Views from the studio… “And now, a word from our sponsor”
It’s time to cross over to voice-over artist Greg Marston for his monthly article, with another view from the studio.
Adopts the voice of Simpson’s character Troy McClure, clears throat…
Hi I’m Greg Marston.
You might remember me as the guy from the GWR Group of stations across the UK, who used to say ‘no rap, less chat, your better music mix’ back in the 90’s. Or, at the end of the same decade and on into the 2000’s, as the voice of Classic FM: ‘more music to suit your mood – that’s the Classic FM difference’. And who could forget when I was the imaging voice for LBC London, announcing: ‘From the LBC studios in Leicester Square…’.
Well good gentle-readers of RadioToday, as mentioned in last month’s article, some of the idents and news reports you’re hearing now on radio and TV stations and networks, terrestrial or digital, are actually voices generated via our new-ish ‘friend’, AI.
I kid you not…
…but I actually wish I was joking.
My career in radio began at a brand spanking new, small but well equipped station broadcasting out of the University of Western Australia in 1979.
Cutting to the chase of a long back-story, ‘6UVS FM’ was the first FM station in that state, and I presented a show on Friday nights from 2315 to around 0115 (I have no idea why a quarter past midnight, but I recall that I had to shut the station down whenever I finished – often running well past the 0115 mark).
The programme was imaginatively called ‘Midnight Rambles’ and the brief was this:
‘So, every week, the record companies send in a heap of new releases which you’ll find in a milk crate in the studio. Play whatever you like. Oh, and if you want to bring in any of your own discs and spin them, do that too’.
A dream gig for a radio obsessed guy in his very early 20’s, having been brought up on the medium in the UK from the late 50’s and throughout the 60’s, after which I was thrown into the heavily American influenced – but very Australian themed – music market in the 1970’s when my family emigrated to the land down-under.
In those days, sponsorship, imaging/branding announcements and promos were voiced by anyone presenting on the eclectically programmed station, the format of which was such that you might have someone playing classical music leading immediately into a CHR style slot after which it might be jazz, a chat show, current affairs, news, interviews etc.
Wanting to promote my own programme, I fell into my next love of producing, recording, editing and mixing – using an MCI JH-110 ¼” 2-Track Reel-to-Reel – concocting the most involved pieces of sonic madness (mostly for my own entertainment) along with a few guys with whom I was producing a crazy series of shows called ‘Time Capsule’.
I still have some of those tapes, along with the very first show which Mum recorded on cassette – bless you Mum.
We were all beginners finding our way at the tail-end of the ‘glory days’, heavily influenced by the good radio and TV voices around at that time and, even though some of those vocals are dated by todays’ standards, at least they were real and sounded hot in the late 70’s/early 80’s!
Now, it’s getting difficult for many to discern what’s real and what’s AI generated.
That’s something to think about, going forward.
I ponder many things AI voiceover-related across various articles on the blog page of my website.
The bottom line is simply this: the current generation (Alpha – 2012 to just last year) and probably some of the previous generation (Z – 1997 to 2012) will potentially grow up in a world where the majority of voices they hear on radio, TV and across all the socials will be AI generated.
Even as the artificial voices get better and better, they are still unlikely to be able to replicate the wonderful subtleties, nuances, depth, inflection, emphases et al, of a real, human voice.
Will these generations start conversing without all those wonderful attributes and if so, what will that sound like a few decades from now…