Running a small radio station means wearing every hat in the building. You're the program director, the board op, the news department, the sales team — and somehow you're also expected to fill the air with a variety of polished, professional-sounding voices around the clock. That's a lot to ask of one or two people.
AirStaff Studio was built specifically for stations like yours. It gives you a full roster of experienced-sounding air Staffers who can voice your local reports, updates, and features — automatically, without you touching a button. Think of it as quietly adding several talented part-timers to your staff roster: voices that are always ready, never call in sick, and generate a fresh recording the moment your copy changes.
Each report your station airs gets its own Report Card. A Report Card is a simple setup panel where you tell AirStaff Studio three things: the name of the report, where the script lives, and where to save the finished audio. Pick a Staffer, and you're done. AirStaff Studio watches that script file from that point on, and every time it changes, a fresh voiced recording is automatically generated and dropped exactly where your automation system expects to find it.
AirStaff Studio includes a built-in set of ready-to-use Staffers — but it can also use the real voices of people at your station. A morning show host, a news anchor, even a well-known local personality. If you can get them to record a short audio sample, their voice can be added to your roster and used to voice any report. More on this in Adding a Local Voice to Your Roster.
AirStaff Studio watches your script files. When a script file changes — whether it was updated by someone at the station, another TuneTracker resource, your newsroom software, or anything else that writes text files — AirStaff Studio detects the change. It waits a few minutes for the copy to settle, then voices the script using the voice of the Staffer assigned to that Report Card, and saves the audio file to your specified output location. Your automation system picks it up and airs it. Your listeners hear a fresh, naturally voiced report every time.
You don't record anything manually. You don't babysit the process. The report just gets done.
Everything in AirStaff Studio is organized around Report Cards. Each card represents one voiced report your station airs — a news update, a traffic report, a community calendar, a sports recap, whatever you need. You can have as many cards as your station requires, and each one operates independently.
The main window shows your full stack of Report Cards, scrollable from top to bottom. The pinned Local Weather card is permanent and always sits at the top. Below it, your cards appear in the order you created them.
Click the + button on any existing card to add a new Report Card directly beneath it. The new card slides appears, and the Staff Roster opens automatically so you can assign a Staffer right away — though you can skip that step and come back to it later.
A freshly created card starts in Configuring state. It won't generate any audio until it has the three required pieces of information it needs to go to work.
Each Report Card has a handful of fields. Three of them are required — AirStaff Studio won't activate the card until all three are filled in. The rest are optional.
| Field | What It Is |
|---|---|
| Report Name Required | A short name for this report — "Morning News," "Traffic Update," "Sports Wrap," whatever makes sense to you. This is just a label; it appears on the card and in the status bar while the report is being generated. Make it descriptive. |
| Script File Required | The path to the text file that contains the copy for this report. AirStaff Studio watches this file for changes. Whenever the file is updated, a fresh recording is automatically queued. Click Browse… to navigate to the file rather than typing the path by hand. |
| Output File Required | This is where the finished audio gets saved — the path and filename of the .wav file that AirStaff Studio will write when the report is generated. This is the file your automation system plays. Click Save To… to set the destination. Point it directly to the location your automation cart system expects. |
| Assigned Staffer Required | The voice that will read this report. Click the Staffer's photo area on the card — or right-click it to choose a different Staffer at any time. See The Staff Roster for details on previewing and choosing Staffers. |
| Music Bed Optional | Sometimes, an audio file adds a lot to things like weather, community calendar announcements, lost pet reports, etc. You can choose an audio file to play underneath the voiced report — a music bed or production element. Click Browse… next to the music bed field to select a file. If you don't want a music bed, leave this blank. You can clear a previously set bed with the ✕ button. |
Give your reports clear, specific names. "Morning News Update" is a lot more useful in the status bar at 3am than "Report 4."
You don't have to dig through folders to update a script that's been assigned to a Report Card. Just right-click the Script to Use text box and choose Edit Script. After you've finished editing, save the file, close the editor, and walk away — AirStaff Studio will generate a fresh recording using the new script after a brief grace period.
Every Report Card is always in one of four states. The state tells you at a glance whether a card is working, waiting, or needs your attention.
| State | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Configuring | A beige-colored card is missing one or more of the required fields — Report Name, Script File, Output File, or assigned Staffer. It's not watching anything yet and won't generate audio until it's complete. Fill in the missing fields and the card will activate automatically. |
| Active | A blue-colored card. All required fields are filled in. The card is watching its script file and will generate audio automatically whenever the file changes. This is the normal, healthy state for a working report. |
| Disabled | The card has been manually disabled, and has a gray background. It's not watching its script file and won't generate anything. Use this when a report is on hiatus — a seasonal feature, a show that's on break, anything you want to pause without deleting the card entirely. Re-enable it from the menu at the bottom of the card when you're ready to use it. |
| Weather | The green weather card. This is the special, permanent state of the Local Weather card. It behaves like the other Active cards, but updates on its own timer rather than just watching for file changes. Even if the written forecast it references hasn't been altered, the weather card updates every single hour to keep the forecast sounding fresh. The weather card can also be temporarily disabled if needed. |
When a card is Active, it also shows a generation status indicator that tells you what's happening right now with that report:
You can click Generate Now on any active card to force an immediate fresh recording, bypassing the normal wait period. This is handy when you've just updated a script and would like to bypass the five minute courtesy time after saving a file, before recording begins.
If a report is in the middle of generating and you need to stop it, use the Cancel button on the card or click its red dot. The most recently completed recording — if one exists — will remain intact. AirStaff Studio never deletes a finished recording until it successfully completes a new one.
Click the − button on a card to remove it. AirStaff Studio will ask you to confirm before deleting — removing a card stops it from monitoring its script file, but it does not delete your script or your audio file. Only the card itself is removed.
If you had made any changes to the style of the staffer's voice, such as its enthusiasm or speed, you'll be asked if you'd like those changes applied generally to that staffer for future cards and recordings, before deleting the card.
If you want to take a report off the air temporarily without losing its settings, use Disable rather than removing the card entirely. You can re-enable it at any time.
The Staff Roster is your lineup of available voices. It slides up from the bottom of the window whenever you need to assign or change a Staffer on a card. You'll see your full roster displayed as a row of portraits — each one showing a photo (or initials if no photo is available) and the Staffer's name underneath.
Before you assign anyone to a report, you can audition them. Each Staffer card in the roster has a small play button in the lower-right corner. Click it to hear a sample of that Staffer's voice. Click it again to stop playback. Take your time — matching the right voice to the right report makes a real difference in how your station sounds. A warm, conversational read works beautifully for a community calendar; a crisper, more authoritative voice might suit a news update better.
When the roster is open and you're assigning a voice to a Report Card, the card that's waiting for an assignment is highlighted above. Simply click a Staffer's portrait to select them. A green checkmark appears in the corner of their photo confirming the selection, and the roster slides closed a moment later. The Staffer's photo now appears on the Report Card.
If you open the roster for a card that already has a Staffer assigned, that Staffer's portrait will show the green checkmark when the roster opens, so you can see who's currently assigned at a glance.
You can change a Report Card's Staffer at any time — even after the card is Active and generating reports — by right-clicking the Staffer's photo directly on the card and picking "Choose another staffer." The roster opens immediately with the current Staffer highlighted. Pick someone new and the change takes effect with the next generation.
If you open the roster and decide not to make a change, press Escape or click the dismiss button to close it without making any changes. The current Staffer assignment, if any, remains untouched.
This is one of AirStaff Studio's most powerful features, and it's worth taking a moment to appreciate what it means for a small station. Your morning host has been on the air for fifteen years. Your news anchor has a voice your community recognizes and trusts. With AirStaff Studio, those voices don't have to be limited to the hours those people are actually in the building. A 30-second audio sample is all it takes to add them to your roster permanently.
Always get someone's permission before adding their voice to AirStaff Studio. Their voice is their instrument — using it without consent isn't just poor form, it can seriously damage a working relationship. A quick conversation up front avoids any misunderstanding.
To add a local voice, you need two things:
A photo is optional but recommended. The roster is easier to navigate when you can see faces rather than just initials.
The quality of the sample has a direct effect on how well AirStaff Studio can replicate the voice. A few minutes of care here pays dividends in every report that Staffer ever voices.
A few minutes now saves a lot of stress at 3am. A good sample means confident, consistent voice reproduction every time that Staffer cuts a report.
With your sample file ready, open the Staff Roster (click the Staffer area on any card, or use Generate Now to open the roster panel). In the lower-left corner of the roster, you'll see a New Staffer button. Click it to open the Add Air Staffer panel.
The Add Air Staffer panel has a simple two-sided layout. On the left is the Staffer's portrait area — their photo and name. On the right is where you provide the sample and confirm the addition.
| Field | What to Do |
|---|---|
| Name | Type the Staffer's name in the name field at the bottom of the portrait area. This is the name that will appear in the roster. Use their on-air name — the one your staff will recognize. |
| Photo Optional | Click Browse Photo… to select a portrait image (.jpg or .png). A headshot works best — something that's recognizable at the small size used in the roster. If you skip this, the Staffer's initials will appear in the roster instead, which works fine. |
| Audio Sample | Click Browse… next to the audio sample field and navigate to the voice sample file you recorded. The filename will appear in the field once selected. This is the required piece — the Add button won't activate until both a name and a sample are provided. |
Once you've entered a name and selected a sample, the Add button becomes available. Click it (or press Return) to add the Staffer. The panel closes, the roster reloads, and your new Staffer appears in the lineup, ready to be assigned to any Report Card.
Your new Staffer will appear at the beginning of the roster, making them easy to find right away.
To remove a Staffer from your roster, right-click their portrait in the roster panel and choose Remove. You'll be asked to confirm. Removing a Staffer permanently deletes their entry from the roster — their name, photo, and sample file are all removed, though the original media you used will all be wherever you stored them. A roster entry's removal cannot be undone, but you can always create a new roster entry for them at a later time if you like.
If a removed Staffer was assigned to one or more Report Cards, those cards will return to Configuring state and stop generating audio until a new Staffer is assigned. Check your cards after removing a Staffer from the roster.
The Local Weather card is a permanent, always-present card pinned to the top of your stack. Unlike your other Report Cards, you don't set it up from scratch — it's pre-configured to work with AutoCast radio automation's weather system, which keeps a current National Weather Service forecast on your station's server at all times.
The weather card doesn't just read raw forecast text. AirStaff Studio includes a built-in weather writing engine that takes the structured NWS forecast data and composes it into natural, broadcast-ready copy — the kind of weather read your listeners are used to hearing on the radio, not a recitation of a government weather bulletin. It handles today, tonight, tomorrow, and an extended outlook, and it varies its phrasing so the forecast doesn't sound the same every hour.
Your automation system just needs to know to play the weather file on whatever schedule you air forecasts. AirStaff Studio handles the content.
All weather settings are in AirStaff Studio Settings (the gear icon or Settings menu). See Settings for a full walkthrough of each option.
The weather card can be temporarily disabled from its card menu — useful during a severe weather situation when you're handling forecasts manually, or when you're doing maintenance. Re-enabling it triggers an immediate fresh forecast generation and restarts the refresh timer.
The weather card is automatically queued to update the recorded forecast any time AirStaff Studio has been closed and is re-opened, so don't be surprised to see Tara's status dot turn violet (queued) and then red (recording) shortly after launching the app.
The engine that turns written text into recorded reports does a remarkable job of making things sound natural and spontaneous, and it can be made even better by using good punctuation in your written copy. We have created and maintain a Style Guide with suggestions on how you can cause speech to sound more natural.
Open Settings from the AirStaff Studio menu or the gear icon. Settings covers weather configuration and a couple of generation timing options that affect how AirStaff Studio responds to script changes.
Open Settings from the AirStaff Studio menu or the gear icon. Settings covers weather configuration and a couple of generation timing options that affect how AirStaff Studio responds to script changes.
| Setting | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Forecast Length | Controls how long the voiced weather forecast will run: 10s, 20s, 30s, or 40s. The built-in weather writing engine targets the selected length, adding or trimming content accordingly. 20 seconds is a good all-purpose length. 10 seconds gives you a tight headline-style read. 30 and 40 seconds include at least some extended outlook detail. |
| Intro (optional) | Text that will be spoken before the forecast — for example, Let's check the weather." Leave blank if you don't want an intro. Whatever you type here will be prepended to every voiced weather report. |
| Outro (optional) | Text spoken after the forecast — for example, And that's the bay area forecast, from WXYZ. Leave blank if you don't want an outro. Appended to the end of every voiced weather report. |
| Region Name | The name of your coverage area — for example, the Green Bay area or Northeast Alabama. The weather writing engine weaves this into the forecast naturally when it fits: Here's a look at what's ahead here in the Green Bay area. Leave it blank if you'd prefer region-neutral copy. |
| Weather Refresh | How often AirStaff Studio re-voices the forecast even if the source data hasn't changed: 30m, 60m, 90m, or 120m. This keeps the on-air forecast sounding fresh throughout the day by varying the phrasing. 60 minutes is a reasonable default for most stations. |
| Style Tab | Under the Style tab, there are two adjustments that are very useful in fine-tuning the style of your staffers' voices. We recommend you curb the enthusiasm setting back to about 40% and increase the speed to 70%, which reduces the amount of "uptalk" while keeping the delivery brisk and professional. The settings made here impact all of the staffer voices, but you can also customize any of them individually by right-clicking the image on their card and selecting the "Adjust style" option, |
| Setting | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Generation Wait | How many minutes AirStaff Studio waits after detecting a script change before it starts generating audio. The default is 5 minutes. This "settle time" exists so that if a script is being updated in multiple passes — a common newsroom workflow — AirStaff Studio waits until the writing is done before generating rather than firing on every partial save. If your workflow updates scripts in a single write, you can reduce this. If your copy desk tends to revise heavily over a longer period, increase it. |
| Station Folder | The path to your radio station folder. This is set automatically when you install the TuneTracker System and normally never needs to change. It tells AirStaff Studio where to find the weather forecast data and where to save system files. Only change this if your station folder has moved or you're running a non-standard installation. |
Changes to Settings take effect immediately — you don't need to restart AirStaff Studio. The weather refresh timer restarts with the new interval the moment you click Save.
AirStaff Studio generates one report at a time. If multiple scripts change around the same time, the reports line up like planes on a runway ramp, queued to record in the order they were added. You'll see the violet Queued dot indicator on cards that are waiting their turn. This is normal — the queue clears in no more or less time than it takes to generate the reports, and for most stations the queue rarely has more than one or two items in it at a time.
The time it takes for a report to be recorded depends on how long the script is, and the speed of your particular computer. A desktop Mac will generate quicker than a laptop because better cooling doesn't necessitate the throttling back of the processor. An M3 will process faster than an M2, An M2 faster than an M1, an M1 faster than an Intel. In general, consider it normal for processing to take 2-4 times as long as the target recording will be.
AirStaff Studio never overwrites a finished recording until a new one has been successfully completed. If a generation fails for any reason, the previous recording remains in place and continues to air. You'll see an alert if something goes wrong, with enough detail to understand what happened.
Removing a Report Card is permanent — the card and all its settings are gone. Disabling a card just pauses it. Use Disable generously: for seasonal features, holiday programming, reports tied to a show that's on hiatus. It's a bit quicker to re-enable a disabled card than to create a new one.
You can reassign a Staffer on any Report Card at any time — the card doesn't need to be disabled first. Right-click the Staffer's photo on the card, choose a new voice from the roster, and the change takes effect with the next generation. The current audio file, voiced by the previous Staffer, stays in place until the new one is ready.
Different Staffers suit different reports. A conversational, warm voice works well for a community calendar or a soft feature. A more authoritative read fits a news update. Take a few minutes to preview your Staffers and think about which voice fits which report — your listeners will notice the difference even if they can't articulate why.