Clear Waves

Frequently Asked Questions

Clear Waves was a radio show invented and executed by Sonny Oram in 2003 and 2004. He did all the writing, voices, music, and sound effects.

Q: How do you do B.V.'s voice?
A: It evolved over many years. You may notice that his voice didn't have such a unique quality in shows I made a long time ago.
Q: Where do you get the music?
A: I write all of it on a program on my computer. The theme song, as you can probably tell, isn't being played by real people. According to the program, the instruments are supposedly a piccolo, flute, and Marimba. I hear no resemblance.
Q: How much time does it take to create one episode?
A: About an hour. Most of the time is spent writing the episode. Usually I just let the dialogue flow, because if I work too long on it, it sounds too forced. I spend some time planning out the interviewed person's voice to make sure its distinguishable enough from mine. Then it probably needs only two takes to get it right.
Q: Why do you do all the voices?
A: I love having control over everything. It would be a completely different art form if I were talking back and forth with someone else. The humor would probably become less about timing, and more about real content. It would also take more acting skills because working with a partner means that you have to adjust and go along with what they're doing, which I'm not very good at.
Q: How do you have many voices talking at once?
A: I have a rather primitive recording system. I record my voice in the tape recorder, and then put that tape in a tape player and play that while recording my voice again on another tape in the recorder. Then I put that tape in the tape player and the other tape in the tape recorder and keep repeating the process, allowing multiple voices at once.