#outside broadcast

[scavengedluxury]

Monitors inside the Magyar TV Pye-type outside broadcast van, 1974. From the Budapest Municipal Photography Company archive.

[biscuitsarenice]

BBC Outside Broadcast, 1950s

[abcnewsgathering-blog]

BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE ABC’S 2016 NEW YEAR’S EVE BROADCAST

The ABC’s broadcast of the 2016 New Year’s Eve fireworks in Sydney was a huge logistical exercise, involving staff from the Technology division, TV production and Audience and Marketing. Nathaniel Harding produced this behind the scenes video to explain what’s involved.

[theskeletontiger-blog]

It can be perfect weather all week but the second you have an OB of the AFL the weather has to turn horrible

[thisisgranada]

An outside broadcast from the Granada Travelling Eye.

[audientltd]

How to become a Sound Engineer

Re:live Recording’s Rob Baldock, records live performances and interviews with the likes of One Direction, Foo Fighters and Kasabian, using a finely-tuned – and largely portable - recording set-up, which includes 48 fabulous channels of ASP880.

But how does anyone get into this particular line of work? We asked Rob (pictured below) to tell us how it all happened for him.

At Splendour festival, 2015

From the age of 16 I either wanted to work in a recording studio or be a live sound engineer – I didn’t really have a preference between live or studio. I studied Popular Music at college and they had a reel-to-reel 8 track. One gig we were doing, I asked my tutor, Ross Griggs if we could try and find a way to record the gig on the tape machine. So we figured out a plan and had a go.  I think that was the first time I really thought about the process.

I went on to study HE Music Tech at Confetti in Nottingham and re-focused on wanting to work in a recording studio. After finishing my course, I was offered a job teaching Music Tech back at Confetti, so I ended up doing that but continued recording bands as often as I could; at this point I still didn’t have my own studio or equipment.

At Koko for Lewis Watson

The idea of recording live gigs came back to me around 2006 after I ended up guitar-teching for my former tutor, Ross – the same one with whom I’d done that first live recording all those years before – when his band played a show at The Royal Albert Hall. I credit-carded the first lot of equipment and set about looking for work. My original expectations were only that I would get to record some covers bands in pubs or whatever…but I soon realised that there weren’t many people doing what I was doing on a small scale. It was only really big bands were in a position to put out live albums or tracks. What I also discovered is that small covers bands in pubs weren’t too interested about getting their gigs recorded! So I had to re-think my strategy…

At the Roundhouse for Sub Focus

A friend introduced me to Kid Harpoon who was signed to XL and was going to be doing a gig in Nottingham, so I recorded his show and it came out really well. From there, using MySpace, I got in touch with Frank Turner who was about to embark on his first tour with a full band if memory serves me correctly. I recorded Frank’s show and he really liked it – enough to release a couple of tracks.

It kind of just grew from there: later that year I ended up recording Laura Marling and then Patrick Wolf – again, both gigs in Nottingham. Off the back of that I then got asked to come down and record a special Patrick Wolf show at London Palladium with special guest Florence (& The Machine) Welch. This was about a week before ‘You’ve Got The Love’ exploded Florence into superstardom!

Recording The Shires Live EP

Once these people were on my CV it just opened doors to be able to speak to more people and push things further. It’s really thanks to MySpace that suddenly artist managers were really easy to find and contact! So with a good bit of networking, I carried on steadily after that, getting more and more gigs.  

A couple of years ago, I saw a Facebook post from an ex-Confetti student that I’d kept in touch with: George Strong. He’d just helped to start a new business in London called LiveFi: a boutique video production company that also specialised in live music, in particular live streaming of music events, with a really cinematic look. I asked George if he had seen what I was up to, told him the story and he asked me down to London to meet with him and Mark Mitchell  - the owner of the company.

Recording The Specials at Splendour 2015

So we met, we had a great burger (one of those burgers that was so good we still talk about it to this day) and we talked about working together. We started off with a live stream of The Wildhearts’ “Earth vs” 20th Anniversary shows at The Kentish Town Forum and soon went on to work with the likes of One Direction, Foo Fighters, Kasabian, Chase & Status and Nile Rodgers & Chic.  

Thanks for sharing your story, Rob!

Find out what he’s up to at the moment by visiting him on Facebook. Pop back to the blog next time, when Rob chats about what advice he’d give a himself when he was just starting out...

[magictransistor]

The Clash - Outside Broadcast . (This Is) Radio Clash . Epic Records / 12" Single . 1981