{"id":127,"date":"2026-02-28T16:18:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/?p=127"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:49:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T16:49:00","slug":"recording-an-audio-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/?p=127","title":{"rendered":"Recording an Audio Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Erin Pirrie, who plays Lisa<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to record and Audio Drama as part of a college project, written and directed by my partner. And Audio Drama or Radio Play present an excellent intersection to play in of spoken word, sound design, and music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We recorded in Studio 2 of Riverside Music College, with our cast sat opposing eachother. I assembled the studio, positioning three acoustic screens around where our cast would sit across from each other at a table. The screens helped to deaden the room, which is not specifically designed for multi-cast spoken-word production. I chose SM58s to spot-mic the performers; the 58 was chosen for its sensitivity to the human voice, while maintaining excellent opposite-axis reflection: ideal for our cast being sat opposite each other. The reduced sensitivity compared to a condenser microphone was more forgiving to the room, and the tonality of the microphone can be seen to have that \u2018SM7B\u2019 warmth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ciaran McKechnie, who played Halcroft<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Some minor technical issues which frustrated the recording process were present at the start of the day. Channel 5 of the desk was patched over to another channel, which I hadn\u2019t noticed until troubleshooting other aspects of the signal flow (cable, microphone, etc). Something to add to my list of checks to start the day. Eventually I just moved the input up a dozen channels and that bypassed the issue. Frustrating how this kind of back-and-forth troubleshooting can make you feel (and look) significantly less professional. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the second take onwards, I inserted the KT 1176 compressors on the vocals. It became quickly apparent the dynamics of the performance \u2014 intimate dialogue followed closely by full-volume shouting \u2014 necessitated this step. I didn\u2019t notice any signal-to-noise issues during that first take, but I felt having the compressor there to contain that dynamic range would be better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was surprised on listening back to that first take the day after how shockingly clean the signal was. Knowing how little needs<\/em> to be pushed into the AMEK Mozart pre-amps for such a clean signal is a good thing to be aware of, and makes me more confident of a gentler input stage in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sam Houston, our Writer, Director, and Voice of ‘Man on Radio’<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Overall, three primary start-to-finish takes were conducted, with the director giving notes in between. Minor repositioning of the microphone was done after a \u2018soundcheck\u2019 of one of the more intense scenes. Several lines were retaken at the end of the process, as well as extra lines from a fourth character from the start of the play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m very happy with the performances captured and the end-product so far. I need to arrange a day with the Director to go through the various takes (as they\u2019re all well-recorded) to make decisions on performances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve still to record and source some sound effects, and organise the music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to record and Audio Drama as part of a college project, written and directed by my partner. And Audio Drama or Radio Play<\/p>\n

Continue readingRecording an Audio Drama<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[17,14],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recording","tag-audio-drama","tag-riverside-music-college"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-scaled.jpg",2560,1706,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-1024x683.jpg",920,614,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-640x640.jpg",640,640,true],"audioman-archive-top":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-990x556.jpg",990,556,true],"audioman-hero":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-960x720.jpg",960,720,true],"audioman-featured":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-640x480.jpg",640,480,true],"audioman-slider":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-1920x1080.jpg",1920,1080,true],"audioman-testimonial":["https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-02-23_Audio_Drama_4803-180x180.jpg",180,180,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Fraser Hamilton","author_link":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to record and Audio Drama as part of a college project, written and directed by my partner. And Audio Drama or Radio PlayContinue readingRecording an Audio Drama","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233,"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fraserhamiltonaudio.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}