Submission Guidelines
We categorise our submissions into two bands. Independent and Professional. For every 5 professional tracks we play, 3 independent tracks go out on air. Therefore if you would like to maximise your airtime, we recommend recording to our professional requirements. We have provided some tips below to help maximise your chances of being accepted. Please also take careful not to our requirements below. Your track will not be accepted if they do not meet these requirements.
Submission tips:
1. Record with an external microphone. Even if you have the best phone, we strongly recommend picking up a cheap lapel mic to attach to your t-shirt which can be found on amazon for almost all phone types. It does make a difference!
2. Remember to introduce your poem before you read. Start with the title of your piece, then you can credit yourself too if you wish.
3. Perform. When we say perform, we don't expect an award winning reading (so no pressure there!), but the more drawn to the reading we are, the likelier we are to select it for our listeners.
7. Consider the time of day, and location of your poem. If there is background noise, that ISN'T related to the poem then it is unlikely your poem will be selected. For example, if your poem is about love and your washing machine is running in the background, that is not ideal. If however, your poem is on spring or summer and you have birdsong, so long as it is not overbearing it may elevate your recording! Explore within reason is all we are saying!
8. Remain active in our community. We keep very keen eyes across our social medias, and especially our forum. We put a huge importance on promoting and nurturing our active members and so if we see a familiar face, recognised for being a valuable member of our community, you're almost guaranteed to be accepted!
Thank you for your time and we are so looking forward to hearing from you!
independent requirements
-
Exported in mp3 format.
-
Include the poem and the poet's name in the file name.
-
Leave 3 seconds of silence at the start of the track, and 3 seconds at the end.
-
No distracting background noises. Please clean up and reduce any noise before submitting, unless it is part of the poem. We recommend the free software Audacity to achieve this.
-
Leave out backing music. Copyrighted music cannot be played over our radio. There may come a time where we have a system in place that will allow us to accompany your tracks to music, for now though we are only accepting unaccompanied submissions. All tracks played on the Cove radio is of our own copyrighted material, and is made available to the public, and this MUST be the same for any submissions we receive.
Professional REQUIREMENTS
-
Use a studio condenser microphone.
-
Each file must measure between -23dB and -18dB RMS.
-
Each file must have peak values no higher than -3dB.
-
Each file must have a noise floor no higher than -60dB RMS.
-
Each file must be 192kbps or higher 44.1kHz MP3, Constant Bit Rate (CBR).
-
Exported in mp3 format.
-
Include the poem and the poet's name in the file name.
-
Leave 3 seconds of silence at the start of the track, and 3 seconds at the end.
-
No distracting background noises. Please clean up and reduce any noise before submitting, unless it is part of the poem. We recommend the free software Audacity to achieve this.
-
Leave out backing music. Copyrighted music cannot be played over our radio. There may come a time where we have a system in place that will allow us to accompany your tracks to music, for now though we are only accepting unaccompanied submissions. All tracks played on the Cove radio is of our own copyrighted material, and is made available to the public, and this MUST be the same for any submissions we receive.
These are similar requirements to Audible's. There are numerous YouTube tutorials to achieve this, and we recommend using the free Audacity editing software.