Radio Roulette: You Never Know What You're Going to Get

What is Radio Roulette? It is an awesome show on 90.5 WERG and wergfm.com that occurs every Friday from 9 p.m. to midnight. What can you expect from Radio Roulette? Well, you just never know what you’re going to get! Radio Roulette gives the DJs at 90.5 WERG the chance to share their favorite music picks. Their music selections come from all genres including movie and musical soundtracks. Abbey and I recently hosted Radio Roulette (March 16) and shared music from High School Musical, The Greatest Showman, AJR, Bon Jovi, One Direction, Shawn Mendes, and more. Essentially, we shared a wide variety of music.

So how does Radio Roulette work? The first step of Radio Roulette is to pick music. Abbey and I did the full three hours of Radio Roulette together. Usually, one DJ takes the first half from 9-10:30 p.m., and a second DJ will share their picks from 10:30-midnight. Anyone who knows Abbey and I would know that we tend to do everything together, so we just had to do a combined Radio Roulette. Since we needed to fill three hours, we picked around 45 songs that we could potentially use.

The next step is to map out each segment of the show. There are three hours, and each hour has four segments. Each segment should be around 14 minutes, so that the hour comes to 56 minutes to allow for promotions and weather. Abbey and I mapped out and completed each segment one at a time. Depending on the length of the songs chosen, each segment should go something like:

· Song

· Talk Break

· Song

· 90.5 WERG Liner/Jingle

· Song

Another talk break may be added to get closer to the 14-minute mark.

After we mapped out a segment, Abbey and I had to voice track our talk breaks in the whisper room. This is one of my favorite parts because the talk breaks give DJs the chance to explain why they love the music they are sharing.

Once all the talk breaks for a segment are recorded, we use Adobe Audition to upload songs, liners/jingles, and talk breaks and create and edit each segment. This part can be frustrating and time consuming for rookie DJs, but it definitely gets easier with practice. It’s a really cool skill to have, so I highly recommend to any 90.5 WERG DJs who haven’t done Radio Roulette to consider taking a segment (If interested, contact Amy Benkovich at benkovic003@knights.gannon.edu). Abbey and I had a blast creating our playlist, mapping out segments, recording talk breaks, and editing to ultimately share our favorite music with all our listeners!

The final step of Radio Roulette is to export everything, so it can be played on-air. It’s more technical than that, but I won’t delve into that this week. But you know what you should do this week? Check out Radio Roulette from 9 p.m. to midnight Friday and jam along with our DJs’ favorite songs!

--Emma Maxted, 90.5 WERG DJ