Radio Ad Deliverables
If you produce radio commercials, you know the drill. Once your commercial is finalised, it needs to be delivered in multiple formats, each with its own set of technical requirements. From online radio to streaming platforms and ad networks, every service has its own specifications, and making sure your files comply can be a tedious, time-consuming process.
Traditionally, every commercial needs to be manually exported in various formats: different bitrates, sample rates, loudness levels. Forgetting one small detail can lead to rejections from broadcasters or poor audio playback on certain platforms. Even worse, manually adjusting each file increases the risk of errors and inconsistencies.
This recipes creates
Spotify, R128, Spotwave, streaming, online radio, client approval files
and more, all from one master file.
This is how we work
Most of our sessions contain a mix of TV ads, radio ads and online commercials in one project. We decided that it would be best if internally we would always work at the same loudness and with the same file specs. So we won't think about any specifications until the final stage of the project. Since the majority of our work is for broadcasting in Europe working at -23LUFS makes sense. (If you do a lot of cinema work -31LUFS would probably make more sense).
The recipe
Then, when the file ready for creating the deliverables, we export them, always in the same file format, the same specs and the same loudness. The last step is creating the deliverables. All this is done in one go with a recipe. This is what it does:
- Preview
In this stage we like to keep the files for client approval as small as possible. During the delivery process it's not really about mix or quality. The most important thing is making sure we're sending out the right commercial. So the file needs to be extremely manageable. A low quality mp3 can be played everywhere on every system.
But with consumer audio products (clients checking the audio on phones, cheap laptops etc) other problems arise. The biggest problem is probably that some sound cards cut off the beginning or the end of an audio file. And even though this is only a few ms, this is just enough the get the client on the phone freaking out because the .com of their url fell off. So for the client approval we add half a second of time to the beginnen and end of the file.
Preview; stereo MP3 files, 192kbps, 44.1kHz, 16bit, -1dB Full Scale, with strailing silence
- Spotwave
Sounds a little outdated but still requested by a lot of stations.
Spotwave; stereo WAV file, 48kHz, 24bit, Peaks max. at -9dB Full Scale
- F&P Media
F&P Media; stereo WAV file, 48kHz, 24bit, Peaks max. at -9dB Full Scale, 27seconds
- Online Radio
Most digital radio stations allow -1dBFS.
Online Radio; stereo MP3 file, 320kbps, 44.1kHz, 16bit, Peaks at max. -1dB Full Scale,
- R128
Only a few radio stations require real R128 deliverables.
R128; stereo WAV, 48kHz, 24bit, -23LUFS, Max -1dBTP & Max-M +8LU
- Spotify
For Spotify the limit for files is 1MB. This is quite a strange limit (they allow MP3, OGG and WAV. But for WAV this limit wont even make a 6 seconds file).
Let's just respect it and deliver the files within the size limit. That means an MP3 up to 27sec can be 320kbps and above that (27 to 30sec) it should be 256kbps.
Spotify; stereo MP3 file, 320kbps, 44.1kHz, 16bit, Filesize max. 1mb, -16LUFS, Peaks at max -2dBTP
- Streaming
There is a sub version of the R128 specifications, specially for streaming called R128s2: https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128s2.pdf
Streaming; stereo WAV, 44.1kHz, 16bit, -16LUFS, -1dB Full Scale
Get it
Interested? Get the recipe.