[Inferno]

What do people think of British jingle singers? Was David Arnold and AJ Productions the best or Alfasound? Did Alfasound make a bad job of resinging the Jam packages? E.g- South Coast Radio in the early 90’s. Or is it a question of the radio station being happy with the half decent sung package. Look forward to reading your thoughts

[OnyxPaulMember]

For me the best British company has always been Muff Murfin (Standard Sound). Not only are his own jingles excellent but the British resings of Tom Merriman’s (TM) older American jingles are almost as good as the real thing, something the Alfasound singers never, ever even came close to achieving with their Jam resings! In my opinion David Arnold’s comositions were good but the singers….Urgh!

[mbMember]

I wouldn’t like to lump in all the producers as a whole Yes MMI / Std Sound were spot on 99% of the time but the Wyvern FM jingles were not great, Alfasound for all the criticism had some great packages Beacon, Hallam with Jimmy Helmes ( hope i got that right ) Cath Baxter and Sue Manning had some great group and single vocals and David Arnold has some great stuff. It’s really hard to give an overall opinion. The BBC Radio York David Arnold package with JAM vocals is fantastic. The Steve England SAGA vocals are great. Maybe the Alfa singers were not exactly the same but they were also cheaper – you had the choice Dallas or UK. David Arnold singers always sounded very full, MMI were the most full on American sounding, Alfasound had a style and sound that in the majority of cases worked well.

[bigdave1]

Steve Butler must have never been without work during the 80’s and 90’s .

He must have been on 80% of British stations during that time ,as you can hear his voice on not only Alfasound stuff , but Cath Baxter , LBS and even Take Two’s jingles for Signal .

Check out his site and see what he’s done – http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/steve_butler/

[Inferno]

and some of the Lincs FM packeages

OnyxPaul wrote: For me the best British company has always been andMuff Murfin (Standard Sound). Not only are his own jingles excellent but the British resings of Tom Merriman’s (TM) older American jingles are almost as good as the real thing, something the Alfasound singers never, ever even came close to achieving with their Jam resings! In my opinion David Arnold’s comositions were good but the singers….Urgh!

Alfasound in my opinion had their own sound and at times souned very good. Sadly let down by lack of cosistent good singing and their bass vocalist not being deep enough. BBC Northampton, BBC Radio Lincolnshire and some of the Lincs FM packages were well sung. As for David Arnold’s singers they were the best this side of the pond along with Top Format! Radio Mercury 84, Radio 210 86, Radio Derby 85, Hereward Radio 86,etc. All well sung so much that when i first heard them i thought they were American!

[JingleMadMember]

OnyxPaul wrote: For me the best British company has always been Muff Murfin (Standard Sound). Not only are his own jingles excellent but the British resings of Tom Merriman’s (TM) older American jingles are almost as good as the real thing, something the Alfasound singers never, ever even came close to achieving with their Jam resings! In my opinion David Arnold’s comositions were good but the singers….Urgh!

I found out the other week that Muff sang on some of the MMI packages in order to save money.

[Admin]

RJO wrote: I found out the other week that Muff sang on some of the MMI packages in order to save money.

You can actually hear Muff on alot of his packages. If you know his voice, he stands out a mile.

What did Muff do before he set up the Old Smithy studios? He was a music teacher.

Muff isn’t his real name either (you really think anyone would be born with that?!).

Neal

[Spoons]

OnyxPaul wrote: For me the best British company has always been Muff Murfin (Standard Sound). Not only are his own jingles excellent but the British resings of Tom Merriman’s (TM) older American jingles are almost as good as the real thing

Oh yes! Totally agree.

There were some bloody great packages.

What a shame a lot of his stuff is quite rare.

😥

[Spoons]

(I don’t believe it. I’ve just managed to post about Standard Sound without banging on about the 1987 Radio Aire package. They were bloody great though. Anyone found the full set yet? They were brilliant. Great jingles. Loved them.)

Oops.

😳

[Bello]

Totally agree with whats said regarding Standard Sound, they produced some fantastic packages over the years including the great launch package for Red Dragon Radio and for its sister stations Red Rose Radio and Radio Aire.

Another great package was the first ‘Because’ package for BRMB from 1982, which was mainly sung by UK singers. Then there was the Radio Wyvern launch package from 1982, which still gets asked for by collectors – all around the world!

As well as Standard Sound, I really liked what LBS came out with….especially the Ocean Sound launch pack, Red Rose Radio, Viking and Lisa Stansfield’s vocals on the Sunset 102 package!

[Bello]

Spoons wrote: (I don’t believe it. I’ve just managed to post about Standard Sound without banging on about the 1987 Radio Aire package. They were bloody great though. Anyone found the full set yet? They were brilliant. Great jingles. Loved them.)

Oops.

😳

I know someone who has got the full Radio Aire package, but he’s working in Cairo at the moment.

[Author]

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