NAB Broadcast Cartridges and Vintage Radio 1 Memories

[af024]

I know it’s not a very good photo, but it does at least show various NAB cartridges on the shelf just above the Sonifex cartridge players and it’s radio 1. This is a good opener for my questions …

Does anyone know if the BBC Radio 1 label colour on the end of the cartridges was significant? I can see three colours in the shot - pink, yellow and white, perhaps there were others too? Could it be that they were colour-coded by the BBC to denote particular subject matter like, news, weather, traffic reports, adverts/promos, DJ-specific etc etc or was it just a case of what was to hand at the time it was recorded?

I was thinking how the likes of Tom Browne would have announced the record position in the chart rundown back in the 70s – would it be the case that all ‘number twenty’, ‘number nineteen’ etc jingles were sequentially recorded on one cart, or would each number be on its own cart?

It always amazed me how slick it all sounded. The timing had to be spot on, and of course Tom would have to wrestle with cueing up a record and opening up the mic etc, not to mention tackling unexpected traffic announcements etc. He also had to finish on the dot of 7:00pm regardless! Of course you’d really be in for it if the cart snarled up, or you forgot what number was coming next (especially if you had to skip over a particular chart position, as was the case in most Top Twenty chart run-downs), I mean, you couldn’t exactly rewind it and get back to the number you wanted!

Actually, that brings me onto another point, who was responsible for ensuring that all carts were taken right back to the first cue point, ready for use once more? The DJs must have been very trusting to let others do it. It could have well and truly scuppered a show.

If there were multiple (different) jingles on one cart, then how would a DJ know what was on it and where the cart was currently parked? There was no such thing as ‘preview’.

For complicated announcements, I know that these Sonifex cart machines could be fired off in a sequence, but how were they sequenced/programmed and by whom and how would you stop that sequencing if the jingles to follow were manually demanded?

For anyone that doesn’t know, the stereo Sonifex cart machine laid down 3 tracks – left, right and cue. They ran at a standard 7.5 ips. I read somewhere that they start up within 20mS which is pretty impressive if that’s true, because my audacity software, for instance, seems to take ages to start to play an mp3 file – probably 1s!

I keep thinking about Kenny Everett and how he used to create his own jingles at home. I guess, as a common listener, I didn’t really give it much thought as to all the effort involved and certainly, I never considered the risk of it all going wrong once on air and how the DJ might pick up the pieces thereafter.

Just for an experiment, I’d love it of a modern Radio 1 DJ had to use the old set-up for an hour or two.

[llama]

I read somewhere that Tom Browne who you mention didn't actually use carts for the chart run-down - the chart positions were played in by a studio assistant off reel to reel. There was a fast and slow version of each. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong - and maybe he used carts later in his period of tenure.

When I did some local radio I sometimes had multiple jingles/messages on a cart but it didn't really matter which came next as I made sure they were just variations on pretty much the same thing.
Graham

[Simondm]

See: https://orbem.co.uk/cons/consd.htm.

[af024]

That's really interesting about the Top 20/40. I had no idea the countdown numbers came off an open reel or that there were two types per number. Still a headache either way you look at it - all live too!

[paulsherwin]

R1 productions didn't use one person operation (though the local stations sometimes did). The DJs sometimes cued their own records using slipmats, but most of the knob twiddling and logistics was done by others - 'studio managers' or 'technical operators'.

[Andy Green]

Leaving a cart uncued was a hanging offence in most radio stations! When I used them years ago, the etiquette was to turn uncued ones upside down with a view to reminding yourself to cue them up again before returning them to the rack. Multiple items were never recorded on one cart unless it really didn’t matter what came up (which was very rare). You could switch off sequential firing on most cart decks I came across.

[af024]

Considering a multiple person approach with a DJ (presumably cueing up his own 7" singles and operating a mixer), someone operating an open 1/4 inch reel machine and someone else (possibly) re-cuing used NAB carts, not to mention the odd interruption for a traffic announcement etc, I'm amazed how slickly it progressed. I would have been a nervous wreck 2 mins into the show!

Leaving un-cued carts upside down is a great idea. I can imagine the rows when and if people didn't do the decent thing.

I wonder how often the carts jammed up or a belt flew off etc, or if mono and stereo ones got mixed up.

Does anyone know if the label colours meant anything?

I wonder if the 1970s numbers jingles still exist anywhere? Also, why were there two different jungles per number that could be used - nothing like complicating things further - how bizarre.

I guess the technical staff kept the heads clean etc. I wonder when someone would decide that a jingle was too well worn and when, and my whom, it would be re-recorded.

In special cases like Kenny Everett, presumably he'd not only record and prepare a master tape, but then he'd decide how it would be recorded to a new blank cart, together with the appropriate cue tone (depending upon what behaviour he wanted from the cart during use.

None of this stuff was simple was it!

[Welsh Anorak]

A very much more prosaic example of cueing, but relevant.

A friend and I were doing the sound effects for a local am-dram society. There were a lot to do so we used quite a number of cassette tapes (it was the Eighties), all new with just the one effect on each, and all labelled, cued up ready to play.

First night, unbeknown to us one of the more irritating members of the society came in, popped a tape into the machine and pressed Play. Hmm, a doorbell. Next tape - oh, a car arriving. And so he went through them all.

So come the first effect cue, popped tape in - silence. Then the next - silence. Realisation dawned as we frantically rewound the tapes to cue again leaving the cast to say things like 'I'm sure he'll be arriving soon! No, not yet...'

The culprit couldn't understand why two very irate people came chasing after him.

[af024]

That sounded like it was a complete nightmare! I can just imagine the scene. I wonder how he felt when the penny dropped!

Talking of nightmares, assuming that there were multiple cartridges with the same thing on them (one set per DJ or perhaps one set per studio), what a nightmare it must have been to ‘update’ them all with new corporate jingles (like when it changed from 247m to 275/285m). I mean were they all manually recorded, per cartridge, by someone who was a ‘whiz kid expert’ at starting a master reel-to-reel recording and pressing the start (rec) button on the NAB Cart machine at the right time and deciding upon the cue tone type etc, or were they somehow duplicated from a single master? I’m not aware of a cartridge machine that would ‘give up’ all its tracks – left, right and cue for another NAB machine to record the three tracks as presented. Mmmm…

[paulsherwin]

The BBC was very reluctant to allow even DJ cueing in the 60s - it was very alien to BBC radio production culture. Light Programme DJs in the pre-R1 era like David Jacobs didn't cue their own records, they just read a script which indicated to the operator when to start playing the record. Eventually they accepted that pirate style presentation needed direct DJ cueing but they were never completely happy with it.

[red16v]

I hope the mods will permit a slight diversion? These were often used by ITV companies to put local commercials to air. A sequence of slides making up the commercial (local curry house, Yeovil Sheepskin company etc) would loaded in sequence on a slide scanner and the Cart machine would have the voiceover on one track and the cue track (blip tone) would be fed to the slide scanner to change slides at the appropriate point. Never went wrong in my experience. I still have a NAB cartridge in my study drawer but nothing to play it on, I sometimes wonder what’s on it? Nicholas Parsons extolling the virtues of Bolloms dry cleaners perhaps?

[Analogue man]

Sonifex are still going strong just about 7 miles from my house.

[af024]

Nicholas Parsons extolling the virtues of Bolloms dry cleaners eh, I'd like to hear that!

So Sonifex is still going eh, that's great news.

[red16v]

Originally Posted by af024

Nicholas Parsons extolling the virtues of Bolloms dry cleaners eh, I'd like to hear that!

So Sonifex is still going eh, that's great news.

At the time it was rumoured he had a significant financial interest in the company and used himself to save money. Sorry mods.