Jingles (2)

The Jingles (a potted history)

The article below was featered in the FRS 40th Anniversary Souvenir booklet, being produced by the end of 2020. This 32-page booklet can still be ordered. Just drop us a line by e-mail (or P.O.Box 2702 in 6049 ZG Herten, the Netherlands).

Celebrating such a milestone without a customized set of jingles would be unthinkable. Let’s first go back in time. A potted jingle history…
Since FRS’ start back in 1980, dozens of jingles have been produced. Initially with a ‘good old’ Akai 4000DB tape recorder (owned by Joop terZee)which had the then vital dubbing option. Joop produced most of our jingles in the first 20 years. Twice we ordered jingles via professional jingle companies: Alfasound (early 1984) and Pams UK Int. (Oct. 1987). In the late 1980s many of our voice IDs/ liners were produced by Nolan. Nolan was a US citizen, temporarily living in Strasbourg to finish his studies. One Sunday he was listening on the shortwave bands and heard FRS-Holland. He sent a letter/ reception report to our Dedemsvaart address and….our contact was continued. And so it happened Nolan became FRS’ main voice over. Also after moving back to the state of New York, USA, Nolan continued doing voice over jobs for FRS-Holland. His distinctive voice was the perfect ‘instrument’ for our jingles!  Nolan became engineer on a New York based TV station. Nowadays he’s chief engineer of another TV/radio station!
In the 2000s it was our good friend Ian making it possible for us to call upon Owen, a very professional & gifted voice over. In the mean time Owen has been with us for over 20 years. And he still is! In October we contacted Owen asking him to do a set of ‘40th Anniversary liners’.  He agreed and not long after, a list of liners was sent. After some 10 days Owen had finished his job for FRS producing more than a handful voice ID’s, making us very happy. The FRS production library was used to mix the voice IDs with music beds that matched. Within a few weeks a complete 40th Anniversary set was produced!
Bert van Leer and also Mike Taylor produced  a number of voice tracks/ jingles completing the set . Nice detail: they produced 40 ‘numbers IDs’ to be used for the Top 40 tracks: ‘Free Radio Service Holland number 40’….‘Free Radio Service Holland number 1.’

Last but not least a fun fact: in our very first studio we used a real jingle machine. It was certainly nót a state-of-the-art device but for us the ease of use was vital. It was based on the 8-track technology: each cartridge contained four stereo jingles. It was a ‘play only’ device: we had to send a tape and a list of wanted jingles to the selling company who recorded them on 8-track.  Main advantage was of course the fact when loading an 8-tracks, the wanted jingle was always ready to be played!

In the 1990’s the minidisc entered the world of radio. A fantastic piece of equipment and ideal for playing jingles. Just over 250 tracks (read: jingles) can be recorded on an MD. Even though the MD didn’t make it in the world of audio technology in the end,  it still is in use by us.
In addition to this,  jingles are played from hard disk via a so called Play Out system. It contains three virtual players in which jingles & digital music tracks can be loaded. Nice and easy! Although the Mini Disc didn’t make it on the commercial market, it still remains a great piece of equipment still being used in FRS’ main studio.
Last but not least: where we once started using that aforementioned Akai tape recorder, it was the mini disc taking over in the 1990s soon to be replaced by computer software offering unlimited opportunities. Our favorite software was and still is Audition. It was originally developed as Cool Edit…what’s in a name? Audition contains almost unlimited effects and a great number of so called ‘plug ins’ (noise cancelling, amplifying etc.) and you can virtually do anyhing you wanna do…in the 20th century huge 16 or 32-track tape recorders were used. Audition can handle unlimited simultaneous tracks! ◄

Finally, three jingle mixes by Joop ter Zee, who was responsible for the majority of the FRS-Holland jingles until 2000. Enjoy listening!