Alchemists indeed!
Electronic music...the future!
I didn't know what half of these machines were or that they were used on Peter Howell's 1982 version of the theme...Key scraped along a piano string? Blimey, who knew?
Alchemists indeed!
Electronic music...the future!
I didn't know what half of these machines were or that they were used on Peter Howell's 1982 version of the theme...Key scraped along a piano string? Blimey, who knew?
Last edited by PeterG; 11-15-2013 at 04:25 PM.
All the Doctor Who themes from 1963-2013
Noodling!
David Copperfield and his magical box:
Last edited by JKL2000; 11-18-2013 at 11:21 AM.
Cool to all those. I've seen some of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop docs before and they're really interesting, fo sho!
Music
http://greylyng.bandcamp.com/
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http://lightuponblight.bandcamp.com/...-upon-blight-2 (new album!)
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“The only truth is music.”
― Jack Kerouac
The two synths he's playing are a Yamaha CS-80 (the big one that he uses for the starburst "sting" and the bass line, amongst other sounds) and an ARP Odyssey (used for the first part of the melody line).Originally Posted by PeterG
BTW, I believe Brian Hodgson has said it was the key to his mother's house that he used to get the TARDIS materialization/dematerialization.
The really amazing thing was how they recorded the original version of the theme back in 1963. I believe Delia Derbyshire had to record each note of the melody using test oscillators, and then had to piece the tape together to create the melody. The bass line was created by hammering the piano strings with mallets. And there's a bit of white noise, which sounds like it was shaped with in various ways, probably with filters and envelope generators and then the tape was looped to create that sort of rhythmic effect that goes along with the bass line.
My favorite version of the theme was the remix that was done during the 70's, where they added, amongst other things, a bit of slap back echo to the bass line, creating the sort of bubbling bass line effect, similar to what Pink Floyd would later use on One Of These Days (note that on some live versions of One Of These Days, you can hear Gilmour sneak in a bit of the Dr. Who theme melody).
One Doctor Who show that had a really interesting score was an early 70's one called Sea Devils, where entire score was done on the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's EMS Synthi 100:
And here's one of the great electronic music albums, Morton Subotnick's Silver Apples Of The Moon:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ujxTJoMhro.../DGat%2315.jpg
http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/d...ds/lespaul.jpg
How about an actual Magic Box. Danny Gatton's Magic Dingus Box.
How about this for synthnoodling:
Indeed, and I heard John Baker (also at Maida Vale) in an interview describe how he created all the musical notes for a certain BBC tune by pouring liquid out of a cider bottle and recording the sound then speeding it up and slowing it down to create the full scale of notes. The work that went into creating sounds back then before fully functional synths was immense. The old slapping the ruler on the edge of the desk, despite what our teachers said, really wasn't a waste of time and could get you a good job, with the BBC!
Last edited by PeterG; 11-17-2013 at 08:57 AM.
If I remember correctly, the Magic Dingus was just a remote control for his Leslie, Echoplex and amp. It had switches to turn the Leslie and Echoplex on and off, speed control for the Leslie, sound-on-sound control for the Echoplex and I think he could also turn the amp reverb and tremolo on from the Dingus box.
Danny said one time that Les Paul came up to him after a show and ask about it. Apparently, Les had heard about the Dingus and was worried someone was building knock offs of his Les Paulverizer (which I believe was also eventually revealed to be merely a remote controller, in this case of a multitrack tape machine Les kept hidden offstage).
Anyway, Danny stopped using the Dingus in the early 80's because it was getting more attention than he was, and people were starting to believe (or so Danny once said) that it was the Dingus that was making him sound like that. So he eventually ditched it. I think in later years, he had a delay pedal on the floor, for when he did need a good slapback sound for playing rockabilly tunes, and that was about it.
Lots of boxes in use here. The Bropus looks like an 80s bedside radio alarm clock!
This is just lovely!
I still have that one on the right.
Is it the Roland 100?
Yes, the Roland system 100 model 101 was my first synthesizer and I still own it. I have a picture of it on my homepage.
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