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March 28, 2024, 09:41:17 AM

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Topic: Top of the Pops on BBC Four - Thread Two.

Started by Dr Rock, August 26, 2018, 02:21:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Dr Rock


daf

Link to the old thread (covering 1977-1986) - or skip to the end

(You've got two 'Topics' in there - can you still edit it?)


When we get to 1988, will "Doctorin' the Tardis" get censored due to including a Gary Glitter sample?

DrGreggles

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on August 28, 2018, 01:50:30 AM
When we get to 1988, will "Doctorin' the Tardis" get censored due to including a Gary Glitter sample?

Didn't Glitter appear on TOTP with them when they reached #1?

buzby

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on August 28, 2018, 01:50:30 AM
When we get to 1988, will "Doctorin' the Tardis" get censored due to including a Gary Glitter sample?
Glitter's voice only appears on the 'Gary In The Tardis'/'Gary Joins The JAMs' mixes from the remix 12" (KLF 003R), so the appearance the week they got to number 1 (where they are wearing black and whiite tuxedos, top hats and capes) should get through.  They also appeared on the 1988 Christmas episode in full Spanish Easter nazarene costumes and invited Glitter along to recreate the Gary Joins The JAMs mix, so that will get chopped, unfortunately

Dr Rock

Have there been allegations or convictions based on the time of his TOTPs appearances? He probably was noncing it up backstage but it's because of later in life proven crimes he's not allowed to be on the repeats right? Is he unique in that regard?

buzby

Quote from: Dr Rock on August 28, 2018, 12:02:47 PM
Have there been allegations or convictions based on the time of his TOTPs appearances? He probably was noncing it up backstage but it's because of later in life proven crimes he's not allowed to be on the repeats right? Is he unique in that regard?
CaB's very own J.K. has also been edited out of the TOTP repeats too, both as performer and presenter.

Gulftastic

That was Sam Brown singing back up for Jim Diamond, wasn't it?

buzby

Quote from: Gulftastic on August 28, 2018, 04:44:41 PM
That was Sam Brown singing back up for Jim Diamond, wasn't it?
Yes, Vicky & Sam Brown were Jim's backing singers (sorry, I didn't have time to this week's'Boring TOTP Facts with Buzby' post).

daf

20 March 1986: Presenters: Simon Bates & Janice Long (+ introducing Simon Mayo)

(5) JIM DIAMOND – Hi Ho Silver
In his dad's big coat
(13) THE ROLLING STONES – Harlem Shuffle (video / chart)
It's Viola Wills!!
(21) PET SHOP BOYS – Love Comes Quickly
Mayo's Sloppy Bit In The Middle
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(36) STEVIE WONDER – Overjoyed
(34) SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES – Candyman
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(4) CLIFF RICHARD & THE YOUNG ONES – Living Doll (video)
Lock her up in a Trunk (!)



(19) THE REAL THING – You To Me Are Everything
Scouse Casuals
(1) DIANA ROSS – Chain Reaction (video)
The Supreegees
(15) MR MISTER – Kyrie (video / audience dancing / credits)
Medium-Jinx on Tour

Dr Rock

Only three acts there in the studio? Is that a record?

DrGreggles

Quote from: daf on August 30, 2018, 09:19:44 PM
20 March 1986: Presenters: Simon Bates & Janice Long (+ introducing Simon Mayo)

(5) JIM DIAMOND – Hi Ho Silver
In his dad's big coat
(13) THE ROLLING STONES – Harlem Shuffle (video / chart)
It's Viola Wills!!
(21) PET SHOP BOYS – Love Comes Quickly
Mayo's Sloppy Bit In The Middle
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(36) STEVIE WONDER – Overjoyed
(34) SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES – Candyman
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(4) CLIFF RICHARD & THE YOUNG ONES – Living Doll (video)
Lock her up in a Trunk (!)



(19) THE REAL THING – You To Me Are Everything
Scouse Casuals
(1) DIANA ROSS – Chain Reaction (video)
The Supreegees
(15) MR MISTER – Kyrie (video / audience dancing / credits)
Medium-Jinx on Tour

I have that episode on video!

daf

#12
27 March 1986: Presenters: Bruno Brookes & Mike Smith (Yellow Pearl's Final Fling)

(4) SAMANTHA FOX – Touch Me (I Want Your Body)
Like a Tramp in the night (kipping under a hedge with bindle for a pillow)
(24) ATLANTIC STARR – Secret Lovers (video / chart)
Exciting Viola Wills update!!
(33) TIPPA IRIE – Hello Darling
Musical Chairs - final round
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(40) BRONSKI BEAT – C'mon C'mon
(34) BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE – E=MC2
(27) FALCO – Rock Me Amadeus
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


https://www.flickr.com/photos/51106326@N00/sets/72157660166891738

(16) QUEEN – A Kind Of Magic (video)
David Devant and his Scouse Moustache
(12) THE ART OF NOISE & DUANE EDDY – Peter Gunn
Twanga - Twanga - Twanga - Twanga
(1) CLIFF RICHARD & THE YOUNG ONES – Living Doll (video)
Hank o' Burnin' Twang
(25) STEVIE WONDER – Overjoyed (video / audience dancing / credits)
Have a great Easter!   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
https://we.tl/t-espcmjSjX0

slightly 'smoother' version (PAL) - but no opening titles - https://we.tl/t-VS7FSuAEbL

Uncle TechTip

Sam Fox! Now she does the song no favours, but it's a terrific piece of rock synth nonetheless. The wiki article is amusing, and look at those chart positions - number 1 in eight territories, US#4, UK#3, is this one of the most successful world-wide singles ever?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_Me_(I_Want_Your_Body)

Gulftastic

Two Rik Mayall videos in the chart at the same time.

With Cliff and the Young Ones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGOU0o9K89g

And in The Art Of Noises version of 'Peter Gunn'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK-vUY6erQU

Bit of handsome bastard in the second one.

daf

3 April 1986: Presenters: Janice Long & John Peel ("The Wizard" Titles Debut)

(20) BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE – E=MC2
About time Mick!
(4) GEORGE MICHAEL – A Different Corner (video)
White beanbag, I gave you my arse
(23) A-HA – Train Of Thought
Collapsing Keyboards
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PAUL HARDCASTLE – interview
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(5) THE REAL THING – You To Me Are Everything
Bum!
(10) FALCO – Rock Me Amadeus
Vienna Ice



(1) CLIFF RICHARD & THE YOUNG ONES – Living Doll (video)
Animatronic Sex-Bot
(27) THE STYLE COUNCIL – Have You Ever Had It Blue? (video / tiny squished audience dancing / credits)
Inevitable Sax-Break

Sebastian Cobb

Amadeus is a banger.

I've got Peter Gunn on 12" single.

non capisco

Peel calling Queen "the Sun City boys" during the chart rundown is a bit of a "go on my son" moment. I doubt that episode of their career will be in the new biopic.

Rock Me Amadeus is indeed an absolute belter. I briefly worked with a guy who was both slightly odd and a colossal Falco fan, apparently all true Falco heads have a right cob on that this is the only Falco song that anyone knows.

Also nice to hear 'A Different Corner' by George Michael as I will now forever associate it with Jockice off here saying he heard it on the radio in the middle of the night and was inexplicably frozen with terror. I can sort of see how that could have happened, it's quite desolate. That mullet's certainly terrifying arf arf.

Jockice

Quote from: non capisco on September 01, 2018, 07:19:15 PM
Also nice to hear 'A Different Corner' by George Michael as I will now forever associate it with Jockice off here saying he heard it on the radio in the middle of the night and was inexplicably frozen with terror. I can sort of see how that could have happened, it's quite desolate. That mullet's certainly terrifying arf arf.

Just glad I'll be remembered for something. It was always going to either be this or the Bruce Foxton 'fucking good wank' story though, wasn't it?

Natnar

Quote from: daf on September 01, 2018, 04:43:20 PM
3 April 1986: Presenters: Janice Long & John Peel ("The Wizard" Titles Debut)


(23) A-HA – Train Of Thought
Collapsing Keyboards


Train Of Thought seems to be one of those hits that has been almost forgotten these days, it never appears on any 80's compilations or gets played on the radio considering it was a top ten hit and the follow up to a big number 1.

daf

10 April 1986: Presenters: Mike Smith & Steve Wright

(25) BRONSKI BEAT – C'mon C'mon
Unleash the Balloons!
(8) THE ART OF NOISE & DUANE EDDY – Peter Gunn (+ chart)
Show some respect, you vapid plum!
(29) BRYAN FERRY – Is Your Love Strong Enough?
Ragtime Cowboy Bryan
- - - - - - - - - - - - (breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(37) JANET JACKSON – What Have You Done For Me Lately?
(18) BIG COUNTRY – Look Away
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


https://www.flickr.com/photos/51106326@N00/sets/72157660550571843/

(15) SIMPLE MINDS – All The Things She Said (video)
Ladies and Gentlemen we are Floating in Space . . . with an Owl!!
(36) FIVE STAR – Can't Wait Another Minute
Knee-Woggle Spin-Bounce
(1) CLIFF RICHARD & THE YOUNG ONES – Living Doll (video)
Triumph of the Embalmer's Art
(7) QUEEN – A Kind Of Magic (video / audience dancing / credits)
You'll like this . . .

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
https://we.tl/t-ciOTcp7zyD

Gulftastic

I reckon I've still got that issue of Smash Hits somewhere.

Glebe

I was watching a bit of the The Young Ones on GOLD the other night, during the break I switched over and was surprized to be confronted by the lads and Cliff! 'Chain Reaction' is a childhood feelgood pop classic... was gobsmacked when I finally discovered it was penned by The Bee Gees.

Norton Canes

Not as gobsmacked as I was when I found out what it was about

The Wizard seemed to become dated very quickly. Chart Music podcast this week was saying it was an anachronism by 1989. Could this have been predicted in 1986 and a more durable theme been written and arranged? Or is this just a symptom of the 1986-89 period feeling very transitory generally, like 1975-76?

Uncle TechTip

Could probably just attribute it to the rapid advances in music technology and samples.

I don't understand why it's dated, it sounds of its time, sure, but what does dated mean?

Tidbit from Hardcastle on the Story show was that it was the first track ever recorded and mixed on disk, with no tape involved (Synclavier)

daf

#26
Quote from: Uncle TechTip on September 06, 2018, 02:49:52 PM
Tidbit from Hardcastle on the Story show was that it was the first track ever recorded and mixed on disk, with no tape involved (Synclavier)

Interview with the 'Don't Waste My Time' Hitmaker from Nov 1986 has a bit about this :

QuoteUNCHARACTERISTIC THOUGH IT may be, this understatement leads Hardcastle onto what is obviously his current passion. The arrival of the Direct-to-Disk system itself was pre-empted by the more common Synclavier system which, by his own admission, took a while to get used to. Now the painful learning process is about to be repeated, and it seems unlikely there'll be a users' group to compare notes with...

"I've had a guy from New England Digital in for about three weeks installing it and getting things to go right. This is the only 16-track that's been ordered in this country. It went out at the same time as Pat Metheny's in America, but Sting is supposed to be getting a four-track version."

The Direct-to-Disk system is designed to replace the multitrack tape stage of recording, using Winchester disks to store a digital representation of analogue signals.

"It's not a glorified sequencer", Hardcastle stresses. "It's a live recorder. The easiest way to describe it is like having 16 Compact Discs, but all with the ability to record, and all with twice the sampling frequency of CD. And even if I sample at half the maximum sampling rate, it's still clearer than Compact Disc.
"The tracks are 13½ minutes long each, but one of the best parts of it is that you can go straight back into play after recording without rewinding, because it's random access memory. I had a sax player over here helping me beef up the Late, Late Breakfast Show theme, and he couldn't believe that he'd just played his part and I was playing it straight back to him. That's only normally possible with a sequencer."

It's no surprise, then, to learn that Hardcastle rarely has any use for two-inch or quarter-inch tape any more.

"I master straight onto a Sony PCM F1. The only problem with that is you can't edit on it. If I do need to do some edits I can still go across to the Revox without too much loss in quality because it's all been put down so clean. It's usually at the 24-track stage that you manage to build up a lot of noise. If there's none there in the first place, you find it doesn't really hurt at all to bounce onto analogue.

"There are 16 stereo tracks on the Direct-to-Disk, not 16 mono tracks. It's like a 32-track recorder because all the things you'd normally want to do in stereo you can do without losing another track. The voices on the Synclavier are all stereo too, and now the sampling's stereo. What New England Digital tend to do is put a lot of facilities on a machine, and then work on the software for a particular area at a time. There are buttons that aren't in use yet like the Chain, Insert and Delete functions. Very soon I'll be able to write a verse and a chorus into the Synclavier and, if I want to try taking one part out and putting it somewhere else, I'll be able to do that like you can on the LinnDrum.

"The Direct-to-Disk uses cartridges to download all the information when you get to the end of the 13½ minutes. There's such an amount of memory to take off - 13½ minutes recorded at that sort of quality takes up around 156 Megabytes of memory. Think how long it takes a micro to load up a program from cassette, and remember that's only around 64K. This is 156 million bytes. I've only used it once so far, though, and that was for the Late, Late Breakfast Show.

"It's the most advanced recording technology in the world, and it's going to take people a long time to catch up with that. Now NED are going into the video post-production market."

buzby

#27
Quote from: Uncle TechTip on September 06, 2018, 02:49:52 PM
Tidbit from Hardcastle on the Story show was that it was the first track ever recorded and mixed on disk, with no tape involved (Synclavier)
New England Digital's hard disk-based recording system was called Direct-To-Disk, and came in 3 versions:

  • Synclavier TS (Tapeless Studio), which was the Direct-To-Disk system (one 19" rack) and the full Synclavier FM synth & sampler (another 19" rack)
  • Synclavier Post Pro, which was the full Direct-To-Disk system and controller (a single 19" rack), with no synth component.
  • Synclavier Post Pro SD (Sound Design), which was a cut-down Direct-To-Dick system with a cut down Synclavier synth/sampler built into a single rack..
By 1986 the HMI had been upgraded from the ABLE rackmount CPU and dumb terminal to a software-based interface running on an Apple Mac.
Hardcastle's system was a Synclavier TS - he still has it:

It cost him around £200,000 in 1986, basically all his royalties from '19'. Keeping those old SCSI disks going these days will be a job in itself.

Kraftwerk bought a TS for use on Electric Cafe and fully expanded the Direct-To-Disk system (about $800,000 worth) so they could transfer all their analogue master tapes onto it. It was then used to produce The Mix' remix album, and on their late 80s/early 90s live shows.

Uncle TechTip


buzby

A bit more on pricing for the Synclavier and it's options (these prices are from mid-1989):

- Core 3200 System: Includes CPU, two channels of ADC, Mac II with 16" colour monitor and internal 20Mb hard disk, 80Mb system hard disk, high density floppy disk, 2 in/8 out MIDI interface, SMPTE reader card, sound library, software, documentation: $57,105
(this was the 'cut down' Synclavier that was also part of the single rack Post Pro SD system)

- Core 9600 System: Includes CPU, two channels of ADC, 76-note keyboard with button panel, Mac II with 19" colour monitor and 30Mb hard disk, 320Mb system hard disk, high density floppy disk, 2 in/8 out MIDI interface, SMPTE reader, sound library, software, documentation: $148,108
(note that by 1988 the Additive/FM Synthesis engine of the original Synclavier had become an optional extra, and it was being sold primarily as a sampler)

- Four voice sampling card (for 3200): $1822
- Four voice sampling card (for 9600): $6075
  (For Direct-To-Disk you need as many sampling voices as tracks you want to use, in addition to sampling voices actually used as instruments in your track - the 3200 could have a maximum of 32 voices, the 9600 could have 96)
- Eight voice synthesis card (9600 only): $6075
  (The 3200 was a sampler only, and did not support the synth engine)
- 4Mb RAM card: $6075
- 16Mb RAM card: $24,300
  (the 3200 had a maximum sample memory capacity of 32Mb, the 9600 had 96Mb)
- Eight-channel output card: $6075
- Sixteen-channel output card: $12,150
  (up to 32 seperate audio output channels could be installed)
- Optical disk: $35,842 (Megneto-Optical WORM drive for sample data and composition backup - the sequencer allowed up to 200 tracks and a length that was limited by the amount of storage space available)
- 320Mb hard disk: $15,187
  (the standard configuration for Direct-To-Disk was 4 320Mb drives, which gave 8 tracks with 50 minutes recording time at 50kHz. Adding the MaxTrax hardware/software option plus an additional 4 disks would allow 16 tracks with 25 minutes recording time. As many disks could be added as there were SCSI IDs)
- Kennedy tape backup: $6,986 (cheaper and slower alternative to the WORM drive - Direct-To-Disk used multiple tape drives in parallel to allow multiple tracks at once to be backed up)
- DSP module: $9112 (Digital effects processor)
- VITC (software and firmware): $1397
- VITC (with reader): $3766 
  (VITC - Vertical Interval Timecode, the sync system used in video editing and production instead of SMPTE)
- Music Engraving Option: $2126 (used for outputting notation and scores as PostScript files)
- Sound Ideas Sound effects library (optical): $2126
- Denny Jaeger master Violin Library (optical): $15,187

The early 90s economic downturn and the advent of relatively cheap software-based DAWs that ran on Macs or PCs and offered digital multitrack capability (like DigiDesign's Sound Tools, which evolved into the first version of Pro Tools in 1991) that did for New England Digital, and they went bust in 1992. The following year also saw the release of the iZ/Otari RADAR hard disk-based 24-track ADAT recording system for professional studio use. Fostex bought out the rights to NED's Direct-To-Disk system and took on their engineers to develop their Foundation 2000 hard disk multitrack recorder, which was also released in 1993.