Tag: television

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Recording Studio History Television Sound

Reeves Sound Studio Television Operations circa 1962

Courtesy Tom and John Fine is this fascinating 14pp 1962 article on the then-state-of-the-art television operations at Reeves Sound Studio.

Download is in two parts due to file size:

DOWNLOAD PART 1: BroadcastNews _6205_ReevesTVstudios_PART1

DOWNLOAD PART 2: BroadcastNews_6205ReevesTVstudios_PART2

Tom Fine had earlier presented us with a history of Reeves Sound Studios NYC; click here to read that 2014 piece.  Today’s scan comes from what appears to be a promotional re-print of an article originally published in Broadcast News magazine.  Tom comments, “Aside from the interesting antique TV and film production facilities and equipment shown, we see a photo of audio engineer Jack Higgins, who made many Riverside jazz records.”

You can some read more of Tom’s contributions to P/S dot com, including much information on his own family’s storied studio operations, at the following pages:

Fine Recording INC, pioneers in hi-fidelity recording

Bob Fine’s Mobile Recording Truck, 1951-1966

WMGM Studio, NYC

Emory Cook, Binaural Recording Pioneer

 

 

 

 

 

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Fascinating Collection of Television Station IDs circa 1951

Today on P S Dot Com: a fairly comprehensive survey of television station ID graphics circa 1951.  Widespread full-time telecasting did not take place in the US until 1948, so you are seeing the face of a relatively new industry here.   I realize that this post has little to do with sound, but television, as it is broadcast,  is at least 50% sonic; those of us who work in television are all-too-aware that we design programming for a distracted audience; I.E., programs and adverts are designed to deliver messages to audiences that can hear the set without necessarily seeing the screen.   The importance of television broadcasts in creating the sound-environment of the twentieth century is immense.  Anyway, here’s a trip back to the earliest days of mass-TV broadcasting in the US, and a fascinating look at how the early TV broadcasters saw themselves, as-it-were.  If anyone has a link to an online archive of the sounds that accompanied graphics such as these, please do let us know.

Many, many, many more follow: click the link below to READ ON…

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Absurd And Brilliant 1980s Consumer Electronics Commercials

If you’ve been reading this website for a while, you’ll know that I post a lot of old print adverts and catalogs featuring 1920’s – 1980’s audio equipment.  I collect this sort of paper and I have 1000s of pieces of this stuff that I am slowly bringing online for y’all.

Larger consumer electronics chains also produced adverts for cable and local television broadcast.  Most of them were negligible affairs driven solely by budget concerns, but every field will have its mavericks.  My good friend GJ turned me on to the collected television advertising of the Federated chain of stores. GJ: “…the Federated spots…were done by Shadoe Stevens when he was a young unknown playing a guy named Fred. They were small time/ cheap and weird and made a little shop really popular. Developed a cult following…some are amazing and inspiring.”  No small praise coming from GJ, a fine director himself.  You can watch his latest production, a music video for the fantastic group Peaking Lights, at this link.

I won’t offer any analysis or commentary on the Federated spots, as one could quite literally write a book about this series of spots:  there is that much going on as far as the highly intertextual and media-aware nature of these little narratives, the smart visual language, and the savvy use of minimal production bucks to create memorable advertising that really does relate well to actual consumer-benefit of the products offered.  So get ready for a journey through time and space: