LO2: Production technologies [✓]

Both community and commercial radio stations exist however they both have different purposes. Community radios are small-scale, not-for-profit radio stations which are operated for the good of members of the public, or of particular communities, and in order to deliver social gain. A lot of the time the people who broadcast on these stations are also members of the public who want to create a station which has positive representation of all in the community. A commercial radio station has a very different motive as they exist to make profit by delivering audiences to advertisers who pay to advertise products on that station.
Radio stations have been altered drastically through technological convergence and the transition to digital production methods.
A DJ is a term that the majority of people will know and have heard of however they will not know what the term actually means. DJ means Disk Jockey, these are the people who present radio shows as well as introducing and playing songs. In the past they also use to produce and edit music themselves however the introduction of digital technologies and high spec equipment means that they no longer do this.

Radio production use to be dominated by analogue technologies, with songs being played on 8-track tapes or vinyl records with each song having to be cued up manually by the DJ. Analogue tape would have been used to record idents, adverts and other things such as pre-recorded packages. This tape would have been edited by manually cutting it ip and splicing it back together in the right order. In the 1980's CD or "compact discs" started to replace analogue formats due to the quality of the sound being superior and containing no scratches and hisses which differed to the analogue tapes which were previously used. Within the 1990's, mini disc and digital audio tapes were introduced. These were digital formats which made digital radio production easier. Moving into the 21st Century, the digital technology which is now available to create radio production was revolutionised.

CD players are still sometimes used within digital radio production however most radio music is now stored on computer servers called "play servers". These servers allow DJ's to have all of the songs that they need on the computer and can simply just click on the song to play it.

MICROPHONES
A microphone is used to capture sound. Microphones are generally on an arm when they are in the studio which means they can be moved and adjusted easily. There is a wind protector is attached to the front of the microphone so that there isn't wind which can be heard when pronouncing certain words. The microphones used in the studio are different to performance microphones as there isn't feedback issues.

AUDIO CONSOLE
An audio console is at the heart of every radio studio. This is what the radio announcer or panel operator uses to control what is heard on air. There are faders on the panel which can amplify different signals.

PLAY SERVERS

Play servers are a computer system which plays back the music, ads, voiceovers between songs and everything else. This is what has taken over from techniques which were used within the past. The computer system allows the presenter to queue songs and play continuous audio. There are also commands which allow audio files to be played at a certain

time. 

LEVEL METERS

All stations have a level meter within them. These are important for the announcer or the panel operator to see if their audio is too loud of quiet. Sometimes there will be multiple meters showing the different levels of different signals. When music is being played on radio the level meter should be between 5 and 6. 

SPEAKERS

Studio monitor speakers are an easy way to hear what is going to air without needing headphones. These speakers are used as they are very high quality which means that any abnormalities in sound can be detected easily. There are also preview speakers which are a separate set of speakers which the announcers will hear all audio that isn't going to air, by having separate speakers it makes it easier to know that the preview audio isn't going to air. 

HEADPHONES

The studio monitor speaks are muted automatically as soon as the microphone is turned on, this means that everyone in the studio need to wear headphones so they can hear what is going to air. The headphones used are high quality.