The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound effects units of the BBC, was created in 1958 to produce effects and new music for radio. It was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. The original Radiophonic Workshop was based in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in Delaware Road, London.
History
Creation
The Workshop was set up to satisfy the growing demand in the late 1950s for "radiophonic" sounds from a group of producers and studio managers at the BBC, including Desmond Briscoe and Daphne Oram. For some time there had been much interest in producing innovative music and sounds to go with the pioneering programming of the era, in particular the dramatic output of the BBC Third Programme. Often the sounds required for the atmosphere that programme makers wished to create were unavailable or non-existent through traditional sources and so some, such as the musically trained Oram, would look to new techniques to produce effects and music for their pieces. Much of this interest drew them to musique concrète and tape manipulation techniques, since using these methods could allow them to create soundscapes suitable for the growing range of unconventional programming. When the BBC noticed the rising popularity of this method they established a Radiophonic Effects Committee, setting up the Workshop in rooms 13 & 14 of the BBC's Maida Vale studios with a budget of £2,000. The Workshop regularly released technical journals of their findings - leading to some of their techniques being borrowed by sixties producers and engineers such as Eddie Kramer.
BBC Radiophonic Workshop – 21 was a compilation by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to celebrate their 21st anniversary in 1979. It was compiled as an overview of their work both old and new, showcasing the changes in the Workshop as they developed from backroom sound effects suppliers for BBC Radio to full-fledged in-house music composers for the whole of the corporation. It demonstrates the move from the musique concrète and tape-manipulation techniques used in the early days, to the synthesiser works of the 1970s. The first side of the album consisted of material from 1958 to 1971, covering their early work creating jingles, sound-effects and some incidental music. This side includes the first material by Workshop founder Desmond Briscoe to be commercially released, as well as sound effects from The Goon Show, Maddalena Fagandini's interval signal that later became "Time Beat", some of Delia Derbyshire's experimental work and the pilot episode version of the Doctor Who theme music. The second side of the record covered the period between 1971–1979, including Richard Yeoman-Clark material from popular BBC series Blake's 7 and Peter Howell's vocoder heavy "Greenwich Chorus" theme for The Body in Question.
The enduring magic of the Radiophonic Workshop | Resident Advisor
We look back on 60 years of the pioneering electronic music and sound effects workshop.
Visit the RA feature page: https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3228
"It was a place for experimentation," says Roger Limb, who's been a member of the Radiophonic Workshop since 1972, "full of weird and wonderful sounds which people were not quite sure what to make of." It is easy to forget how mind-bending something like the Doctor Who theme would have sounded back in in the mid-'60s, at a time when almost all music was acoustically derived. Breakthroughs like this were made possible by the pioneering experimentation at the Workshop, which was set up at the BBC in 1958 to record sound effects for radio programming. Techniques were developed on-the-fly using tape manipulation, oscillators and earl...
published: 17 May 2018
Five Days at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Five Days at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop [COMPLETE]
published: 07 Dec 2012
Pioneers Of Sound: The story of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
A short documentary on the history and influence of the BBC's sound effects studio the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Click here for more info: http://www.thevinylfactory.com/?p=11370
published: 19 Feb 2014
Creating the Theme | Radiophonic Workshop | Doctor Who
A look inside the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with Dick Mills, Brian Hodgson, Verity Lambert and the late Delia Derbyshire and how they brought composer Ron Grainer's Doctor Who theme to life using electronic music. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubscribeToDoctorWho
Taken from the special feature Masters of Sound on the Doctor Who: The Beginning Box Set DVD.
Click here to buy Doctor Who: The Beginning Box Set DVD: http://www.bbcshop.com/science-fiction/doctor-who-the-beginning-box-set-dvd/invt/bbcdvd1882?utm_source=Youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=kh_thebeginningdvd
WATCH MORE:
Regenerations: http://bit.ly/DWRegenerations
The Thirteenth Doctor: http://bit.ly/TheThirteenthDoctor
Title Sequences: http://bit.ly/DWTitleSequences
Welcome to the Doctor Who Channel! Travel in the TARDIS with ...
published: 18 Apr 2015
How Do They Do That - The RadioPhonic Workshop
with Brian Hodgson
published: 12 May 2018
BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Journey Through Time
Created in 1958, and based in BBC's Maida Vale Studios, Radiophonic Workshop are true pioneers of electronic music. We caught up with them to find out their creative process of old, and how they perform music in the modern age.
Watch part II here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GED3sLSVuRg
More info:
https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
published: 02 Jun 2017
BBC Radiophonic Workshop: Experimentation with MatrixBrute
The second part of our miniseries on the British electronic music pioneers, Radiophonic Workshop. Synth guru Mark Ayres reveals why MatrixBrute is a perfect addition to the Radiophonic family, and demonstrates some of the unique sounds it's capable of.
See the full article: https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
Download the Radiophonic Workshop preset bank for MatrixBrute: https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
More on MatrixBrute: https://www.arturia.com/products/hardware-synths/matrixbrute
published: 04 Jul 2017
Peter Howell & The Radiophonic Workshop 'The Astronauts' (full version)
One of the best BBC Radiophonic releases in my opinion from 1978. This is from the album 'Through A Glass Darkly'.
published: 25 Feb 2013
BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Provided to YouTube by Merge Media Ltd
BBC Radiophonic Workshop · The Magnetic Fields
Holiday
℗ 1999 Merge Records
Released on: 1999-01-12
Composer: Stephin Merritt
Auto-generated by YouTube.
We look back on 60 years of the pioneering electronic music and sound effects workshop.
Visit the RA feature page: https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/322...
We look back on 60 years of the pioneering electronic music and sound effects workshop.
Visit the RA feature page: https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3228
"It was a place for experimentation," says Roger Limb, who's been a member of the Radiophonic Workshop since 1972, "full of weird and wonderful sounds which people were not quite sure what to make of." It is easy to forget how mind-bending something like the Doctor Who theme would have sounded back in in the mid-'60s, at a time when almost all music was acoustically derived. Breakthroughs like this were made possible by the pioneering experimentation at the Workshop, which was set up at the BBC in 1958 to record sound effects for radio programming. Techniques were developed on-the-fly using tape manipulation, oscillators and early synthesisers, laying the groundwork for countless musical movements that would come afterwards. The Workshop closed in 1998, but some of its members have continued to channel its spirit into live performances and recorded music. We followed the group to a recent show at the Science Museum in London to hear about the Workshop's 60-year-long journey.
Director / Producer - Sophie Misrahi
Editor - Sophie Misrahi
Camera - Sophie Misrahi, Guy Clarke
Dubbing Mixer - Guy Clarke
Director / Producer - Sophie Misrahi
Editor - Sophie Misrahi
Camera - Sophie Misrahi, Guy Clarke
Dubbing Mixer - Guy Clarke
We look back on 60 years of the pioneering electronic music and sound effects workshop.
Visit the RA feature page: https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3228
"It was a place for experimentation," says Roger Limb, who's been a member of the Radiophonic Workshop since 1972, "full of weird and wonderful sounds which people were not quite sure what to make of." It is easy to forget how mind-bending something like the Doctor Who theme would have sounded back in in the mid-'60s, at a time when almost all music was acoustically derived. Breakthroughs like this were made possible by the pioneering experimentation at the Workshop, which was set up at the BBC in 1958 to record sound effects for radio programming. Techniques were developed on-the-fly using tape manipulation, oscillators and early synthesisers, laying the groundwork for countless musical movements that would come afterwards. The Workshop closed in 1998, but some of its members have continued to channel its spirit into live performances and recorded music. We followed the group to a recent show at the Science Museum in London to hear about the Workshop's 60-year-long journey.
Director / Producer - Sophie Misrahi
Editor - Sophie Misrahi
Camera - Sophie Misrahi, Guy Clarke
Dubbing Mixer - Guy Clarke
Director / Producer - Sophie Misrahi
Editor - Sophie Misrahi
Camera - Sophie Misrahi, Guy Clarke
Dubbing Mixer - Guy Clarke
A short documentary on the history and influence of the BBC's sound effects studio the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Click here for more info: http://www.thevinylfa...
A short documentary on the history and influence of the BBC's sound effects studio the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Click here for more info: http://www.thevinylfactory.com/?p=11370
A short documentary on the history and influence of the BBC's sound effects studio the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Click here for more info: http://www.thevinylfactory.com/?p=11370
A look inside the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with Dick Mills, Brian Hodgson, Verity Lambert and the late Delia Derbyshire and how they brought composer Ron Graine...
A look inside the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with Dick Mills, Brian Hodgson, Verity Lambert and the late Delia Derbyshire and how they brought composer Ron Grainer's Doctor Who theme to life using electronic music. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubscribeToDoctorWho
Taken from the special feature Masters of Sound on the Doctor Who: The Beginning Box Set DVD.
Click here to buy Doctor Who: The Beginning Box Set DVD: http://www.bbcshop.com/science-fiction/doctor-who-the-beginning-box-set-dvd/invt/bbcdvd1882?utm_source=Youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=kh_thebeginningdvd
WATCH MORE:
Regenerations: http://bit.ly/DWRegenerations
The Thirteenth Doctor: http://bit.ly/TheThirteenthDoctor
Title Sequences: http://bit.ly/DWTitleSequences
Welcome to the Doctor Who Channel! Travel in the TARDIS with clips dating back to the Doctor's first incarnation in 1963, all the way through dozens of regenerations.
Want to share your views? Join our fan panel: http://tinyurl.com/YouTube-DoctorWho-FanPanel
This is a commercial channel from BBC Studios. Service & Feedback https://www.bbcstudios.com/contact/contact-us/
A look inside the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with Dick Mills, Brian Hodgson, Verity Lambert and the late Delia Derbyshire and how they brought composer Ron Grainer's Doctor Who theme to life using electronic music. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubscribeToDoctorWho
Taken from the special feature Masters of Sound on the Doctor Who: The Beginning Box Set DVD.
Click here to buy Doctor Who: The Beginning Box Set DVD: http://www.bbcshop.com/science-fiction/doctor-who-the-beginning-box-set-dvd/invt/bbcdvd1882?utm_source=Youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=kh_thebeginningdvd
WATCH MORE:
Regenerations: http://bit.ly/DWRegenerations
The Thirteenth Doctor: http://bit.ly/TheThirteenthDoctor
Title Sequences: http://bit.ly/DWTitleSequences
Welcome to the Doctor Who Channel! Travel in the TARDIS with clips dating back to the Doctor's first incarnation in 1963, all the way through dozens of regenerations.
Want to share your views? Join our fan panel: http://tinyurl.com/YouTube-DoctorWho-FanPanel
This is a commercial channel from BBC Studios. Service & Feedback https://www.bbcstudios.com/contact/contact-us/
Created in 1958, and based in BBC's Maida Vale Studios, Radiophonic Workshop are true pioneers of electronic music. We caught up with them to find out their cre...
Created in 1958, and based in BBC's Maida Vale Studios, Radiophonic Workshop are true pioneers of electronic music. We caught up with them to find out their creative process of old, and how they perform music in the modern age.
Watch part II here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GED3sLSVuRg
More info:
https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
Created in 1958, and based in BBC's Maida Vale Studios, Radiophonic Workshop are true pioneers of electronic music. We caught up with them to find out their creative process of old, and how they perform music in the modern age.
Watch part II here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GED3sLSVuRg
More info:
https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
The second part of our miniseries on the British electronic music pioneers, Radiophonic Workshop. Synth guru Mark Ayres reveals why MatrixBrute is a perfect add...
The second part of our miniseries on the British electronic music pioneers, Radiophonic Workshop. Synth guru Mark Ayres reveals why MatrixBrute is a perfect addition to the Radiophonic family, and demonstrates some of the unique sounds it's capable of.
See the full article: https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
Download the Radiophonic Workshop preset bank for MatrixBrute: https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
More on MatrixBrute: https://www.arturia.com/products/hardware-synths/matrixbrute
The second part of our miniseries on the British electronic music pioneers, Radiophonic Workshop. Synth guru Mark Ayres reveals why MatrixBrute is a perfect addition to the Radiophonic family, and demonstrates some of the unique sounds it's capable of.
See the full article: https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
Download the Radiophonic Workshop preset bank for MatrixBrute: https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
More on MatrixBrute: https://www.arturia.com/products/hardware-synths/matrixbrute
Provided to YouTube by Merge Media Ltd
BBC Radiophonic Workshop · The Magnetic Fields
Holiday
℗ 1999 Merge Records
Released on: 1999-01-12
Composer: Stephi...
Provided to YouTube by Merge Media Ltd
BBC Radiophonic Workshop · The Magnetic Fields
Holiday
℗ 1999 Merge Records
Released on: 1999-01-12
Composer: Stephin Merritt
Auto-generated by YouTube.
Provided to YouTube by Merge Media Ltd
BBC Radiophonic Workshop · The Magnetic Fields
Holiday
℗ 1999 Merge Records
Released on: 1999-01-12
Composer: Stephin Merritt
Auto-generated by YouTube.
We look back on 60 years of the pioneering electronic music and sound effects workshop.
Visit the RA feature page: https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3228
"It was a place for experimentation," says Roger Limb, who's been a member of the Radiophonic Workshop since 1972, "full of weird and wonderful sounds which people were not quite sure what to make of." It is easy to forget how mind-bending something like the Doctor Who theme would have sounded back in in the mid-'60s, at a time when almost all music was acoustically derived. Breakthroughs like this were made possible by the pioneering experimentation at the Workshop, which was set up at the BBC in 1958 to record sound effects for radio programming. Techniques were developed on-the-fly using tape manipulation, oscillators and early synthesisers, laying the groundwork for countless musical movements that would come afterwards. The Workshop closed in 1998, but some of its members have continued to channel its spirit into live performances and recorded music. We followed the group to a recent show at the Science Museum in London to hear about the Workshop's 60-year-long journey.
Director / Producer - Sophie Misrahi
Editor - Sophie Misrahi
Camera - Sophie Misrahi, Guy Clarke
Dubbing Mixer - Guy Clarke
Director / Producer - Sophie Misrahi
Editor - Sophie Misrahi
Camera - Sophie Misrahi, Guy Clarke
Dubbing Mixer - Guy Clarke
A short documentary on the history and influence of the BBC's sound effects studio the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Click here for more info: http://www.thevinylfactory.com/?p=11370
A look inside the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with Dick Mills, Brian Hodgson, Verity Lambert and the late Delia Derbyshire and how they brought composer Ron Grainer's Doctor Who theme to life using electronic music. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubscribeToDoctorWho
Taken from the special feature Masters of Sound on the Doctor Who: The Beginning Box Set DVD.
Click here to buy Doctor Who: The Beginning Box Set DVD: http://www.bbcshop.com/science-fiction/doctor-who-the-beginning-box-set-dvd/invt/bbcdvd1882?utm_source=Youtube&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=kh_thebeginningdvd
WATCH MORE:
Regenerations: http://bit.ly/DWRegenerations
The Thirteenth Doctor: http://bit.ly/TheThirteenthDoctor
Title Sequences: http://bit.ly/DWTitleSequences
Welcome to the Doctor Who Channel! Travel in the TARDIS with clips dating back to the Doctor's first incarnation in 1963, all the way through dozens of regenerations.
Want to share your views? Join our fan panel: http://tinyurl.com/YouTube-DoctorWho-FanPanel
This is a commercial channel from BBC Studios. Service & Feedback https://www.bbcstudios.com/contact/contact-us/
Created in 1958, and based in BBC's Maida Vale Studios, Radiophonic Workshop are true pioneers of electronic music. We caught up with them to find out their creative process of old, and how they perform music in the modern age.
Watch part II here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GED3sLSVuRg
More info:
https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
The second part of our miniseries on the British electronic music pioneers, Radiophonic Workshop. Synth guru Mark Ayres reveals why MatrixBrute is a perfect addition to the Radiophonic family, and demonstrates some of the unique sounds it's capable of.
See the full article: https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
Download the Radiophonic Workshop preset bank for MatrixBrute: https://www.arturia.com/radiophonic
More on MatrixBrute: https://www.arturia.com/products/hardware-synths/matrixbrute
Provided to YouTube by Merge Media Ltd
BBC Radiophonic Workshop · The Magnetic Fields
Holiday
℗ 1999 Merge Records
Released on: 1999-01-12
Composer: Stephin Merritt
Auto-generated by YouTube.
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound effects units of the BBC, was created in 1958 to produce effects and new music for radio. It was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. The original Radiophonic Workshop was based in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in Delaware Road, London.
History
Creation
The Workshop was set up to satisfy the growing demand in the late 1950s for "radiophonic" sounds from a group of producers and studio managers at the BBC, including Desmond Briscoe and Daphne Oram. For some time there had been much interest in producing innovative music and sounds to go with the pioneering programming of the era, in particular the dramatic output of the BBC Third Programme. Often the sounds required for the atmosphere that programme makers wished to create were unavailable or non-existent through traditional sources and so some, such as the musically trained Oram, would look to new techniques to produce effects and music for their pieces. Much of this interest drew them to musique concrète and tape manipulation techniques, since using these methods could allow them to create soundscapes suitable for the growing range of unconventional programming. When the BBC noticed the rising popularity of this method they established a Radiophonic Effects Committee, setting up the Workshop in rooms 13 & 14 of the BBC's Maida Vale studios with a budget of £2,000. The Workshop regularly released technical journals of their findings - leading to some of their techniques being borrowed by sixties producers and engineers such as Eddie Kramer.
Modular synths can be simple affairs or extraordinary masses of cables and metal, like a £15,000 colossus created for film composer Hans Zimmer this year for his relaunch of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
... Are Hungry Men’ (“We’re here to eat you!”) and the sonic mise-en-scene recalls the Deram debut too, chiefly ‘Please Mr Gravedigger’’s BBC Radiophonic Workshop-like invention.
Written for radio, the play exploits the medium to the full; the team responsible for the sound effects in the original production in the mid-1950s went on to become the nucleus of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
While teaching music Newson began investigating electronic sounds with Delia Derbyshire in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, resulting in The Man WhoCollected Sounds, a musical-drama broadcast in 1966.
Well, this is something ... The soundtrack, for instance, is straight out of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop, all hums and bleeps and fuzzy reel-to-reels ... “What is it that rises up the same moment it falls?” a half-mad homeless man asks ... I know ... BBC iPlayer.
re.ni. One of the biggest lies that we’ve come to believe is that you can find everything on the internet ...It’s like we’re stuck in a cultural echo chamber ... Momentarily, his vintage synth timbres transport me to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop ... ....
... that Peel created after being originally asked to remix a 1972KPM library music album by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which included the synth composing, playing and programming of Delia Derbyshire.
It had a sad beauty about it, which left Peter and I on the verge of a blub, but thankfully we kept it together.Elizabeth Parker (composer and member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, 1978-1998).
