Rick Bidlack

For those involved in radio production, the introduction of the VoxPro makes every day like Christmas. The digital audio editing system is the hottest new toy in the production room, enabling users to record, edit and air audio clips almost instantly - and it can be done easily and quickly. System Engineer Rick Bidlack has been integral in developing and improving VoxPro to keep it ahead of the cutting edge. Here's how he does it:

What were you doing before VoxPro?

I've spent most of my professional life writing audio and music software. Right before VoxPro, I was working with two companies involved in audio fingerprinting and watermarking. Different record companies were trying to track where their product was going, especially when it came to leaks of pre-releases. That was at the tail end of the dotcom explosion and consequent implosion.

Had you worked in radio before?

When I joined Audion Labs, I knew nothing about radio, so they flew me to L.A. to meet Brian Clark, who was well known as Rick Dees' engineer - later he worked for Ryan Seacrest and now he's with Disney. He became my tour guide around the radio stations of L.A.; he took me into the studios to watch jocks do their show. It was an epiphany for me; I saw radio as a performance art.

From the beginning, our most important advisor/tester/guardian angel was Tom McGinley of CBS Radio/Seattle. He was one of the first early adopters of VoxPro and he has continued to give us advice over the years. He's retired now, but can't seem to get out of radio. I still see him occasionally and always look forward to his insights.

Once the new VoxPro Windows version was released, what kind of feedback did you get to continue to tweak the software?

We started to get feedback from a lot of jocks and PDs and engineers, but it wasn't about tweaking the initial tool. They started to depend on VoxPro and wanted it to do more -- all kinds of things. So we tried to accommodate. Most of the features in VoxPro today were initially suggested by users. In fact, my policy was that if a user made a suggestion, then they had to beta-test the new feature in the next software revision. But the one principle behind all the feedback we got was that it had to be easy and intuitive to use. Jocks tend to be more performance-oriented than tech-minded. They want to focus on production without the distraction of a lot of buttons and gewgaws.

Do you feel pressure to satisfy their demands quickly?

No, I'm easily persuadable, so when people ask for things, I'll give it a moment to think it through, and if I think it can be done, I tell them we can do it. The hard part is telling someone we can't do what they want. Fortunately not many requests have been that way.

Actually, the hardest part is trying to figure out how to make what they want easy to use. When someone gives me an idea about something, I have to figure out how to not only implement that, but also how to make it obvious and intuitive to the user. Often the design of the user interface is the hardest part of the job, harder than the implementation under the hood.

Is VoxPro used differently in podcasts?

I would say that the usage scenarios are similar but not identical. A lot of podcasts are more highly produced than radio bits, so you'll hear a lot of podcasts that are obviously produced with a multi-track piece of software, which VoxPro doesn't try to be. It's not a true multi-track editor. On the other hand, a lot of radio stations are getting into podcasting because they can take their VoxPro content and shoot it up to their podcast site pretty easily.

Have you ever thought of doing offshoot software that has something not available in VoxPro?

We do have the occasional discussion within Wheatstone about doing a lite version, but there hasn't been a compelling reason to do so. I've actually been working on completely unrelated things in the past year, between small tweaks to VoxPro.

When a radio programmer/production head asks you to tweak VoxPro and you can do it, is that tweak proprietary only to that station, or do you pass along that tweak to others?

No, there are no proprietary versions of VoxPro - any feature that makes it into VoxPro is available to all users from the moment that new feature is released.

Has there been any impact from VoxPro's acquisition by its new owner, Wheatstone?

It has been a wonderful relationship, I've been very happy with it. When VoxPro was part of Audion, it was basically me alone, doing all of the development and tech support. Now I have a team of people behind me; I have other engineers talk to. I'm still doing all the work on VoxPro, but now there's technical support and logistics support that I didn't have before.

You're taking VoxPro on the road, making appearances at the NAB and the 2018 Worldwide Radio Summit. What will you be showcasing there?

I do not believe I will be attending the Summit myself, though I will be at the NAB. I usually just sit in my office and write code; I usually don't go out and evangelize VoxPro. We'll be showing a major overhaul of the Hotkeys at this upcoming NAB and Summit.

Which are....

Hotkeys are basically what we used to call a cart machine in the analog days, when you had a short piece of tape in a cartridge - be it sound effects, a piece of music or a commercial. The jocks would hit the play button and it would play through - often at the same time they're giving a spiel live. Now, hotkeys do basically the same thing, only you can have many more of them at the same time, and they can be used in all kinds of different ways. It's easy to change, edit or even delete portions of the audio in a hotkey. Hotkeys can create the sonic landscape of a show. A lot of jocks like to use them in real time, to add sound effects or a music bed as they cut to an interview or a pre-recorded voice track. Hotkeys can become a regular part of the show.

How many hotkeys can you use at one time?

There's no real limit. You're only limited by the amount of real estate on your computer screen. And you can double the screen real estate by attaching a second monitor. When you're using two monitors, you're talking about hundreds of hotkeys. That just means they are immediately available - usually you're only playing one or two at any given time.

Do you have a long-term strategy for VoxPro ... or are you more focused on being "in the weeds" in you continuous efforts to improve the product?

I'd say it's more of a balance between the two. In the early days I was mostly reactive, responding to reports coming in from the field, releasing frequent updates. Now our current version, VoxPro 7, is a pretty mature product, and most of the issues that nagged me in the past have been addressed. We've already integrated Wheatstone's WheatNet protocol into VoxPro, and we're looking at other areas in the company's product line where VoxPro technology could make a contribution. But at the same time, there's always things to fix in the code, and users never stop coming up with fantastic new ideas for the product, so yes, that does keep me in the weeds.