The BBC Archives!

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 07:12 AM

Richard.
Industry standard...Half Track.
Quarter track (ie You could turn the tapes over and record the other way, were purely for domestic use....And indeed I owned one..My trusty Akai 4000. Print through was a real bugger!

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 06:41 AM

It was once the practice of the BBC to house their recordings on multi-copies of acetate discs and after a set number of plays, to smash the disc and move on to the next copy.

In the 1960s my father knew a guy who worked for the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation and told him what happened to their BBC material. They got Goon Shows on LP. There were four stations in NZ (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin) that took turns playing them, and after they'd been round all of them, they came back to his office. Where he was contractually required to smash them over the edge of his desk.

I imagined those little microgrooves squeaking "You dirty rotten scoundrel, you deaded me!".

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: Jim Martin
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 06:11 AM

Sound like what's happening in the rest of the world - the inverted pyramid is about to topple over!

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 05:04 AM

@ CJB: your licence fee is going on a continually self-bloating management/executive complement whilst programme makers etc. are being made reduntant to finance the same.

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 04:12 AM

Were the BBC quarter inch tapes half track or quarter track?

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: ChrisJBrady
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 03:58 AM

It is possible to buy new 1/4inch tape machines. I have one - an Akai. It outputs to a laptop very well. I am surprised that the Beeb only has one. So where is my license fee going to then - aha - idiots like Clarkson and Connelly et al. But this 'shedload' of material where is it stored, what media has the 1/4in tapes been transferred to? Optical disks don't last forever - probably less time than the tapes themselves. It sounds like the Beeb will lose 90% of its archives in the next 50 years, which is the figure quoted by the Library of Congress for its own holdings.

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 05:33 PM

Mr Skiffler.
A few months ago I needed to transfer a couple reels of audio tape (Quarter Inch) to digits for a CD project. Contacted an Ex Colleague in Broadvasting House, and discovered that there was just ONE Tape machine left in the building! Took a couple of hours to crank it into life, (having taken all the plastic wrapping off it!)
It worked......Just!
So. I'm not surprised that the TV world has gone the same way. Thank god for Phil Lawton in the Radio Archives for all the years of conservation that he did.
I remember paying him a visit in his underground bunker for a chat and a coffee, and whilst leaning against all these racks of tapes, I noticed names like "The Beatles" "Jimi Hendrix" "Rolling Stones"....
Aisles and Aisles of tapes....Priceless stuff.
Phil has retired now, but, without him, a whole shedload of material would have been lost.

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: GUEST,Roger the Skiffler sans cookie
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 01:14 PM

Last year I met someone who was working on the project to select and prepare for rebroadcast, old BBC progs ( I gather there was one machine all the tv companies were using so throughput was limited). I put in a plea for the Jazz 625 series. Sadly, that person, and possibly others, was made redundant as one of the beeb's cost cutting exercises so I don't hold out much hope.

RtS

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: Jim Martin
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 08:26 AM

David E - just a short clip I found to get you salivating:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtYpJ8aqa2Y

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 06:29 AM

Would suggest that anybody interested in the traditional material at the Beeb, should seek out the magnificent annotated index of the field recordings - mainly pre - 1960 - housed at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (don't know if it's on line, but it should be).
It was once the practice of the BBC to house their recordings on multi-copies of acetate discs and after a set number of plays, to smash the disc and move on to the next copy.
In the early seventies a friend became worried that these were not being replaced and some of the items were becoming 'protected species'.
I know he did approach the powers that be, but I'm not aware of the outcome (he moved to the US).
I have no idea what the BBC still retains of the recordings, but I believe the VWML has one of the few complete sets (now digitised).
Not sure of the situation with Kennedy's 'dubious!' set.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: mikesamwild
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 06:18 AM

Doc Rowe told me of people smuggling out tapes to save them from the skips or being reused

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: GUEST,Doc John
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 06:14 AM

The BBC hold four Woody Guthrie titles recorded in 1944 which are very occasionally played and ten Cisco Houston titles recorded in 1960 and played then but, to my knowledge, never since.

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: ChrisJBrady
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 05:29 AM

There's an on-going project to rescue home recordings of the London Folk Song Cellar from the 1970s'ish. Also Folkweave (all dumped by BBC R. Manchester a few years ago), Country Meets Folk, Folk on 2, etc. We have also rescued 14 BBC transcription discs of Folkweave from Australia. These are at: http://www.mediafire.com/?yotynmr4bdht5

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 02:40 PM

You're right....Seriously good mics....Racks full of ST&C 4038s, Neumanns by the shed load, from KM 84s to U87s..You name 'em, we had 'em!
Interestingly, it was the punks that would ask to borrow one of the celestes for their sessions!...
Paul Weller (who used to live locally, used to come in to use a Hammond B3 on occasions. A real goldmine for equipment geeks!

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 07:14 AM

I used to go to the Maida Vale studios some evenings, where a friend of mine was a trainee. I played guitar while he practised recording it. Great times - and we got to use some great equipment for free...

Great URL - www.maidavaleable.co.uk

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 06:12 AM

Newport Boy.....Aw Shucks! Are there no beginnings to my talents?!
(actually came up with that idea many years ago when the archive project started.....Don't think the management got it!)

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: Newport Boy
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 05:48 AM

Ralphie, you're a genius! Maida Valeable would be the perfect label for reissues of archive BBC material. Register it now!!

Phil

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: GUEST,David E.
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 11:09 PM

Not exactly folky related, but I am crushed that I will apparently never get to watch "Take Three Girls."

David E.

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 06:02 PM

Having been invoked (as it were!) by Mr Fly...I can't speak for TV archives, but, as far as Radio sessions are concerned, anything from the 60s/70s has survived more by luck than judgement. The Beebs policy was that the medium (ie tape) was more valuable than what it contained. Even more so with TV tapes...Recycling was the normal procedure. In those days, very few people had video recording machines at home, so unless a diligent producer kept a copy in his attic, they all got re-used. Obviously, In this digital age, everything is scrupulously kept, from the banal to the sublime. Every now and and then, a little nugget of Film/Audio will appear, but, sadly, many fine performances have been lost forever.
I do know that there is an archiving project of what is left of Radio tapes ongoing (and has been for at least 20 years).
Whether it would ever be made available (Maida Valeable....Joke!) to the general public is highly unlikely. Occasionally, some bands will buy the rights to Peel sessions, whatever. But, it's becoming increasingly less cost effective in these straightened times. As for video tapes from that era. As I say say, They cost shed loads of money per roll of tape, and were routinely recycled after transmission.
Glad you found that John Sebastian clip..Wouldn't hold my breath for any more like it though. Sorry...

Subject: RE: The BBC Archives!
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 02:18 PM

I'm sure that Ralphie will have more technical knowledge than I do but, when I worked at the Beeb in the late '60s/early '70s, the technology and media for recording programmes were expensive. The upshot was that only certain things were recorded for posterity - and the catch was that it was impossible to second guess what would have been of real interest 40 years later. Hence the occasional call from broadcasters for home tapes/film that some people did in their own homes (Bob Monkhouse being one of the most prolific).

I used to roam the vaults of the BBC's Sound Archives and Film Archives in my spare time from work, and discovered many goodies at the time - Goon Shows that were, at the time, unavailable to the general public.

However, I suspect - given the constant repetition of so many clips on today's TV - that most of the interesting stuff has been discovered and broadcast. I've certainly seen the "Daydrean" clip before.

Subject: The BBC Archives!
From: Tunesmith
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 02:11 PM

I wonder what great folky related material is buried deep in the BBC vaults?
40yrs ago, the BBC TV did a series of solo folky concerts. The Neil Young and the Joni Mitchell concerts are still aired from time to time.
But I recall another concert around that time featuring John Sebastian.
Now as that show has not been aired since its original showing, I had assumed that it must have been wiped!
However, I few weeks ago, in one of the BBCs compilation shows, up pops John Sebastian singing "Daydream" from that 1970/71 Tv concert.
Interesting.