BBC recording room

I took this photo of a BBC recording room on 12th November 1961, a couple of months after I first joined. It's at Bush House (for those who might be interested it's E10). The tape recorders are EMI BTR2s, an excellent machine capable of very high quality at 15 inches per second (and acceptable quality at 7.5 inches per second), and one of the fastest and easiest machines ever made where tape editing is concerned. The central console enables monitoring of either machine and copying between them, and the box on top allows selection of the output of any studio or incoming line. By the way, the bottle behind the further machine is methylated spirits - not for drinking, but for cleaning the tape heads.

The photo was taken on a prewar Zeiss Super Ikonta camera (roll-film, 16-on-120): in order to get the depth of focus I had to use a four second exposure, which is why the clock's second hand is invisible.




© Roger Wilmut