BBC Radiophonic Workshop

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The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound special effects units of the BBC was created in 1958 to produce sound effects and new music for radio, and was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. It was based in the BBC's Maida Vale studios in London, growing outwards from the, then, legendary Room 13.

The techniques initially used by the Radiophonic Workshop were closely related to those used in musique concrète; new sounds for programs were created by using recordings of everyday sounds such as voices, bells or gravel as raw material for "radiophonic" manipulations. In these manipulations, audio tape could be played back at different speeds (altering a sound's pitch), reversed, cut and joined, or processed using reverb or equalisation. The most famous of the Workshop's creations using 'radiophonic' techniques include the Doctor Who theme music, which Delia Derbyshire created using a plucked string, 12 oscillators and a lot of tape manipulation; and the sound of the TARDIS (the Doctor's time machine) materialising and dematerialising, which was created by Brian Hodgson running his keys along the rusty bass strings of a broken piano, with the recording slowed down to make an even lower sound.

Much of the equipment used by the Workshop in the earlier years of its operation in the late 1950s was semi-professional and was passed down from other departments, though two giant professional tape-recorders (which appeared to lose all sound above 10kHz) made an early centrepiece. Reverberation was obtained using an echo chamber, a basement room with bare painted walls empty except for loudspeakers and microphones. Due to the considerable technical challenges faced by the Workshop and BBC traditions, staff initially worked in pairs with one person assigned to the technical aspects of the work and the other to the artistic direction.

The Radiophonic Workshop has been a major influence on electronic music in Britain and elsewhere. However, it was criticised for its policy of not allowing musicians from outside the BBC to use its equipment in its early days, equipment which was some of the most advanced in the country at that time not only because of its nature, but also because of the unique combinations and workflows which the Workshop afforded its composers.

Notable Radiophonic Workshop events:

  • In 1958 Daphne Oram at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop produced a novel synthesizer using her "Oramics" technique, driven by drawings on a 35mm film strip. This was used for a number of years at the BBC.
  • Ron Grainer composed and Delia Derbyshire "realised" one of the first electronic signature tunes for television with the theme music for Doctor Who. The show was renowned for its use of innovative music and special effects.


Radiophonic Workshop people:

Whilst the decision to close the Radiophonic Workshop was both regrettable and difficult the BBC recognised its contribution and heritage. Therefore Mark Ayres and Brian Hodgson were commissioned to catalogue the extensive library of recordings by the workshop prior to placing it into the archive, thus preserving a considerable part of the workshop's work for posterity.

Alchemists of Sound, an hour-long television documentary about the Radiophonic Workshop, was broadcast on BBC Four on October 19, 2003 and was repeated several times. The co-producers were Victor Lewis-Smith and John Warburton and the programme was narrated by Oliver Postgate.

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