The first half of the year is about to end and with less than 30 days to go before the second half starts; you definitely have a short time for preparing your next radio imaging set.

Well what’s going to be your next move? Hire a voice over guy throw in a few common and cheesy radio imaging sweeper liners and then vuwalah! – There goes your new set of radio imaging.

The most common mistake of radio program directors and radio imaging directors alike is when they lack the creativity in imaging their station. A station must make a punchy statement. And with the month of June fast-approaching as late as now you should already have something in mind for your next radio imaging.

Okay, the first thing that comes to your mind when you do your radio imaging this June – oh yes, the back to school stuff. Well I tell you, everybody’s been doing it. The crappy old usual radio imaging liners you hear on the radio that goes “Hey we are your back to school radio – we are cool cool school fool radio” which is just basically hypocrisy to anybody.

How come a radio station becomes an official back to school station? It’s an ancient radio imaging idea. Think outside of the box. Here are a few guides and tips and some pesky ideas you will find indispensable for your station’s next radio imaging.

Instead of the usual “back to school fool thing”, why not use radio imaging liners or sweepers that go “we are your unofficial back to school radio” and if that is still cheesy, why not go, “we are you official play the hooky station” or ”we are your official cutting class station”. How’s that?

But hey, you don’t want to mess up with KBP or some moral-leaning radio folks who happen to be sitting on the station manager’s seat. Oops! But you get the idea! It’s time to rebel!

All the more you don’t have to go overboard, you can still use the ancient “back to school” radio imaging theme but give it a little tweak. The Killerbee network has made a good twist with their Killerbee University stuff. And their liners go “This is the Killerbee University, it’s time to meet your classmates….” [a series of artist bites goes] … “this is the Killerbee University”. Cool huh? But not necessarily an original idea though as some radio stations in the US have used this method.

Even more, radio stations in the US don’t usually cash in on the back to school radio imaging idea. School is such pesky thought to use in radio imaging. Yet don’t get over pretentious. Just be what your station’s personality should be. If you have been really making good marks with the usual back to school radio imaging theme, cool. But then again, radio has indeed evolved, and so are listeners. It’s time to hear something new.

Here’s a cool drum pad you can use for your next radio imaging or throw it up as a live jock talk over bed.

When to use beatmixxers? That you might be asking. But before the class starts today, well, it’s going to start now.

What are beatmixxers?

Beatmixxers are not really new in the imaging world as they have been used ever since radio imaging directors learned how to create a montage of their station’s playlist. Major radio imaging and jingle production houses are fond of calling it beatmix. But this should not be confused with a relatively similar imaging product that is a property of one of the biggest contemporary jingle producers in the U.S. – Reelworld (www.reelworld.com). Theirs is a different beatmix since it refers to their song intro service.

Beatmixxer is a collage of song bites that is beat matched to a common BPM. Most program directors and imaging guys have found this approach significantly practical in imaging their stations. As they say, “what better way to image your station than using your playlist.”

Beatmixxers have evolved as new techniques in audio design were achieved. The availability of end user audio editing softwares like Adobe Audition ( www.adobe.com ) and Sound Forge have enabled the ordinary radio person to create his own brilliant imaging ideas.

Modern Beatmixxers

Today beatmixxers are not just a pure Frankenstein-stitched imaging approach; imaging directors are now able to seamlessly blend a variety of song bites that can range from pop to rock, hiphop to ballad into a single imaging element. Beatmixxers are driven by pulse beats or drum loops, where each song bite is keyed and tempo-adjusted to match-beat the back ground drums.

Beatmixxers are different from music imagers since music imagers are only composed of 3 song bites. In a music imager, song bites are separated by beat separator FX, so they don’t really follow a common BPM unlike beatmixxers. Reelworld has a good example of music imagers in their Z100 2003 jingle demo, which they aptly call “beat separators”.

Beatmixxers are great for top of hours, show openers, program primer or teasers, half-hour breaks, or just an ordinary station ID. Beatmixxers can usually run from 15 seconds to 30 seconds.

Download beatmixxers

There are a lot of companies now that offer beatmixxing services today. Mint Audio in the U.K. produce great beatmixxing capabilities. You can search the internet for beatmixxing production houses. Radio Jingles blog will follow up this article with some helpful tips on how to create your own beatmixxers.

Listen to a sample of a beatmixxers here. Contact the Radio Jingles Team by visiting our Contact Us page at www.radiojingles.co.nr .