Jingles

Although we do not have accurate figures, we can say that in the past 40+ years several hundreds of jingles and promos have been produced. Jingles have always played an important role on FRS-Holland and make up a very creative part of the radio hobby. The very first set of jingles was recorded in the Summer of 1980, just before FRS’ official launch. That set of jingles was produced in Dutch, German & English. It became popular among many listeners because it sounded rather freaky. It perfectly fitted in with the general free radio way of thinking, at least: that was the reaction of most listeners!

FRs jingles: the start

As far as the production of the jingles was concerned, it happened in two stages: Joop ter Zee always did the mixing/ mastering part of the job including music beds, sound effects etc. while Peter Verbruggen wrote most of the lyrics. In the early days our main tools so to speak were a few cassette decks and more important: a 4-track Akai tape recorder having a dubbing function. Using that recorder on a 19cm/s speed enabled us to edit fairly accurately. It was a very time consuming job, particularly when a jingle had to be dubbed a number of times or when several effects were added.

Alfasound & Pams

Time after time fresh new jingles and promos were recorded. Generally speaking you may conclude that as the years went by, the jingles became less freaky but certainly more creative and technically of a higher standard. By the end of 1983 FRS- Holland decided to spend some money and a small set of sonovox jingles and one voice over were ordered from Steve England’s famous Alfasound company in Manchester. Alfasounds voice over who covered FRS-Holland’s slogan “A Balance between Music & Information joined to one format, the FRS‑Holland sound tastes diferent, just a bit different“ and proved to be a timeless jingle over the years. Many different cuts have been produced over the years, all by Joop ter Zee. A few years later- in late 1986‑ FRS‑Holland ordered a set of jingles from PAMS UK. This set contained a number of sonovox jingles and voice‑overs done by the famous Bill Mitchell.

US voice overs

In 1989 an American friend started doing voice-overs and he was involved until the early 2000s.  It went like this: Peter forwarded the lyrics to New York where our US person recorded and returned them. Mostly he recorded 4 or 5 different cuts from each single liner (text for one particular jingle). The first sessions were recorded on either cassette or tape, but with the introduction of the digital era, fresh material in mp3 or wav format was transferred via the Internet in the end. See also ‘1989‘.
When our good friend from the USA dropped out of his activities, we received a golden tip from a befriended English listener. And so we were privileged (and delighted!) to make use of Owen’s services: a very professional voice over. Since 2010 he has produced tons of liners for the station.

Production library

Since 1990 FRS-Holland has a large and professional archive of production music in all formats and lengths at its disposal. In addition several CDs containing production elements have been acquired mainly from US companies. Since 2009 a new and very professional European (English language) male voice started doing voice over work for FRS-Holland, taking over most jobs from our US person Nolan.
Not to forget: once FRS also hired an American female voice over, that was in December 2007. Nice anecdote: when we sent the lyrics over the internet we used ‘SW’ as being a common abbreviation for shortwave. But apparently that lady wasn’t aware of this fact and so we received our liners with ‘SW’  [S-double U] rather than ‘shortwave’. As a result all jingles containing the words ‘Short Wave’ had to be re-recorded…. Quite hilarious!

From pro7 to md

It had to happen sooner or later. And when you look at it closely, it was a culmination. After all, from its inception, jingles played a significant role in the FRS sound. Add to that the fact that both Joop ter Zee and Peter Verbruggen were jingle-minded and were responsible for a large number of FRS jingles in the first 20 years. The outcome of all this was the production of a jingle CD: ‘From Pro7 to MD.’ The title was derived from a semi-professional Philips 2-track tape recorder that was used to produce many jingles and which at some point in the 1990s gave way to the mini-disc player.
The CD, including a photo cover and an 8-page insert, is (still) available. Contact us for more information. For more info about the CD, go to 1999.

In 2020 FRS-Holland celebrated 40 years on shortwave. On the occasion of this anniversary, a CD and a booklet were produced and for sale. The 40 years souvenir booklet contained an article about jingles which can be found here.

And finally: in 1999 FRS aired a listeners competition on the occasion of its 19th anniversary. And this competition was all about...jingles!