Skimmer DIY Options

So, you're working at a station with a busted aircheck deck. Or maybe the feed to your logger is out of phase and the engineer couldn't be bothered. What to do?

Here's some relatively simple do-it-yourself advice for recording your own shows - or rolling tape on someone else's.

The Low-Tech Trusty Timer Skimmer:

Buy a good VCR and connect it to your receiver. Buy 30 blank tapes. You can get everything but the tapes at a thrift shop if need be (don't forget the head cleaner!)

The beauty of doing it this way is that you can program the VCR to turn on when you're on the air. Just remember to leave your receiver on (volume won't matter since the VCR gets signal from line-out jacks)

Here's the trick: Set the timer to turn on at exactly the top of the hour, that way, it's easy to shuttle through the tape to find exact breaks. Great bit going into spots at 7:35? Shuttle one hour and thirty five minutes into the tape. Get the break - dub it - save it for later.

The Hi-Tech Home-Studio Skimmer:

This is your career we're talking about here. Invest in yourself. You're worth it.

Buy a radio with a line-out jack.

Buy a USB audio interface for your Mac or PC, like the Digidesign Mbox. A company called M-Audio also makes some quality interfaces. Make sure it's the version that comes with Pro Tools LE. You've now got everything you need to record your show and make high quality demos.

If you add timer software, you can set your computer to turn itself on, record, and turn itself off. I do this with software called Audio Hijack (link below) in order to roll tape on morning shows in different time zones that stream on the web. By the time I wake at 7am west coast, I have an entire 6 to 10am east coast morning show recorded and waiting for me. This was surprisingly simple to set up.

The Geeked-Out Portable Skimmer:

Buy a laptop. I'll recommend a Mac because I'm a Mac kind of guy.

Buy a Radio Shark by Griffin for PC or Mac. (info at griffintechnology.com)

Buy a piece of software called Audio Hijack (by Rogue Amoeba)

Here's how it works: The Radio Shark is a relatively small radio that plugs into your computer via a USB port. It comes with software that puts a tuner on your screen. Audio Hijack is software that can grab sound from any application or input on a Mac and record it as a sound file - mp3, AIFF, WAV, etc. Audio Hijack also has many great features built in, like a timer. Let's say you're on the air from 6 to 10am. Set Audio Hijack to start recording the Radio Shark at 6am. Set it to start a new file each hour. When you get home, pitch the files if you don't want em, or burn the individual hours to CD.

And finally, The In-Studio Headset Jack Skimmer:

If you've got a laptop, a minidisk recorder, or some other form of a recorder, you could always go to Radio Shack and buy a cable to run from an extra headset jack in the air studio into your recorder, and tape your shows that way.

The cable you'll need will be a quarter-inch OUT to either an 8th inch miniplug IN, or a quarter-inch OUT to a pair of RCA INS (left and right). The quarter-inch out is for the headset jack, and the eight inch or RCA in depends on what your recorder has for input jacks.

Test this out ahead of time to learn the appropriate volume to set the headset volume to so your airchecks will always sound good, not to mention consistent.

Bottom line: Don't rely on your employer for airchecks. Take ownership of your career.

Here's a bonus tip for archiving braks: Set up a series of folders on your computer where you save demo-worthy breaks.

Call one "Personality breaks" maybe. Another could be for breaks that sell the station, or the current promotion. Have another for great phoners... etc.

Do this over time and you'll never find yourself screwed when you get blown out of a gig, or when an opportunity comes your way. You'll have a stash of great material to make custom demos to match the gig you hope to land.