Randy Reeves, Owner/Producer -- "From Power 99, Atlanta to Randy Reeves: Voice At Large"
by Jerry Vigil
Making the break from radio station Production Director to owner of your own studio and successful production business is a dream held by many, but realized by few. Randy Reeves, former Production Director for Power 99 in Atlanta, is one of the few who has realized the dream. After years of planning and preparation, Randy left Power 99 this past July to devote 100% of his time to "Randy Reeves: Voice At Large", his already very healthy production/voice-over business with a client list of nearly 70 stations.
In this month's interview, we talk with Randy about production at Power 99, what it took to make the break from the station, and we get some tips for those of you hoping to do the same some day.
R.A.P. Give us a brief rundown of your background in radio.
Randy: It was 22 years ago this fall, in '67, when I started in this business. I was in Smalltown, USA, about an hour and a half from Atlanta, jocking on a local station after school. Then I went to the University of Georgia in Athens where I worked at a couple of local stations. I became PD at one of the stations then realized I had nobody there to learn from, so I left school and went to RVQ in Richmond. I stayed there for a year and came back to Athens to finish school. I finally did that, then from 1978 to 1986, I did middays at Z-93 here in Atlanta. I had always been into production, but it was probably during the last couple of years at the Z that I started getting itchy to give up the air work. I didn't want to leave Atlanta, so I waited for a Production Director's position to open up in Atlanta. In '86, the opportunity came at Power 99 right as they were changing formats from WARM-100 to the present CHR format. For 3 years, up until July of this year, I was Production Director at Power 99.
R.A.P. How was the Production Department set up at Power 99?
Randy: Well, in my early days there, we had just switched from an AC format to CHR. As a result, we lost all of our client base within a few months, and we had no numbers at all. There were a heck of a lot of spec spots and a lot of scripts to produce. That was a good training ground for me and my first opportunity to work with multi-track. We had 8-tracks in the studio. It was a great learning experience for me, and it opened up a whole new world, as far as realizing what was capable with a multi-track studio. Eventually, we got the numbers, and we started getting more dubs and national spots.
R.A.P. Were you doing the copywriting for all these spots?
Randy: No. I never really fell into that niche very much. I can rearrange facts on a fact sheet, but, as far as creative dialogue spots, I never really got into that. Throughout my time there, we had several different "stringer" copywriters that would fax things to us, or we'd have interns who were pretty creative with copy. Some of the salespeople would even write their own copy. We didn't have an in-house copywriter to speak of.
R.A.P. Did you have any help with production, or did you do it all?
Randy: All the jocks would pull some production. I never was the Production Director that sat in there and had the voices step up to a mike and read while I produced all day. We had such a load there for a while that both studios were occupied all day. I'd be in the 8-track studio doing most of the involved and fancier things, such as the promos, and I'd assign other production to the jocks to do in the other studio.
R.A.P. How long had you planned on leaving a station and setting up your own business?
Randy: It had been in the back of my mind for 10 years. It wasn't anything that I didn't give a lot of thought to. I was working on getting a client base of freelance stuff so I would be able to make that break. I finally felt like that was happening, so I decided to go for it.
I remember, in a small business class at UGA, doing a project on what's probably every production guy's dream--the studio in the bedroom thing. That was back in '76 or '77. I remember thinking, "Well, I'm just gonna hit Atlanta, I'll have a studio, and BAM! Everybody will be calling me." Obviously, you can't get discouraged when the grim reality sets in. You realize you're the new kid on the block and that there are a lot of seasoned pros in a major market; so you just have to take your time, perfect your skills, and wait 'til the timing is right.
R.A.P. You had your own studio at home several years ago. How did you put that together?
Randy: I started doing sweepers for some stations right before I went to Z-93. When I came to Z, there was no problem with management to use the facility, but there was a problem with the hours. I had to either hurry up and do the station's production then do my sweepers, or come in early in the morning before the room got busy. That got to be more and more con-fining, and there was always a slight guilt feeling involved when the other jocks saw me doing my own stuff; so I soon decided that my own studio needed to become a reality. It's the only way to go, as far as being flexible and being able to work when you want to.
So I put together a studio at home with a Yamaha 12 channel board. I use the Sennheiser 441 mike, a couple of 2-tracks, one of which is the Otari 5050, in addition to a 4-track reel-to-reel. I have a DBX 166 compressor/limiter and noise gate, the SPX-90 II, an EXR exciter, along with some other accessories--CD player, de-esser, digital delays, and so on. I have a Roland keyboard that I use to get a lot of effects from, as well as to trigger effects in the SPX-90 II.
R.A.P. Anybody that is going to build a studio at home has one major consideration, and that is the money. How did you put the studio together in this respect?
Randy: I knew I couldn't equip the studio like I would equip a radio station's studio, but I also knew that it had to be on par with the sound quality of the station's studio, or I would be saying, "These sweepers are for a special station, so I need to go to the radio station to cut these." I had to have enough at home so I would feel good about it. I shopped around for a long time and then went out and bought the basics all at once. I had a $10,000 line of credit with a bank and just used that at first. Then I started adding all the toys.
R.A.P. How much, in dollars, would you say you have in the studio right now?
Randy: Initially, I was in business for about $15,000, but if I went out today and bought everything I have, it would probably cost about $30,000.
R.A.P. Do you have a bit of advice to anyone getting ready to build their own studio at home?
Randy: If you can, find somebody locally to buy your equipment from. They can give you a heck of a lot of advice, plus it's easy to get things on a trial basis. For instance, I'm going to upgrade and buy another microphone, and I wouldn't think of buying a mike unless I could work with it for about a week. A lot of these national catalogue places can beat a local distributor on price maybe, but I've found that sometimes the personal attention from a guy that knows you and what you have at home is worth more.
R.A.P. When did you realize it was time to cut the strings with Power 99?
Randy: It was about a year ago. The business really started picking up, and the scenario was that I would work in the studio at home in the mornings, starting around 6:30 or 7:00 o'clock, then I would go into work. It got to the point where I was going in later and later, and I was beginning to get stressed out. So I talked to the GM and he said, "Don't sweat it. If you need to come in at 10 or 11, do it." So I thought, "OK, why give up the salary now? I'll just keep it up like this until I can't handle it any longer." About a couple of month's before I left, I was even busier. I went to the GM and said, "What would you think about me taking a cut in pay and taking a day off a week?" He didn't really go for that. He reiterated and said, "Don't worry about when you come in. I know you're going to get the job done, so don't sweat it." So, I started coming in anywhere from 10:30 to 12:30, and I wouldn't get out of there until 8:00 or later that evening. That made for a pretty long day. The GM came in about a month after our previous talk and asked how things were going since our talk. I said, "Well, it's going pretty good, but I think I'm just going to go ahead and hang it up." The GM said, "I sort of thought you would say that. I've thought about what I would do in the same position, and I'd do the same thing." That made me feel pretty good and made me feel I was doing the right thing. He asked for some time, so I gave him six weeks notice. That's how it came down.
R.A.P. We invariably, in our interviews, get on the subject of sampling and stuttering the voice. What are your feelings on this effect?
Randy: I don't use the stutter effect to any great extent. I just use it more as an accent rather than the focal point of a sweeper. I thought, when it started, that the stutter was going to be an even shorter fad. I thought, "Boy we're gonna get sick of this real quick!" I've come to think of it as a "technique" because it's still heavily in the music. I think the heavy use of the effect is headed out, but I believe it is still a current "high tech" kind of sound if you don't abuse it.
R.A.P. How did the sweeper business get started? Did you actively pursue it in the beginning with a mailout and demo tapes?
Randy: No. The first station I did sweepers for was in Birmingham. I did those simply because I knew some people over there. Back then, if I did something for a station, I would charge them minimal dollars and ask them to mention me to somebody if they had a chance. I remember getting a mention in a tipsheet like the Friday Morning Quarterback from someone saying, "real happy with the promo and sweeper work done by this guy. Give him a call." Back then it was all word of mouth, and it was all mostly confined to the southeast. A lot of it would be through the grapevine, or a guy traveling to a market and hearing the sweepers, asking who did them, and so on and so forth.
R.A.P. Have you ever advertised your services?
Randy: The only advertising I've done was a mailout about a year ago. It was a 4 page flyer that really worked great. It seems that if you put a piece of paper out there with something on it, it legitimizes the whole business. I had a number to call for the demo, and I had an answering machine on a dedicated business line at home. While I was at work at Power, it would say, "If you'd like a demo, leave your name and address." Of the 160 flyers I sent out, I probably got about a 20% request for demos. I think the mailing list I used was from the parallel one stations, maybe the parallel ones and twos. The responses came from several different market sizes. It was definitely a big help.
I felt the response to the mailout was good, and it almost had a chain reaction effect. I had people calling me that I'd never heard of saying, "So and so told me about you..." and on and on. I've also received a lot of business from consultants. One or two consultants will contact a lot of stations and recommend me. Chances are, without the extra nudge from the mailout, I would still be in that "comfort zone" at the station.
R.A.P. Your voice is very versatile and heard on a variety of formats. Did you start out trying to appeal to many formats or was this something that developed down the road?
Randy: Initially, all I thought of was CHR, and anything else that came along was gravy. A country station would come along, and all I would do is just get slightly folksy, not country at all, but just take the edge off the CHR delivery. Eventually, I got an AOR station and just "growled" a little more. On the AC's, I just warmed up a little. After getting work for a few different formats, I realized that by just slightly changing the delivery, the mood of the effects, and even the production itself, you can change the whole nature of the sweeper. Lately, I've been doing a lot of the "bright" AC's.
R.A.P. Synthesizer effects are used a lot in your sweepers, and you create some of those with your keyboard. Do you use any other service that provides you with these sounds?
Randy: Most of what I have comes from local keyboard players at MIDI studios that I contract, but I would always welcome hearing from people that know other sources. I would like to see a guy, who is sharp with keyboards, develop one package and sell it to one sweeper guy. Maybe he could have some generic sounds like white noise and filter sweeps that he could sell to anybody and then create some custom sounds for each sweeper guy. There's definitely a need for something like this.
R.A.P. You have a great voice for spots as well as ID's. Are you working with any ad agencies or talent agencies in Atlanta?
Randy: Yes, I am signed with a local talent agency. I've done some commercial voice work with the ad agencies, but I'd like to get into more of it. I've done some work for Cotton States Insurance and some national TV voice work for Texize Glass Plus. I hope to do more commercial work now that I've got more time.
I did a little thing before I left Power 99 that I think will help my relationship with this agency and hopefully get me more of the commercial voice work. It was a mailout to the agency announcing that I was now out of radio, which I think has somewhat of a negative connotation to ad agencies. I listed all the advantages of not working a full time job, like flexibility, more time to go on auditions, more time to do this and that and so on. Then I said that the downside of the whole deal was no more free T-shirts, which I think minimized the negatives of my move. During this big campaign with this talent agency, I sent everybody in the agency a different greeting card every day with some sort of teaser message inside saying, "It's coming July 21st," etc., and I didn't give them my name. Each day, for a week, each of the 3 main booking agents in this agency received a card from me. By the time Friday the 21st came along, the day I finally left my job, they at least knew that some announcement was about to be made. On that Friday, I enclosed a letter that told them I was going free lance full time. I think that put in their mind that I was serious, or maybe that I was crazy for quitting the job.
R.A.P. How did they respond after they figured out who was doing this?
Randy: I got a message on my machine when I got home, and they said, "We were wondering what this was. We're so excited for you! That's great...We look forward to talking with you..." Now, they're going to do a mailout of some demos to try and get some more local business going.
R.A.P. Now that you're not locked into the station, do you have any immediate plans
for your extra time?
Randy: Yes. I plan to be at the NAB Convention in New Orleans in September. I'm looking forward to meeting some people, making some contacts, and hopefully meeting some of the people that I've already done work for. Nearly 100% of the people I work for, I've never met. It has all been a telephone relationship, and I'm looking to put a lot of faces with the names.
Once again, radio loses a great Production Director; and, once again, it is proved that there is life after Production Director. It sounds like Randy is off to a good start, and we'd like to wish the best of luck and prosperity to Randy Reeves: Voice At Large! We have included a sampling of some of Randy's work on this month's Cassette. Randy can be contacted at (404) 925-8868.
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