Anyone have any suggestions for making a radio bumper?

[Ubersheist]

One of the local radio stations asked us for a radio bumper, but they didn't give us any guidelines or any specifics to what they might want.

Has anyone here made a successful bumper? I figure it's gotta be about 10 seconds long and simple without any crazy effects on it, and clearly states both the radio stations call letters and the station ID. However, neither I nor anyone in my band has any good, clear idea of what to give them.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Thanks!

[MNAirHead]

After you write it give it the preschool test.. if kids can sing it back to you the next day, you're 1/2 way to a hook.

Diatonic straightforward charts.

Focus on slotting and what not to play.. vs showing off.

[scsm]

I actually work at a radio station as my "big boy job." Its been my experience that each station has its own lingo. I've heard a shot, sweeper, and buzzer all used to refer to the same thing.

Do they just want you to write some bumper music, or do they want you to come up with a liner?

Bumper music would just be some music that they use to go in and out of talk breaks.

A liner would be something that's just like.

"Hey its Jim, Joe and John from BandX and you're listening to X100 point 1!"

If they want you to make a liner, always end with the station frequency. Like "Q93.6" or "1017 Kickin' Radio." If they have a imaging statement, you could use that like "Only the best Rock - 101.7 Kickin' Radio"

Imaging statements are pretty particular, so you need to get the exact wording otherwise they probably won't use it.

Also avoid using "point" unless they use it. If a station is B104.7 don't just assume that you would pronounce it Bee one oh four POINT seven. It might just be "bee one oh four seven" or another variation.

I've subscribed so if you have any questions I'll help!

[Ubersheist]

Thanks... We started on the "liners" or drops, as I believe they're called - they wanted the "this is the band Stereo Earth, and we always listen to 95.9 The River," or something similar. Our first attempt failed. We had such a terrible gain structure on the mic we used, that we had way too much hiss and white noise then we're able to get rid of on our system. As such, we'll be trying it again on Thursday.

Scsm - thanks for the hints! The only other question I'd have is how long it should be. We were going to put our music in behind us, and it's turned out to be about 12 seconds long. Was that too long?

[scsm]

If its a liner 12 seconds is about as long as you want to go. Although I would cut out "This is the band." Just say "Hey this is Stereo Earth and we always listen to 95.9 The River." and have one of your songs instrumentals play in the background.

[scsm]

How did it go?

[Ubersheist]

Well, we still haven't done them... We have the originals with the wicked bad and unusable gain structure, but now we have a deadline to finish up our album. (Actually, our deadline just passed, so we're scrambling to get mixed tracks and a handful of burned CDs out before our "release party," after which we'll send out mastered tracks to the mass producing CD company.)

ALL of our free time has been in the studio either recording, mixing, editing, mastering, etc, and we've also had a ton of gigs lately. We've spent literally hundreds of hours mixing, and haven't been able to set up the bumper stuff again. Oh well..

It's on the "to do" list, but it quickly became a lower priority.