John Howell (Hibou)

At one time there was a capstan sleeve available for a TR90 in the TV Theatre enabling it to run at about 30ips. It managed to record pulse & bar, albeit not locked.

Mike Jordan

 A bit like someone tried to record 405 vision from AP on a BTR2 (? the big green thing) and it just about worked.

Pat Heigham

I have a faint memory of the BTR2 being capable of 30 ips. There were two in the Riverside music studio before the Studers were installed.

Also remember going to the Radio/Hi-Fi show at the Russell Hotel, where I was enthralled at the quality of an Ampex ¼” deck running at 30 ips with huge Tannoy Autograph speakers delivering wonderful sounds.

Dave Plowman

Pretty certain 30 ips was fairly standard in the music recording industry in the early days.

Pat Heigham

Having been appointed a Gram Op at a time when there was a severe shortage of edit facilities, necessitating trips to BH or even Bush, I bought a Revox 736 (G36) which could handle 10 ½” NAB spools. But the off the shelf model ran at 7 ½ or 3 ¾ ips. Upon asking, the factory supplied me a version to operate at 15 or 7 ½, except that the printed escutcheon plate still said the old speeds!

So I took tapes home to edit there – maybe a bit naughty, but we were trusted to cart master tapes in our cars from various venues around London, and so the job got done.

If I could book a Television Centre sound gallery for an edit, I was often still there at midnight, when the duty fireman made his rounds. The fact that I was there on my own was most likely against safety regs – I think that there was supposed to be at least two  staff in technical areas.

Being a Grams Op on TOTP or “Juke Box Jury” meant that we always had the very latest music for party tapes!