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Live from 1914

In late June, Kurt Andersen’s pop culture & arts radio show Studio 360 broadcast an entire show as if it were produced in 1914, crackly static and old-timey radio voice and all.

This week, Studio 360 is broadcasting from 1914, covering the cultural happenings of a remarkable year. Charlie Chaplin debuted the Tramp, the character who defines the silent film era, in that year; one of America’s great newspaper cartoonists invented the first animated character, Gertie the dinosaur; and George Bernard Shaw opened a front in the war between the sexes with Pygmalion.

From HowSound, here’s a behind-the-scenes on how they made Andersen sound like a 1910s radio man.

On this edition of HowSound, the staff at Studio 360 walks us through the metamorphosis of Kurt’s voice. Senior Broadcast Engineer John DeLore dissects the production process including the use a cone from an Edison Standard Phonograph. David talks about writing in the diction of 1914. And, Kurt describes narrating in a stilted and formal voice.