Just A Minute

--- In just-a-minute@..., Don Judge wrote:
>
> Blimey! Seems I am sadly lacking in that era of the episodes.
> Looks like I can only help with 1 or 2....
>
> Now in my JAM upload folder - http://www.mediafire.com/?17rnd8u0bpx3v
>
> 1990.04.07 - sneezes - 28.3mb - noisy, muddy sound, like an AM radio
>
> same and mine's only 4.7MB
>
> 1991.02.02 - telepathy - 22.1mb - very "thin" sound, sounds like a mediocre 70s recording.
> I don't have it
>
> 1991.02.09 - bags - 13.9mb - very poor, muddy sound.
> I don't have it
>
>
> 1991.02.16 - A good part to play - 27.9mb - very thin sound again, like telepathy above.
> I don't have it
>
>
> 1991.02.23 - Biscuits in bed - 7mb - no intro, and very poor sound
> Same as yours and 6.8MB
>
> 1992.01.25 - This And That - 27.7mb - thin, muddy sound
> I don't have it
>
>
> 1992.02.01 - What - 13.9mb - very muddy sound
> Same as yours and 13.5MB
>
>
> 1992.02.22 - Advertising - 13.7mb - very muddy
> Same as yours and 
>
>
> 1994.01.22 - Norwitch - 14.2mb - very muddy
> I don't have it
>
>
> 1995.02.11 - Dragons - 13.9mb - very muddy
> I don't have it
>
> 1996.02.17 - Burns - 28.4mb - thin and muddy sound
> I don't have it
>
> 1997.01.04 - The Scotsman - 7.1mb - very muddy sound
> 12.9MB Not as muddy as the others but the speed is too fast - NP and everyone sound like they're breathing helium
>
> 1997.07.19 - Manchester - 27.6mb - muddy and unstable, "AM radio" like sound
> I have two versions, 27.5MB and 11.9MB both stereo and sound pretty good to me.
>
> 1997.08.09 - Flying By The Seats Of My Pants - 6.9mb - very muddy sound
>
> Slightly muddy but still very 'listenable' and 12.9MB
>
>
> Would have made life easier for me if you had quoted total episode number or series/episode
> Thank goodness for Dean's ep guide  
>  
>
> --
> Cheers
>
> Don   __o
>       \<,
> .....O/ O
>

--- In just-a-minute@..., "Dean" wrote:
>
>
> I think I was listening to the Manchester one via an internet audio stream just yesterday â€" can't think whose it was â€" and thought it was a great show.
>
> On a serious note, heaps of thanks to you Espen for the audio stream. I'm always careful to tell anyone who links it to me to acknowledge that it isn't my work. I find myself listening to it at different times most days, often hearing shows I hadn't heard for a while. It's a wonderful service and it always provokes some thought on my part about how the show has changed so much â€" yet in all eras has been so funny.
>
> Commenting on the thread about a new gang of four... just to note that in the three and a half years since Clement's death, the top 10 performers in terms of appearances are (includes 80 radio shows, 10 TV shows, and 4 radio shows recorded but not yet broadcast)-
>
> Paul Merton 82
> Gyles Brandreth 31
> Sue Perkins 28
> Tony Hawks 24
> Graham Norton 22
> Julian Clary 16
> Jenny Eclair 15
> Liza Tarbuck 12
> Josie Lawrence 11
> Alun Cochrane 9
>
> We all will have our own preferences of course, but trying to be objective â€" if you were trying to reduce that list to four...
>
> * Paul obviously
> * given Graham Norton's huge fame and the warmth with which he is regarded throughout the UK, you'd want him â€" he is simply far more well-known and popular than anyone else on that list.
> * you'd want a woman â€" Sue Perkins is the obvious choice.
> * the last person should be someone who provides a contrast in styles â€" both in content and how they sound â€" I think that's Gyles Brandreth.
>
> that's a bit unfair on Tony Hawks who's been on the show more often than anyone else except Paul â€" but there we are.
>
> But again, trying to be realistic â€" it may be that Graham wouldn't commit to appearing more often than he does with his other commitments. Do you then bring in Tony â€" or again look for a contrast in styles with either Julian Clary or Jenny Eclair?
>
> cheers
>
> Dean
>

>
> Interesting. Not sure about Graham and Kenneth, I don't think anyone is going to be like him. He was a troubled soul and brought this to the show as well at times. But I do miss him and its his shows that I listen to mostly to cheer me up.
> Derek and Paul I can see this.
> Peter err.....well I can also see this as well in some respects, but Peters one liners do take some beating.
> Gyles and Clement, I would have said the Stephen Fry aspect maybe more akin. Gyles is just too aggressive in my view, although we all have our views, but its a good talking point.

 

Blimey! Seems I am sadly lacking in that era of the episodes. <blush!>

Looks like I can only help with 1 or 2....

 

1997.08.09 - Flying By The Seats Of My Pants - 6.9mb - very muddy sound

Slightly muddy but still very 'listenable' and 12.9MB

 

G'day Espen. My results are much like yours, but I do have a jolly good copy of 411 (Telepathy).

I've also removed the background hiss from 461 (Burns) but the muddiness of the voices remains.

Both are at http://nylon.net/up

Hope that helps  :-)

--- In just-a-minute@..., Espen Krømke wrote:
>
> Thanks alot, Mark. I look forward to compare "Burns"!
>
> But this begs the question: How come the recordings we got from this
> decade is so particularly bad? Cause really, my list of shabby sounding
> recordings from the 90s could easily be doubled. I wonder why!
>
> Cause logically one would assume the quality rise as the recordings gets
> newer.
>
>
>
>
> Den 21. jan. 2013 02:31, skrev nylon:
> > G'day Espen. My results are much like yours, but I do have a jolly
> > good copy of 411 (Telepathy).
> > I've also removed the background hiss from 461 (Burns) but the
> > muddiness of the voices remains.
> >
> > Both are at http://nylon.net/up
> >
> > Hope that helps :-)
>
> >
>

--- In just-a-minute@..., "InnerRevolution7" wrote:
>
> I know the answer!!! (raises hand) Ok, its a crap guess....
>
> I think it MAY be because the 90's is when people first started turning audio into MP3, and in the early days of doing that, some horrible errors were made in making small files, as people had tiny hard drives and were sharing with dial up. These days we can make reasonably small files that don't sound quite that bad. But some of those early MP3s are really horrendous. That might be why you see a quality dip in the 90's as things moved from audio tape to early MP3s.
>
>
> --- In just-a-minute@..., Espen Krømke wrote:
> >
> > Thanks alot, Mark. I look forward to compare "Burns"!
> >
> > But this begs the question: How come the recordings we got from this
> > decade is so particularly bad? Cause really, my list of shabby sounding
> > recordings from the 90s could easily be doubled. I wonder why!
> >
> > Cause logically one would assume the quality rise as the recordings gets
> > newer.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Den 21. jan. 2013 02:31, skrev nylon:
> > > G'day Espen. My results are much like yours, but I do have a jolly
> > > good copy of 411 (Telepathy).
> > > I've also removed the background hiss from 461 (Burns) but the
> > > muddiness of the voices remains.
> > >
> > > Both are at http://nylon.net/up
> > >
> > > Hope that helps :-)
> >
> > >
> >
>

--- In just-a-minute@..., Don Judge wrote:
>
> Yupp IR I'll go along with that.
>
> I would add a bit more though...
> I reckon some of the artefacts we hear remind me of my recordings I used to make in those days off air from the TV and Transistor Radio using one of those portable cassette recorders and a microphone.
>
>  
>
> From: InnerRevolution7
> >To: just-a-minute@...
> >Sent: Monday, 21 January 2013, 19:35
> >Subject: [just-a-minute] Re: 90s shows in poor sound
> >
> >I know the answer!!!  (raises hand)  Ok, its a crap guess....
> >
> >I think it MAY be because the 90's is when people first started turning audio into MP3, and in the early days of doing that, some horrible errors were made in making small files, as people had tiny hard drives and were sharing with dial up.  These days we can make reasonably small files that don't sound quite that bad.  But some of those early MP3s are really horrendous.  That might be why you see a quality dip in the 90's as things moved from audio tape to early MP3s.
> >
>

--- In just-a-minute@..., nylon wrote:
>
> True. I remember thinking with horror that a song took nearly FOUR
> MEGABYTES - it would take up to four floppy disks to store it, zipped with
> spanning. In those days we went to desperate lengths to save every byte:
> look at the 1990s Geocities websites to get some idea how parsimonious we
> were with media.
>
> Nowadays, I regard a 700MB movie as "sub-standard quality" and use the
> 1.4GB version because it's a bit nicer :-)
>
>
> On 22 January 2013 06:35, InnerRevolution7 wrote:
>
> > **
> >
> >
> > I know the answer!!! (raises hand) Ok, its a crap guess....
> >
> > I think it MAY be because the 90's is when people first started turning
> > audio into MP3, and in the early days of doing that, some horrible errors
> > were made in making small files, as people had tiny hard drives and were
> > sharing with dial up. These days we can make reasonably small files that
> > don't sound quite that bad. But some of those early MP3s are really
> > horrendous. That might be why you see a quality dip in the 90's as things
> > moved from audio tape to early MP3s.
> >
> > --- In just-a-minute@..., Espen Krømke wrote:
> > >
> > > Thanks alot, Mark. I look forward to compare "Burns"!
> > >
> > > But this begs the question: How come the recordings we got from this
> > > decade is so particularly bad? Cause really, my list of shabby sounding
> > > recordings from the 90s could easily be doubled. I wonder why!
> > >
> > > Cause logically one would assume the quality rise as the recordings gets
> > > newer.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Den 21. jan. 2013 02:31, skrev nylon:
> > > > G'day Espen. My results are much like yours, but I do have a jolly
> > > > good copy of 411 (Telepathy).
> > > > I've also removed the background hiss from 461 (Burns) but the
> > > > muddiness of the voices remains.
> > > >
> > > > Both are at http://nylon.net/up
> > > >
> > > > Hope that helps :-)
> > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
> Mark
> mark@...
> http://nylon.net
>

 

I know the answer!!! (raises hand) Ok, its a crap guess....

I think it MAY be because the 90's is when people first started turning audio into MP3, and in the early days of doing that, some horrible errors were made in making small files, as people had tiny hard drives and were sharing with dial up. These days we can make reasonably small files that don't sound quite that bad. But some of those early MP3s are really horrendous. That might be why you see a quality dip in the 90's as things moved from audio tape to early MP3s.

Where they digitized from tape at a later stage than the 90s recordings?

"WERE" - of course. Not "where".

On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 9:50 AM, Espen Krømke <espen.kromke@...> wrote:

You may be onto something - but why are then the 80s  and even 70s shows (often) in a better quality? Where they digitized from tape at a later stage than the 90s recordings?
Cause back in the 90s they must have still done the actual recording on tape - if I remember correctly there was no online streaming of radio back then - we did not have such a bandwidth. Ergo, the source of the 90s show should logically be the same as the older shows - so why are then the 90s shows this bad in comparison?

I don't feel we've cracked this mystery just yet!




Den 21. jan. 2013 20:35, skrev InnerRevolution7:

 

I know the answer!!! (raises hand) Ok, its a crap guess....

I think it MAY be because the 90's is when people first started turning audio into MP3, and in the early days of doing that, some horrible errors were made in making small files, as people had tiny hard drives and were sharing with dial up. These days we can make reasonably small files that don't sound quite that bad. But some of those early MP3s are really horrendous. That might be why you see a quality dip in the 90's as things moved from audio tape to early MP3s.

--
James R Curry

scratchy@...

--- In just-a-minute@..., James R Curry wrote:
>
> This is an interesting discussion. My theory, with only anecdotal evidence
> to support it, is that these shows have been rerun less frequently.
>
> JAM reruns seem to fall into two categories, at least when I've listened to
> them: Classic era shows (The gang of four at their height) and modern era
> (Paul as a regular with Clement as a frequent guest). The gang-of-three
> plus Paul era, approximately 1989 when Kenneth died until 2000 when Peter
> died, seems (to me) to get less play. Perhaps that's because at the time,
> listening to the show, the lack of Kenneth Williams is notable?
>
> Just my uneducated guess.
>
> On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 9:50 AM, Espen Krømke wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > You may be onto something - but why are then the 80s and even 70s shows
> > (often) in a better quality? Where they digitized from tape at a later
> > stage than the 90s recordings?
> > Cause back in the 90s they must have still done the actual recording on
> > tape - if I remember correctly there was no online streaming of radio back
> > then - we did not have such a bandwidth. Ergo, the source of the 90s show
> > should logically be the same as the older shows - so why are then the 90s
> > shows this bad in comparison?
> >
> > I don't feel we've cracked this mystery just yet!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Den 21. jan. 2013 20:35, skrev InnerRevolution7:
> >
> >
> >
> > I know the answer!!! (raises hand) Ok, its a crap guess....
> >
> > I think it MAY be because the 90's is when people first started turning
> > audio into MP3, and in the early days of doing that, some horrible errors
> > were made in making small files, as people had tiny hard drives and were
> > sharing with dial up. These days we can make reasonably small files that
> > don't sound quite that bad. But some of those early MP3s are really
> > horrendous. That might be why you see a quality dip in the 90's as things
> > moved from audio tape to early MP3s.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
> --
> James R Curry
> scratchy@...
>

--- In just-a-minute@..., "David" wrote:
>
> If I believed in JAM reincarnation and was asked to give three word reasons why this is what I would say:
>
> Kenneth Williams - Graham Norton (naughty, camp, unpredictable)
> Derek Nimmo - Paul Merton (steady, normalizer, fantasist)
> Peter Jones - Tony Hawks (everyman, calming, friendly-ish)
> Clement Freud - Gyles Brandreth (grumpy, knowledgeable, authoritative)
>
> I will now prepare for others to tell me how WRONG I am and accept my mantle of "nerd of the year"
>
>
> Love as always, David
>
> --- In just-a-minute@..., "Dean" wrote:
> >
> >
> > I think I was listening to the Manchester one via an internet audio stream just yesterday â€" can't think whose it was â€" and thought it was a great show.
> >
> > On a serious note, heaps of thanks to you Espen for the audio stream. I'm always careful to tell anyone who links it to me to acknowledge that it isn't my work. I find myself listening to it at different times most days, often hearing shows I hadn't heard for a while. It's a wonderful service and it always provokes some thought on my part about how the show has changed so much â€" yet in all eras has been so funny.
> >
> > Commenting on the thread about a new gang of four... just to note that in the three and a half years since Clement's death, the top 10 performers in terms of appearances are (includes 80 radio shows, 10 TV shows, and 4 radio shows recorded but not yet broadcast)-
> >
> > Paul Merton 82
> > Gyles Brandreth 31
> > Sue Perkins 28
> > Tony Hawks 24
> > Graham Norton 22
> > Julian Clary 16
> > Jenny Eclair 15
> > Liza Tarbuck 12
> > Josie Lawrence 11
> > Alun Cochrane 9
> >
> > We all will have our own preferences of course, but trying to be objective â€" if you were trying to reduce that list to four...
> >
> > * Paul obviously
> > * given Graham Norton's huge fame and the warmth with which he is regarded throughout the UK, you'd want him â€" he is simply far more well-known and popular than anyone else on that list.
> > * you'd want a woman â€" Sue Perkins is the obvious choice.
> > * the last person should be someone who provides a contrast in styles â€" both in content and how they sound â€" I think that's Gyles Brandreth.
> >
> > that's a bit unfair on Tony Hawks who's been on the show more often than anyone else except Paul â€" but there we are.
> >
> > But again, trying to be realistic â€" it may be that Graham wouldn't commit to appearing more often than he does with his other commitments. Do you then bring in Tony â€" or again look for a contrast in styles with either Julian Clary or Jenny Eclair?
> >
> > cheers
> >
> > Dean
> >
>

--- In just-a-minute@..., "Philip Fitchett" wrote:
>
> Is it not just that fewer people were listening and recording these shows when they were first broadcast? You often seem to hear Nick say something to the effect of “When Kenneth died, people thought the show would die with him.” With hindsight we now know that it didn't, mainly due to Paul coming in, but it took a while for him to really establish himself. Kenneth had been such a mainstay of the show over the years, some may have stopped listening for a while altogether. These unsteady shows with Wendy Richard and Lance Percival are now just in the interim but perhaps at the time people saw them as being the last gasps of a flagging show? Just a thought.
>

--- In just-a-minute@..., "InnerRevolution7" wrote:
>
> Another valid point. With so many well-reasoned theories that appear to hold some water, I'm starting to get the feeling it may not be any one of these things on their own... but more likely a converging of these factors that put the 90's shows at risk. What we do know from experience is, if more people had been capturing them, and if at least a few of these people were using better capturing methods and larger file sizes, the better sounding versions would have won out here and there over time. It makes sense to me that a number of things
> contributed to this at the time, rather than just one thing.
>
> I agree with what you say about Kenneth dying. The first few seasons after Humph died, I quit capturing ISIHAC, and only listened to a couple of the shows randomly. On some level it just felt like they were wrong to continue. It was too soon for me. Once I started enjoying it again, I quickly caught up on all the episodes I had missed out on. But that was in a much later era when (luckily for me) everyone was file sharing nice, high quality versions.
>
> Bad sounding or not, it makes me start to appreciate that without whoever did the low quality JAM recordings that we DO have, we might have lots of unfortunate gaping holes in the 90's. Thank you, mystery low quality archive JAM-lover person. :)
>
>
>
> --- In just-a-minute@..., "Philip Fitchett" wrote:
> >
> > Is it not just that fewer people were listening and recording these shows when they were first broadcast? You often seem to hear Nick say something to the effect of “When Kenneth died, people thought the show would die with him.” With hindsight we now know that it didn't, mainly due to Paul coming in, but it took a while for him to really establish himself. Kenneth had been such a mainstay of the show over the years, some may have stopped listening for a while altogether. These unsteady shows with Wendy Richard and Lance Percival are now just in the interim but perhaps at the time people saw them as being the last gasps of a flagging show? Just a thought.
> >
>

 

Is it not just that fewer people were listening and recording these shows when they were first broadcast? You often seem to hear Nick say something to the effect of “When Kenneth died, people thought the show would die with him.”

That's what he said in that JAM documentary, but the key word here is "thought" - it didn't happen. In that same documentary it was also said (I think by Clement but it might have been Nic) that in fact the number of listeners *increased* after Kenneth died.
So the show did not have fewer listeners in the 90s, not according to this documentary at least.

--- In just-a-minute@..., "Simon" wrote:
>
>
> Maybe it's a technology thing. These days bottom end technology can record pretty well, but back then compact cassette was the mainstay with computers capable of mixing audio. In the effort to bring equipment prices down, quality and durability did too, and maybe some of the hobbyists recording these shows didn't have the cash to upgrade their equipment to anything better.
>
> Or possibly someone was faced with a large collection of tapes and no space some time back and dumped them to computer at a time when acceptable recording standards weren't what they are now.
>
> I have a couple of tapes of 90s radio shows (not JAM) in my attic back home, should I dig them out and see if I can digitise them?
>
>
>
> --- In just-a-minute@..., "InnerRevolution7" wrote:
> >
> > Another valid point. With so many well-reasoned theories that appear to hold some water, I'm starting to get the feeling it may not be any one of these things on their own... but more likely a converging of these factors that put the 90's shows at risk. What we do know from experience is, if more people had been capturing them, and if at least a few of these people were using better capturing methods and larger file sizes, the better sounding versions would have won out here and there over time. It makes sense to me that a number of things
> > contributed to this at the time, rather than just one thing.
> >
> > I agree with what you say about Kenneth dying. The first few seasons after Humph died, I quit capturing ISIHAC, and only listened to a couple of the shows randomly. On some level it just felt like they were wrong to continue. It was too soon for me. Once I started enjoying it again, I quickly caught up on all the episodes I had missed out on. But that was in a much later era when (luckily for me) everyone was file sharing nice, high quality versions.
> >
> > Bad sounding or not, it makes me start to appreciate that without whoever did the low quality JAM recordings that we DO have, we might have lots of unfortunate gaping holes in the 90's. Thank you, mystery low quality archive JAM-lover person. :)

--- In just-a-minute@..., "Simon B Kelly" wrote:
>
>
>
> Although high quality recordings of the nineties shows may not be circulating amongst fans, I'm sure they all still exist in broadcast quality inside the BBC archive. We just need the Beeb to share them with us, like they've done with Desert Island Discs and Letter from America.
>
> In fact, their most recent project has been to upload over 70,000 programmes from the BBC World Service audio archive:
> http://worldservice.prototyping.bbc.co.uk/
>
> As JAM was regularly broadcast on the World Service, I wonder if it's included? I don't suppose anyone here is one of the beta testers?
>
> Simon
>
>
> --- In just-a-minute@..., "Simon" wrote:
> >
> >
> > Maybe it's a technology thing. These days bottom end technology can record pretty well, but back then compact cassette was the mainstay with computers capable of mixing audio. In the effort to bring equipment prices down, quality and durability did too, and maybe some of the hobbyists recording these shows didn't have the cash to upgrade their equipment to anything better.
> >
> > Or possibly someone was faced with a large collection of tapes and no space some time back and dumped them to computer at a time when acceptable recording standards weren't what they are now.
> >
> > I have a couple of tapes of 90s radio shows (not JAM) in my attic back home, should I dig them out and see if I can digitise them?
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In just-a-minute@..., "InnerRevolution7" wrote:
> > >
> > > Another valid point. With so many well-reasoned theories that appear to hold some water, I'm starting to get the feeling it may not be any one of these things on their own... but more likely a converging of these factors that put the 90's shows at risk. What we do know from experience is, if more people had been capturing them, and if at least a few of these people were using better capturing methods and larger file sizes, the better sounding versions would have won out here and there over time. It makes sense to me that a number of things
> > > contributed to this at the time, rather than just one thing.
> > >
> > > I agree with what you say about Kenneth dying. The first few seasons after Humph died, I quit capturing ISIHAC, and only listened to a couple of the shows randomly. On some level it just felt like they were wrong to continue. It was too soon for me. Once I started enjoying it again, I quickly caught up on all the episodes I had missed out on. But that was in a much later era when (luckily for me) everyone was file sharing nice, high quality versions.
> > >
> > > Bad sounding or not, it makes me start to appreciate that without whoever did the low quality JAM recordings that we DO have, we might have lots of unfortunate gaping holes in the 90's. Thank you, mystery low quality archive JAM-lover person. :)
>

 

Nicholas’s comment was about the immediate reaction to Kenneth’s death, ie, that the BBC seriously considered ending the programme in 1988.

 

Espen, I’ve never heard the claim the show’s audience increased after Kenneth’s death. I take you at your word that you did hear it, but I have to say, I simply don’t believe it. The BBC cut back the number of shows it was recording in that period. Why do that if the show’s audience was up?

 

I think if they hadn’t found Paul as lead player and hadn’t had the rejuvenation that he sparked, the show would have ended in the mid 90s.

 

From: Espen Krømke

Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 12:29 AM

To: just-a-minute@...

Subject: Re: [just-a-minute] Re: 90s shows in poor sound

 

 

Den 23. jan. 2013 11:53, skrev Philip Fitchett:

 

Is it not just that fewer people were listening and recording these shows when they were first broadcast? You often seem to hear Nick say something to the effect of “When Kenneth died, people thought the show would die with him.”

That's what he said in that JAM documentary, but the key word here is "thought" - it didn't happen. In that same documentary it was also said (I think by Clement but it might have been Nic) that in fact the number of listeners *increased* after Kenneth died.
So the show did not have fewer listeners in the 90s, not according to this documentary at least.