This (and many of the other in the A State of Trance series) were originally broadcasts that are now available as split track on streaming services. Almost all of the episodes have a prerecorded intro (kind of like a stylized “welcome to the show” audio clip).
My question is, what should be the artist for this? Is it valid to say that it’s [no artist] because it’s not actually music or should it retain the default artist for the album (which is Armin van Buuren)?
Armin van Buuren is the radio host? Is he the one speaking during the intro/outro? If so, using Armin van Buuren for the track artist seems perfect to me.
If you know who the speakers are, I suggest using them for the track artist. If that’s too troublesome for whatever reason, we have the [dialogue] SPA.
Thanks! One caveat (that I wasn’t clear about) is that the intro is voiced by someone else under a bunch of effects. So I’m sure it was produced by Armin (although I don’t know for sure). But I guess keeping with Armin as the artist makes the most sense.
Another related question: would all of the intros be the same “recording” even if they have slightly different times (depending on where it was cut) and might have the tail containing the first few words from Armin himself? Or should every intro be a different recording because it’s very similar but technically a different recording event?
if they’re exactly the same save for an early fade-in/fade-out (or maybe a few seconds trimmed), they would be the same recording. if there’s any difference, like added sound effects, different mixing, etc. then they’d need to be separate recordings. note that we don’t split recordings for mastering differences.