EXPLORING THE HISTORY OF BROADCAST AND RECORDED SOUND
2020-05-17 6 By DAVID TAYLOR
An exploration of the techniques from the ’50s to the ’90s in sound broadcasting and recording.
The aim of this blog is to hopefully show some of the changes in professional sound that took place during the years that I worked in the industry. I joined the Anglia Television Sound Department in the summer of 1966 and I closed my ‘Postfade Sound’ television post-production suite in 2012.
In 1966 my colleagues were still mixing on valve mixing desks, with the first germanium transistor consoles having just appeared. There was no sound dubbing of videotaped programmes in television and all TV sound was mono, mixed live or ‘as live’ and radio mics were not yet in use.
As I said, I began at Anglia TV and then moved to Thames for a very short spell before London Weekend Television, first at Wembley Studios, diverting via a period at LWT’s ‘spin off’ Intersound Recording Studio and then joining Capital Radio before hopping back to LWT; but now at the new South Bank studios.
The LWT times were wonderful years in which ‘sound’ developed in leaps and bounds, and in which also I got to be a TV Sound Supervisor.
The demands of my private life made me leave London for a quick stint at a Welsh facility Barcud, before joining another ITV company, TVS at Maidstone and then on to the beautiful newly converted Limehouse TV Studios at Canary Wharf, making shows for the new Channel 4. The TV facilities business was an unreliable employer and the first time Limehouse ‘crashed’, I had an ‘enforced’ spell freelancing and then a return to Limehouse; this time it was my job to help with the move into the same Wembley Studios I had left 15 years earlier.
Despite the enormous payout to the new Limehouse owners from ‘Canary Wharf’, the money-men eat it up and Limehouse ‘crashed’ again so finally, I had an even longer return back into the freelance world … just as many of the staff at the BBC and ITV also ‘went freelance’… and then I needed another change, so started my own sound post-production suite within a video editing facility; firstly in North London at Ace Editing and finally at Pinewood at OutPost Facilities. I enjoyed post-production mixing enormously but I was no businessman and Pinewood was an expensive place to be, so wrapped it up in 2012.
Wow…didn’t I move around! Some of it ‘itchy feet’ I guess, but also because TV did become such an ‘unstable’ business through the years, with certainly no jobs ‘for life’ anymore.
Coming from a TV background, with some recording studio and even radio time as well, and ending up in sound post-production has helped inform and broaden my interests, so I think I can write about a very wide range of professional sound areas with a good level of understanding.
I will be going back through my years in sound and point out those changes and the transformations in technology that have occurred so that new practitioners can understand more easily ‘where we’ve come from’, and even help those who had lived through it, remember what it actually was like!
I believe that using examples from actual programmes and recordings is the best way to illustrate these changes, so there will be lots of video and sound clips ’embedded’ in the posts.
I’m really also hoping I can get contributions from other ‘sound people’ to help me, as there were some really great mixers I met, and so many others that I wish I’d met, on the way.
So please if you have something to recall about any aspect of broadcast or recording studio sound … perhaps from your own past or experiences …. do send them to me to include, as it would make this a much better ‘document’ of the changes in sound through the years to hear from others in these pages.
(And photographs are so important too…they really do help bring back the memories.)
I love undertaking the amount of research that the Pye and Neve articles have required but I’d love you to get in touch when you think you can help me, via the comments or an email. The ‘comments’ form at the bottom is harmless, I think it just asks for your email address, so that I can start a ‘direct conversation’ that way and do ignore the default ‘website’ request.
TO E-MAIL ME: david@postfade co.uk.
Dave Taylor
Dorset UK 2020
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David-
First, I want to thank you for your highly informative blog post about early Neve consoles. In it, you mentioned the 16 channel console that had been built in 1968 for Sound Studios in Chicago and later purchased by Tom Wright in Atlanta. As it turns out, Tom racked the modules in a wood case with a PSU and cabling and junked the console. He sold the rack to me in 1995 and I’ve used it on a variety of recordings over the past 30 years.
Hope this is helpful. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you require any further info.
Thanks-
Michael
Michael,
Thanks for telling us what happened to Sound Studios 16-channel ‘67123’ after Tom Wright got it. I hadn’t found any other info after Rupert’s reference to Tom (and his speakers!) so I guessed it didn’t get used in his studios. Glad to hear that the 1057’s lived on!
David
Hi David
Thanks for a very interesting Pye tv history write-up. It brought back many memories of my time as TA, then cameraman at Tel Obs at Wembley and Kendal Avenue in the ’60s.
The Pye gear was highly regarded and well built but the Mk.6 cameras were so heavy and the top edge handles were finger- trapping in awkward lifts, like stairs!
At Newbury Race Course, while we were off at lunch my camera, on a scaffold rostrum out by the course, was blown over the edge in a violent wind gust and dangled on its cable a few feet from the ground. The waterproof cover over camera and tripod had acted like a sail.
After the panic and retrieval, switch-on showed it was unharmed and still worked fine!
As above, Highly Regarded!
All the best
Brian Balshaw
Isle of Wight
Brian,
Glad you found the Pye articles of interest. Obviously my stuff is biased towards ‘sound, but I can’t help including as much as I can about the other parts that were changing in TV during those times.
Love the story of the Mk6 hanging from it’s cable.
Did you read any of the ‘All You Need Is Love’ article about the Abbey Road OB. Lots of Mk6 stuff in that one. Anglia had the almost identical Mk5’s, so more photos in my Anglia articles as well.
David
Dear David,
I came across your LWT/Thames TV page via an internet search – I’m Robert (son of Roy Sanders) and it was lovely to see the photo you posted and read your informative article.
I came to the studios a few times when I was a boy, so I recognize quite a few names and faces !
All the very best.
Robert,
How good to hear from you. I remember Roy from the first days when I joined LWT, he had such a great personality and seemed always to be ‘laughing’ in my memory! So it was sad for us that he pretty soon decided to go to Thames, where of course there were still many of his ex-Rediffusion colleagues. I know that another in the sound department, Vic Finch also regretted Roy leaving us.
There are still a few faces I haven’t been able to find any photo of, like John Coombes alas.
All the best
David
Hi David,
I have some high quality photos of a couple of things that might interest you.
There are some of inside MCR12 and the PYE OB from Paris.
Let me know if you would like them and I’ll send them over
Ian Fraser
Ian,
How amazing….yes I’d really love to see the MCR12 and Pye OB photos. Do please forward them. I’ll send a direct message via your email. Thanks David
Hello David, I’m Ted Scott’s sister, Cindy and Sue passed along your email to me; sad news indeed. I helped Ted with his website when websites weren’t all that easy to do; it was a great learning experience. Are you on Twitter? If so, what’s your handle? I think it is so important to keep these sound stories going and going, like that bunny, so that today’s digital ‘on-line’ engineers can put this are perspective. I shall look forward to clicking on all these links in your blog.
Cindy Scott Amero
Cindy,
How nice to hear from you. Well done in getting Ted and his stories ‘out there’ and for therefore giving the impetuous for his book. There isn’t enough written about the early days in broadcasting, which is why I thought I’d try and kick something off and hope it can become a place that others will add their stories. I’ll try and write something about Ted’s career in the near future. He was such a delight to be with when I knew him in the ’80’s.
David
Dear David,
I’ve often wondered what happened to you after leaving Pinewood. I’m so pleased to find you here and digging around on the internet.
I hope you’re well and leading a happy life.
Stephen
Lovely to hear from you Stephen,
I’ll reply to your email!