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7/12/2006
Wonderful archive of BBC Radiophonic Workshop photos
Steve writes with exciting news: "I got an email today from Ray White, a old friend from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Ray was an engineer there for many years and has had this in-depth technical history of the Workshop up on the web for some time now. However, he has just added a gallery of pictures. As with so many unexplained phenomena, there are very few photos of the Radiophonic Workshop, but Ray’s collection is the most comprehensive to date. All the pics have notes, which are also very good." The pictures are fantastic and incredibly exotic. On a similar note, here has a great old clip of Liz Parker tweaking the enormous EMS Delaware (which people outside the workshop call a Synthi 100).
Hey all...for us on the other side of the pond who aren't in the know...what's the radiophonic workshop? is this a commercial institution? a Tv show? What is it?
ReplyDeletebeing on the other side of the pond is no excuse.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Radiophonic_Workshop
aaaanyway. I did a session in Maida Vale in about 1992 (a Peel sesh), I sneaked upstairs from the main studio to seek the radiophonic workshop .. imagining something like this
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/whitefiles5/rwsg/pages/page_8.htm
I was a bit disapointed when I actually saw this
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/whitefiles5/rwsg/pages/page_62.htm
best never to meet your heros eh!
hey, some of those are new to me, i got a glossy copy of the delia one they used for her obit out of the guardian, it's in this series.
ReplyDeletedaphne oram's book "An Individual Note" is a spectacularly eccentric treatise on electronic music, if you ever come across a copy (shows up in lots of libraries but never for sale).
The Liz Parker photo does not show a Synthi 100, just an old Soundcraft mixer and a couple of keyboards, neither of which are a EMS manufactured.
ReplyDeleteThat's why the copy refers to this clip of Liz playing the Delaware on YouTube...
ReplyDeleteI don't know about you, but I'm hot for Delia.
ReplyDeleteShe's dead, Jim.
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't seen the BBC documentary on the Radiophonic folks, you can watch it here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fatbaron.com/alchemistsofsound.wmv
The Tiscali site you are trying to reach has been temporarily suspended due to excessive bandwidth consumption.
ReplyDeleteCan someone mirror these photos please?
okay...i posted the first comment in this section...
ReplyDeletei checked out the wikipedia article, basically the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was a place where they did a bunch of Dr. Who sound tracks?
"basically the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was a place where they did a bunch of Dr. Who sound tracks?"
ReplyDeleteUh huh. And Kraftwerk were a German band who used some synthesizers when they recorded Autobahn.
Moron.
Because of exceeded bandwidth I've now provided extra link for downloading collection as Zip file via Rapidshare. Click on the link, Click on Free, wait the prescribed time and follow instructions. Takes 40 seconds on 2 MB/s broadband. Unzip the file, open the folder, click on index.htm and view in web browser. - Ray White.
ReplyDeleteThose photos all look like they come from the BBC book celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Radiophonic Workshop (The cover of the book is on page 5 of the gallery) If you can find a copy it's a fascinating insight into the beginnings of electronic music, and includes equipment lists for all the studios for all you synthgeeks.
ReplyDeleteNot all the pictures are from the book but not all the pictures from the book are in my collection. If you want them all you should find a copy of the book.
ReplyDeleteMy purpose wasn't simply to distribute pics but rather to give some further insight into workings of the Workshop. An expanded gallery of 137 pictures, from various sources (14 MB), complete with my original descriptive text, is available as download from:
http://rapidshare.de/files/26207948/rwsge.zip.html
Ray White
The radiophonic article is now at
ReplyDeletehttp://whitefiles.org/rws
The gallery can now be seen at
http://whitefiles.org/rwg