Patrick Heigham
Ah echo! Do you remember the circular recorder drum? Not sure, now, what it was like, but I think a system to produce echo effect?
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John Howell
It was a large rotating drum the inside rim of which was coated with a magnetic recording compound. Arranged inside were erase, recording, and playback heads, (it might have had more than one PB head). I think you could move the playback head(s) to vary the reverb.
It had several failings: the heads, for obvious reasons, didn’t touch the recording medium so high frequencies were lacking, not only that the HF came and went in time with the drum rotation due to eccentricity. But the biggest problem was the erase system couldn’t cope with overmods so you got a rhythmic muffled playback of the previous programme’s excesses!
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Alec Bray
This is similar in concept to the artificial reverberation used in TC4 to provide a more suitable environment for classical music performers. Apologies – I can’t remember what it was called! In the sound equipment room off the TC4 sound gallery there was this box mounted on the wall. This contained a tape loop, a record and erase head and multiple playback heads, fed into permanent FB speakers around the studio. The idea was to mimic “natural” reverb in the sound deadened studio (as I recall, violinists, for example, had tended to play sharp to compensate for the deadness of the studio). After this had been installed, most classical music shows (in my time at the Beeb) were done in TC4.
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John Howell
It was called Ambiophony, TC1 was also equipped with speakers that could be fed from the bay in TC4,. Anyone recall it being used in TC1?
Mind you, the orchestra had to be at the right position in the studio, I think there was ‘discussion’ at one planning meeting about the smoothest floor for camera tracking being precisely where the orchestra needed to be!
I remember a drama in TC4 when Sound Supervisor Chick Anthony used the Ambiophony system as a PA effect at a Mayoral Banquet scene, very impressive!
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Tony Millier
I remember the late John Staples used it to enhance the audience reaction, to great effect. He then had to explain to the director that this was a ‘one off’ and could not be used the next week in TC 3.
The system, made by Philips, was also installed in Limehouse Studios which were demolished to make way for the docklands developments.
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Dave Mundy
I was told that the only example of Ambiophony actually being used for orchestral recordings was in the Philips studios in Holland, where it had been developed and where Derek Gough (Sound Manager B) used to visit. Chris Daubney was in charge of the installations in TC1, TC3 and TC4 and told me that although we did lots of music shows the orchestra was never in the correct place! I used the system for the audience warm-up musak while they were entering and leaving the studio!
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Chris Eames
I seem to remember a story, possibly apocryphal, that when someone attempted to use the ambiophony during an orchestral rehearsal, they were told that, if they didn’t turn it off, the orchestra were leaving! I believe it was the LSO.
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Ian Dow
As a TC4 Vision Engineer I remember that one problem with the system was that when it didn’t sound correct a visit to the grid found many of the speakers were “missing” – too much of a temptation for the light fingered. In the end they were all taken out, and we asked if there was any chance of buying them officially. We were told we couldn’t do this through the Beeb but were sent to an address in Harlesden which turned out to be a Chinese laundry – full of speakers in a back room!
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Dave Buckley
Ian is quite correct about buying redundant speakers from a Chinese Laundry in Harlesden. This was in the early 1970’s and I bought two for the hospital radio station I was with at the time. They were LSU/1s if I remember correctly and sound very good when fed with a decent amplifier.
Anyone any idea why the speakers landed up where they did? I do know that staff couldn’t buy redundant equipment directly for many years, although this changed later when redundant equipment department ceased to exist.
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