events Director, in April for the show. I spent a lot of time in Valpo this summer, working as an Orientation Assistant as well as making trips to meet with Cameron and some other people for the show. When we got back to school, boy, was it hectic.
The week of SourceStock, I spent every minute that I wasn’t sleeping nor in class at the station working on schedules, making sure we had everything ready for the bands, making sure we had everything ordered for the show, and also praying that everything was going to be ok.
The day of…it seemed like I was professional. I had no worries (for some odd reason) and didn’t think anything was going to go work…nothing did! The show was great, we had a huge crowd, and the members of the band were fantastic. And I slept forever the following day!
I wouldn’t say I still have a SourceStock hang over because I have done a lot for events and the station. I was able to finally announce some games for sports and have been planning other small events with other organizations. But things are a lot more calm in my department nowadays.
Anyway, I look forward to basketball season in terms of broadcasting. I love sports and can’t wait until we get the seasons underway…next Sunday! But that’s all for now. Stop by my office hours if you need anything!
Mike Targonski, Events Director
It’s crazy to think that another school year is right around the corner in a couple of days and with this fresh start comes our preparations for one of the largest concert events on campus for the entire year. On September 12th, AP Fall Ball co-headliner The Academy Is… will be hitting the VU campus with rising stars Sing It Loud and Indiana’s own Dreams of University.
It’s going to be a crazy awesome show and it’s FREE to VU students, professors, alumni, and staff. Don’t go to VU? No worries my friend, tickets are only $10 for this crazy sweet show. Bring a friend or three, because this is arguably the best event to hit campus all year. Tickets are available at the Harre Union Info Desk or online at this site. If you need a map to the venue, click here or send me an e-mail to Cameron.Banga@valpo.edu
I wanted to give you guys some links in case you were interested in learning more about the bands. Take a listen and get pumped for the show.
The Academy Is…
Sing It Loud
Dreams of University
We’re super stoked for this show and we hope you’re excited as well. If you have any questions about the show or if you’d like to be part of WVUR, send me an e-mail to Cameron.Banga@valpo.edu and I’ll help you out.
-Cameron Banga, general manager.
My job for the last few weeks has been refreshingly different. I have taken advantage of the studio computer being repaired to clean out the catalog of productions in PSI. I went through and re-timed and remastered over half the sweepers, and added around 10 new ones, so when the on air studio goes back on air, there is going to be a lot of new sounds for the station.
One thing that I am really looking forward to is the installation of the new Prod room computer. Jared, the station engineer, is in the process of putting in a new, totally awesome computer that I cannot wait to start playing with.
I’m also excited to work with the new management staff. punks.
I you have any question or comments just let me know!
Peace
Harry Cassin, Producion Director
So a lion came in and broke our equipment…..not really.
At WVUR, we pride ourselves on running the station in a very professional manner, much like any other commercial station you would hear in a big market. But, sometimes, things don’t always go as planned.
We use an automation software called PSI. It’s basically like a computer-generated playlist that assigns commercials and sweepers and legal IDs to the proper times they need to play, as well as adding the correct type of songs to fill in our hours. Our DJs add and remove songs from our rotation as they please, but PSI is the backbone of the stations’ professional sound.
We have two main computers that run PSI; one is in the production room adjacent to the on-air studio while the other is IN the on-air studio. The one in the production room is where we load all of our commercials and music. We then send those to the on-air computer and it sorts all of the information we send. It then divides it up and plays it at the proper times. Unfortunately, a piece of hardware inside of the on-air computer went kerplunk. Which now leaves us with no on-air automation software.
This is one of the more difficult I have faced in my time as Program Director. Our job is to program the station through our software. Now without it, I have to program the station through humans, which is a bit more difficult. It’s hard to get 60+ DJs on the exact same page as to what we need to do to solve problems like these. But I’ve been very pleased with my on-air staff with how they’ve handled it. For now, I’ve given them free reign to play whatever they want to and we have “sold” it as MARCH MADNESS WEEK! Sometimes in radio, you have to take what you didn’t mean to do and make it seem like you meant to do it all along.
Because we load all of our music and commercials to the production room computer, we are able to play all of our saved files straight from there. So when there are no DJs, we are still able to play our entire music library. We are waiting on a replacement computer to run our software, but until we have that, we’ll keep making it work with what we have.
Signed,
Adam Amin, Program Director
As of late, Twitter has been the talk of the town with newspapers, television shows, blogs, and even late night talk show hosts providing a ton of commentary on the hot web service.
We’ve been all over the hip new service and you can catch a ton of WVUR staffers/DJs on the social network. We’ll be updating about WVUR and whatever else we’re doing quite a bit, so be sure to give us a follow.
Cameron Banga - General Manager
Dave Schroeder - Sports Director
Chris Zaplatosch - Assistant Music Director
Allison Kuehner - News Director
Harry Cassin - Production Director
Eric Hockman - Digital Music Director
Lilia Oakey - Promotion Director
First off, I hope everyone had an enjoyable and relaxing Spring Break. I’m back in the station for the first time in two weeks and it feels good to be back. Not going to lie, I’d rather be outside enjoying the AMAZING weather. It’s my office hours so I’m here. I just finished going through the plethora of press releases I had sitting in my inbox.
I have put together a list of Evening Source stories for next week. I’ve been trying to think of different stories that students would find interesting or something they never knew before. Besides the press releases I receive, I listen to what my friends and other students on campus are talking about and events they are putting on. Something I have been working on is following local and national stories and finding ways to make them more relevant to students and get them up to speed as to what is going on. I know that it is often times hard to find enough time to follow current events as a student between classes, meetings, studying, etc. I am open to suggestions for stories, so if you know of something going on around campus or if there is something you would like to know more about, shoot me an e-mail or leave a note in my box in the managers’ office.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Allison Kuehner, News Director
In college radio, you’re always thrown a plethora of new music from undiscovered artists. Literally once or twice a week, music director Patrick Lay walks into the station looking like Santa with a big sack of musical gifts for the WVUR family.
When you listen to a lot of indie music, it’s often difficult to understand why a lot of talented artists will never get a chance for commercial success. Once in a while though, a band we’ve been following for a while will get a big break. I’m not going to lie, it kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside to know that a group of extremely talented musicians have taken a big step toward reaching their lifelong goals.
Company of Thieves is a band we’ve been following heavily at WVUR and you may remember the band from their amazing set at SourceStock 2008. They’ve seen a lot of success as of late and we couldn’t be happier about their good luck. Late last year they signed on with Wind-up Records and have recently seen their album Ordinary Riches re-released (pick it up on iTunes, it’ll be the best six bucks you spend all week). A couple weeks ago, they made their television debut on Last Call with Carson Daly.
Here’s their new music video for Oscar Wilde.
Congrats to our friends at Company of Thieves and can’t wait till we can get them to play at Valpo again sometime in the future.
- Cameron Banga, General Manager