[IainJohnston]

Hmmmmm!
“new logo…”

I’d swear I’ve heard the 3 exact notes and indeed word of “ra-di-o” sung in just this way before…and I think I know where – I posted it on JM quite recently under another topic.

I might do a “find & compare”…and hope that I’m wrong.

Apart from that, after so many years of the old logo, at least a “freshen-up”
But will we hear people humming/singing it out loud in the streets like the old one?

And as discussed before “avoid down-note pointing note sequences at the end of a jingle” – it makes the end of the jingle lose “lift” or “carry” into the next piece of music.

[IainJohnston]

PS – could someone quietly point out to WB that using “phone touch-tone” notes on a jingle is not exactly the great new creative inovation they think it must be!

Wheel, invention, re- of.

[UKJinglesMember]

Do let us know Iain where you’ve heard this logo before…….
I know we’ve had over 15 years of the Heritage Logo and it was up amongst the “Greats” of logo’s but this new one..it has no cohesion and I don’t know if I would be able to Hum it even after 15 years!
But on a slightly different note (no pun attended!)..It will be good to hear who Groove Addicts produce the Heritage Logo for now!

[tom_h]

I do like the new IDs with vocals over the ra-di-o note but when I heard the news jingle this morning I thought it sounded quite out of place. Perhaps they should have created a new news jingle?

[professor1036]

Not bad in my opinion…nicely building on the existing package.

Noticed that Ryan Tubridy has got a personal jingle as part of the refresh…I’m sure the guys and gals at Donnybrook are impressed!

[scotronMember]

Popmaster cut back up on WB site http://www.wisebuddah.com/jingles/radio#/genre/7/show/295/jingle/3853

[scotronMember]

Think it will take a while to get used to the new logo melody. It seemed to jar at first with me. My brain was expecting one tune and it heard another. After all, it has been a familiar sound to us all over the years. Agree with Len, that the live voice on the news jingle never worked a lot of the time. It seemed to me, you had to start the strap line a second or two before bringing the jingle up underneath in order for it to fit the ramp properly. Many presenters would crash it on numerous occasions. From my viewpoint, the ‘new’ news jingle has not addressed that issue. The ramp up to the logo melody is a couple of seconds short in order for a comfortable and unhurried live voice over. But back to the new melody logo. I think I need to give it a month or two to ‘bed’ in properly, although I am sure I will still be singing the old one in my head for some time to come. Just one final point. Why did the BBC not create this new sonic logo last year when they were writing the new package? Were they tied into this deal with Groove or something..

[Zackybong1]

Almost all here now…
http://www.wisebuddah.com/jingles/radio#/genre/7/show/352/jingle/4877
But not the new travel news jingle.

[occy69]

I think all the package has been updated from the sound of it from News to Traffic. I guess this was already in place to roll out? The endings of the jingles sound different.

[occy69]

It’s all to do with the licensing arrangements with Groove Addicts:

http://earshot.tvi.gg/2013/07/radio-2-changes-its-tune/

[LenGroat]

As I wrote : “This suggests they have got out of the (ridiculous) deal to licence the Radio 2 ‘logo melody’ (that is costing money) from the company who put the vitriolic post on-line when they ‘lost’ the gig”

I’ve waited to comment to see the thoughts of those who can be bothered to comment.

Briefly: MB: ‘Len you are going to hate them’. Not ‘hate’ just surprised the station is whipping up publicity/ which draws attention to a simple change to its ‘logo melody’ because of its own poor, past decisions (not Chris Reay’s fault) and the TWO YEAR ‘jingle gestation’ due to the ‘radio/ BBC politics’/ transparency which led to the BBC using a company ‘next door’ to it !

None of this changes the fact the are not ‘jingles’ as such; they are written as themes, and played by the equivalent of (an expensive) TV style orchestra (they have too many musicians – I’d reserve the THICK sound for News). And quite why the Bublé rip-off (sorry ‘inspired by…’) needs to be 30 seconds long I don’t know: it’s too solid for v/o, and definitely NOT a jingle!

The change does not address the poor attempt as sonovox, or provide short, usable jingles, or improve the News jingle’s faults, though in its favour to be fair I DO like Clare Teal’s voice, as they have sensibly stuck to solos or some double-tacking (as Dusty did 50 years ago…)

The line on Earshot Creative : “Listeners to BBC Radio 2 are getting used to a new melody on its station jingles from today” fits ‘our’ understanding about this, but I doubt if more than 10% of the listeners will notice or care that the melody is slightly different (2 notes according to Ken Bruce?!)

FACT : the ‘Two’ is the weakest part of the logo ~ the new melody emphasises ‘BBC Radio’

My bottom line is that it was never a package of ‘award-winning’ quality to start with (despite the hoo-ha and expense) and as it no longer has the logo melody that WON the award should that award be posted to Los Angeles now?

Sorry, yes that WAS intentionally flippant….

But this site is about JINGLES, and these are NOT designed as, and do not ‘work’ with music as jingles are MEANT to, in the way most of understand. They are L O N G logo statements that just stop the flow…………. and because they are L O N G …. will wear-out far more quickly than true ‘jingles.

[IainJohnston]

“poor attempt as sonovox”

(*cough*) Len – its a vocoder – i.e. not analogue transducers but effectively digital filters and PCM waveform modulation (Elektor magazine, home electronics projects, mid-1970s, anyone?). And all nowadays software-based on a PC.

But I’ve still never yet heard a vocoder vocal thats sounds as “rich” as a properly “driven” and enunciated Sonovox one!

PS – edit – someone “in another place” suspects the “new logo” is rather similar to the one for BBC Radio Wales – ALSO by WB…
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1861402&page=2

[mbMember]

I’m gobsmacked that we accuse a package of having too many musicians / using real instruments. Listen to the dreadful LBC package to hear real instruments stretched to within an inch of their lives. Even the most ardent fan of traditional jingle house works must acknowledge that using the BBC concert orchestra is fantastic – in terms of heritage it takes the station back to the days of singing ITMA and Take it from here. The orchestra is rich, lush and to be honest few could afford to have a package created with such a large orchestra and every instrument has been written for and scored.

[LenGroat]

Hi MB, what I said was: “they have too many musicians – I’d reserve the THICK sound for News” because that THICK sound is not good for a presenter to voice-over ~ neither the track or the voice ‘win’, as you end-up fading it so low to ‘cut through’, it cannot be heard.

“Even the most ardent fan of traditional jingle house works must acknowledge that using the BBC concert orchestra is fantastic”

“traditional jingle house”? I don’t think PAMS ever did this and JAM have mainly reserved ‘full orchestras’ for News packages? Full ‘brass and string’ packages by Tom Merriman for TM are written very differently to the WB material, and have group vocals to cut-through. The Radio 2 package has ended up with some very THICK sounding tracks with SOLO singers being (partly) lost over them – for example ‘Jo Riley’ as her ‘W’ is lost !

[IainJohnston]

Len has indeed pin-pointed something here.

On the original incarnation of many of these cuts, and I now notice even more with these “weaker” down-notes – the front “edge” of the “eight….” and that of the first “Bee” to my ears at least do seem to “get lost” in the background sound on some cuts I’ve heard so far.

Even 40+ years ago jingle companies “knew” that too much “behind” a vocal didn’t work on AM radio (and Gawd knows what it must be like on DAB even without sub-192k MP2) – anyone listening to say a Pepper-Tanner Now Sound track/instrumental can hear the rhthym section and light instrumentation “where the vocals go”, and similarly with plenty of PAMS stuff. And as Len says, classic TM “orchestra” instrumentation was very cleverly crafted .

Those with JAM Personal Cuts etc also know “what goes on under the vocals” in terms of not “killing” the vocals above.

Was ir Rick Sklaar (sp? sorry…) that “tested” PAMS WABC jingles by playing them through a 2-inch speaker to “simulate” what real listeners would hear?
What “sounds great” on muckle great big speakers in a mixing studio is not what will come out of a tinny “kitchen radio” or a car radio surrounded by mid/low-frequency traffic rumble and car vibration etc.

As for the musicianship and instrumentation on many of these cuts – they ARE excellent!
Regardless of the semantics or politics of BBC funding/decision making, when it comes down to actual BBC musicians whether full-time in-house or on-contract, we’re talking about probably some of the best players on the planet. Anyone in doubt, find the BBC Promenade Concerts on TV and turn up the volume.

But I think I’d rather hear them as miniature “instrumental compositions” without the dodgy vocals that in some instances at least do let them down.

Ok, the intense Scottish sunshine is getting to me, I think I’d better go and have a lie-down!

[scotronMember]

This is why I love coming on JM. The background information, the history, the technical details and the chat from all corners of the jingle world. Seems absurd now to think back around 1970/1 or so when I first started getting into jingles, that I saw myself as ‘unique’ and maybe a bit odd to have such a hobby as being a fan and collecting and recording jingles ‘off air.’ Little did I know, there was whole world of jingles fans out there doing the same thing. Anyway, before I wander off down memory lane with my life story of jingle collecting, I am off to look for this Scottish sunshine that Iain is talking about.

[loujosephs]

Agrees with Len on these. You want to hear how it’s really done seek out the stereo version of its a shame what’s happened to radio..KVIL Version..that’s an orchestra backing up Heller vocals.

[muffy]

But most small stations think the chap from the local pub can sing their jingles to save money…. 99% of ILR presenters they can be voice overs !!! … Jingles are best made by people who CAN do them … The New Radio Two are ok .. better than the last outing … But they still dont work as a true jingle I feel ….sounds like a full production with a intro middle and dead end not a reverb end ….. They dont seem to overlap well in to the next song ….. .Plus . the high pitch female voice is so bad … and I dont rate the male voice who is in the video .. Again Clare shines on her vocals on the big band stuff . ( Why didnt they just use her on all the cuts … her voice fits in with station image ) …. I think I rate the music …….. rather than the vocals on these jingles
..

[IainJohnston]

Just to do a “quick aside”, seeing Ron’s comments…

“Seems absurd now to think back around 1970/1….there was whole world of jingles fans out there doing the same thing”

At the exact same time, I was doing/thinking the same – and I was probably less than 20 miles away from Ron, and probably knew a few other but indirectly-connected people that you would have known too.

But back then, very difficult to “connect” to others in the hobby. Reels, jiffy-bags, WRTH for station addresses…, hospital radio stations, “tape radio” stations…
I probably knew less than 10 collectors in the entire UK, and really one other in Scotland.

Fortunately, thanks to JM, so many of you from “back then” are again in touch and there’s so many “generations” of collectors in between with all sorts of audio stuff we couldn’t have dreamed of appearing some day…or indeed including these wired-up-to-each-other computer-thingies!

(“I am off to look for this Scottish sunshine that Iain is talking about”
It was for about 10 minutes just after 3 this afternoon this year – you KNOW how “Scottish Summers work” Ron!)

We now return you to JM’s “normal”(?!) discussions

[LenGroat]

Muffy: ” They don’t seem to overlap well in to the next song”

Thank for adding that – the KEY feature of a (music radio) jingle is to make sure the listeners associate the station name with the (great) song it leads into – a ‘reward’.

Most of the WB cuts carry the orchestration right through, so end ‘thick’ which increases the chance of an ‘audio-judder’ between the jingle and song.

In contrast in the USA (Dallas) jingles have for decades ended on a vocal chord with little instrumentation behind it. This is far more likely to blend into the song.

[GrahamCollins]

Do you know Len, I never really twigged this but you’re absolutely right about vocal chord endings and sequeing better with whatever A list song follows. I have learnt something today.

I like both the Wise Buddah packages musically but really just see them as a series of celebrity signposts. I don’t really think of them as jingles in the traditional sense. There are no transitions and I’d almost bet the ramp versions are never heard on air – too much presenter skill required to use them.

[rakMember]

I remember someone mentioning ages ago that Vibe/Music4 jingles end with little/no instrumentation on the final note – so that they segue better into songs. Definitely makes a difference.

[mbMember]

I think it worthy of note that as Chalks says the jingles on 2 are signposts. The package does not need the “traditional” radio usage cuts of shotgun, short, long etc because that’s not how they are used on radio 2. Now we can argue for hours if that’s right or not but primarily the jingles are used to start shows and as punctuation at various intervals.

They don’t use jingles into or out of breaks as a hard and fast rule – in fact Radio 2 are sometimes everything you shouldn’t do in radio. They don’t have a strapline because they don’t need one. Being “radio 2” is enough so no “best music mix”, “bigger variety”.
When you look at how the station uses sound identity they don’t need short cuts or multiple mix outs.

They don’t plaster the station with the big signposts that commercial radio do – and why because its exactly those blunt commercial radio techniques that make people turn to radio 2 – To be treated like adults. The presenters don’t call it 88-91FM On line and on digital Radio 2 they call it Radio 2. I don’t think Radio 2 have to make a listener associate them with a song the brand is bigger than that.

[frank]

The Ramps have been added to the Wise Buddah website today.Always the favourites for me…Love C is just brilliant.

[m_hodgeyMember]

The Ramps have been added to the Wise Buddah website today.

I also notice that “ID 38 – Ken Bruce Tracks Of My Years” has been added to the Main IDs.

My two-penneth on this subject is that, as Len pointed out earlier in this thread, the majority of the audience will not notice the change in the logo.

I fully understand the reasoning behind the new musical logo, but what I don’t understand is why didn’t R2/Wise Buddah create this logo last year and save on all the re-work?

[Author]

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