[AndyWMember]

This may have been discussed before but…
I’ve heard some packages get re made with different station musical logos to the original woven into them but I was wondering if there have been situations where a client has asked for a syndicated jingle to be made but mixed differently. i.e. a jingle may be well matched to a station with a format different to the original by maybe re mixing it without a Brass or Synth part for example. Maybe even replacing that part with something completely different or making a different instrument more apparent in the mix. l I realise that all of these jingles will have been recorded to multitrack at the outset when technology allowed but does this happen and if so are there any examples out there? The thought only crossed my mind earlier today. The closest I can get to an example is this classic JAM cut… http://snd.sc/K8gn1R

WM1 by andywcr

[bobgreenradioMember]

if i understand your point correctly, then the answer is yes.
of late, the stuff kenr cranked out was a good example.
without exception; wabc WAS! the number 1 station on the planet in its hay day, and all of their jingles, in this era, were from the real pams, which, without exception WAS! the number one top 40 jingle mill.
kenr took many of those very cuts and packaged them for big band/music of your life formats…and they were great. just fantastic.
but before kenr; consider the crc series 25. it was an oldfart m.o.r. package. it put you to sleep by the 4th note. however, with a bit of tweeking, it became 25x for wknr detroit, a screamer rocker. 25x was kickass, a super effort. as was the case with crc 47. so crc was doing this early on.
let me point out too; when this stuff was done 8 tracks was the normal max, and a ‘keyboard’ had to be rolled into the studio, and the baffle was lifted with effort. no computer crap was used. it (thank god) didnt exist! there were sessions where, strange as it seems, humans played things. read music. unlike lately.
today, with a $500 staples special, and cooledit, you can make the same stuff some shops try to pass off as ‘jingles’. you just need good, tight singers to lay in those logos.

[IainJohnstonMember]

A good topic!

The “Rock FM” Breakthrough re-mixes via Alfasound will no doubt be first up.
Also, a lot of earlier JAM Radio 1 cuts seemed to be “tweaked” a little on the percussion tracks to “fit” the name better than 6-sylable US-style calls.

I’ve have a JAM Personal Cut where, at my request, Jon has “emphasised” a particular lower-down brass section mix. He’s e.g. also added-in synth “leads” for me off his own bat that didn’t exist on the original station version or of any station resings I’ve ever heard of them.

Of course, EVERY 21st century jingle nowadays has a so-called “lite mix” of instrumentation provided regardless, but doing it that way takes the fun (and mystique…) out of it all.

Good point there from Bob – especially remembering the PAMS “10th Dimension” tape system and the before-their-time Grid Factory products that derived from that concept – one pre-computer-era multi-track cut could be mixed a zillion different ways (and usually was – probably sometimes TOO MANY ways!)

Can someone post the WABC PAMS Series 31 “More and More People…” cut that was prepared with NO brass? (cue the “Three-Track Master” story…)

[Tracy CarmanMember]

Can someone post the WABC PAMS Series 31 “More and More People…” cut that was prepared with NO brass? (cue the “Three-Track Master” story…)

I haven’t got that cut handy… but I popped up the multi-track and remixed this for you w/o the horns. Hope it will do…
KOY Phoenix, AZ – PAMS Series 31 “More and More Music” w/o horns by ID Jingles

[Barras]

Here`s a good example of what you`re talking about Andy, a thread (April 2012) from Simon Fex, in which you hear jingles re-made by Top Format in Holland, the package is called Hits Back and is a redo of JAM`s Hitradio1, here`s the link…

http://www.jinglemad.com/index.php?p=/discussion/8776/jams-hitradio1-remake-hits-back-tf

[JAM / PAMSMember]

Through the years there have been many JAM cuts which were designed to have the instrumental track customized in addition to the vocal. Typically these were weather beds, where some instrument or synth played the station logo now and then. We would always try to re-play those logos using the original sounds so that the instrumental logo would match what was being sung. In many cases I’m certain that the clients never even noticed or cared because it was being talked over anyway, but it just didn’t make sense to me to sing one logo and have the bed play another.

On a few occasions we made entire packages that were designed to be customized. For example, “The #1 Voice” as heard on the demo features the WMAL logo. But when we did cuts from that package for Radio 2, you’ll notice that the instrumentation is playing the “BBC Radio 2” logo from that era (which was a variant of the KDKA logo at the time). Another example is the “Ameritalk” package, where the instrumental customization is demonstrated in the demo presentation.

In PAMS Series 42A (1971) there was a cut that sang “W…ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh…ABC”. The “ooh” effect was created by the end of the held-out “W”, as keyed by an external drum beat. When the cut was sold to “K” stations, they never bothered to re-make the effect. So you’d get “K…ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh…XXX”. That struck me as cheap, lazy and stupid so I vowed right then if I ever had a jingle company we wouldn’t do stuff like that. And, hopefully, we haven’t.

[Barras]

Typically these were weather beds, where some instrument or synth played the station logo now and then. We would always try to re-play those logos using the original sounds so that the instrumental logo would match what was being sung. In many cases I’m certain that the clients never even noticed or cared because it was being talked over anyway, but it just didn’t make sense to me to sing one logo and have the bed play another.

I noticed that many years ago on Turbo Z cut #13 (weather cut) I have several versions of that cut in my jingle collection where the instrumental logo matches what is being sung, this has prompted me with the thoughts of another montage…I`ll try and post some examples later today.

[MarcMannetje]

Very interesting, thanks guys!

Back in the 90s RTL Radio (classic rock) ordered a resing of Mile High / KYGO. Top Format reproduced the package from country to rock, and kept the audio logo melody. But the weathercut was picked from Z World. That filler got the RTL logo instead of the Z100 logo. Another change was the vocal group, for RTL a ‘baseman’ was added. Here are both cuts:

JAM Logo Rework by MarcWiers

[AndyWMemberAuthor]

Thanks for all those replies. On that same WM package I have the WPLJ Power Station travel jingle where the WPLH logo was replaced with the Radio WM logo. I do like those kind of touches. They had it re sung about five years later but the WPLJ logo appeared that time. My original thought was purely because a lot of jingles, especially those makde by the likes of JAM are such lush affairs. You always hear something new when listening. As Len has mentioned on another thread, if you are a big enough anorak to listen to them phase reversed or listen to the left or right channel in isolation you uncover yet more things that you wouldn’t normally hear. They really are works of art.

[tyty21]

ok, now you may think this is off topic, but, on the Jam LX gold package, the singers don’t sound like the normal group, it actually sounds like the north coast vocals from Ken R. even Ken had cut 1 on another montage of his. it sort of confuses me.

[Tracy CarmanMember]

If the LX gold package is what I think it is… it’s part of the “Less eXpensive” package demos that were done over tracks from Alfa. The idea was that they were being sung by KenR’s “north coast” singers, and therefore were more cost efficient. Kind of what iJingles and Studio Dragonfly were originally intended to be (but TM found it was just as efficient to sing with the “A” group all of the time instead of taking the time with less trained singers to do the gig. What you saved on singers salaries you lost on additional studio time usage).

One other note… According to Ken, the vocal charts for the LX packages were written by Jon Wolfert, so that fact alone would make them sound at least a little different than Ken’s normal offerings.

[Barras]

Here`s an example of what Jon was talking about earlier, you can hear the WANS logo played by a synth (perhaps a Yamaha DX7 ?) in this weather bed (Turbo Z #13) you can actually sing W.A.N.S. over the synth, obviously, this is different to the original Z100 cut from Turbo Z.

As Jon said in his post, this logo would have probably been missed by the listener as the disc-jock/announcer would be reading the weather forecast over it, then again it could be psychologically subliminal (yikes…I`m starting to sound like a pretentious, 70s demo tape)…

JAM WANS GREENVILLE (TURBO Z #13) by Barras

[simon_t123Member]

JAM have always done a great job with such customisations KKZP / Britain’s Favourite for Radio One is a fab example, there’s some Jovem Pan synth logos worked in cuts for the Brazillian station, and with JAM if you listen real close between package resings you can sometimes hear different instrument volumes, some percussion might stand out more on some resings, facinating stuff …

TM Studios have also implemented a splash of customisation to a good degree at least with it’s 107 The Bee package. I had 4 of those cuts produced with the original “107 The Bee” musical logo at the start of the cuts, but as a collector I’ve scuttled about catching as many variations of this package as I can, and I noticed that custom audio logo’s are there for Atlantic FM in Cornwall and Five FM in Northern Island, other stations such as Northants 96, Splash FM, Chelmsford & Southend Radio have the original logo. The custom versions appear to use ‘muted’ syllables & good editing rather than any re-recording or re-instrumentation, it’s clever however and it works.

With TM you also have the ‘mpower mix’ type packages where you get the whole lot to mixdown yourself with I gotta say seems far to daunting for me and Mr Freedman of course, from which I have disc after disc of instruments and vocal breakdowns with which to mix a coupla cuts from, it is … all good fun !

[AndyWMemberAuthor]

The thread has kind of veered off my original point but in a good way. It shows a real dedication to making it sound special when you come across these changes. You’ll have all heard these many times before but my only real world (pardon the pun) experience of logo customisation in jingles goes back to the WM resings of Nothing But Class & Power Station as follows… I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard the WM Travel jingle so it was a bit of a revelation to hear the originals when I bought the Classic Jam CD about 10 years ago.
WM2 by andywcr

[IainJohnstonMember]

I wouldn’t worry too much about this going “off thread” – the background info & history as this develops is an entertaining read!

Jon’s comments…
1) The PAMS Series 42 cut DOES indeed always sound “wrong” when there’s no “double-you” phonetic to precede the “ooh”! I’m sure many Collectors have wondered why PAMS sometimes didn’t use the “grid” facility for items like this, which would have been much cheaper and simpler than e.g. when TM recorded specific four-syllable and six-syllable variants on some items for e.g. Phase II.
2) Radio 2 – the add-ons (1978?) that included the “On the Move” frequencies-change promotions must also be a very good example of JAM customising the logo instrumentation too yet retaining the strength of the original versions'”sound”.

Simon – does your stations’-variations of the TM “The Bee” collection by any chance include the Disneyland Paris “Disney Village” resings? (…medium-level “grail”!)

[simon_t123Member]

wixy1360 … greets, but sorry alas no I’ve heard of these but never chanced upon them !

[simon_t123Member]

AndyW, hi I soooo like the WM JAM packages from that era, a resing of the package as you say when ‘Radio WM’ became ‘BBC WM’ and a smaller package of course for ‘Heartlands Radio’ the trial off-shoot of WM, ‘Midlands Radio’ and ‘Midlands BBC’ versions, and the cuts that run in parallel for programming on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire for a time, just a great package & one from my earliest memories of jingle collecting era ! thanks for posting your examples, interesting to see how they were customised for WM …

MarcM, hi ya, did TF do the customisation for those JAM cuts do you know or what that a JAM thing ?

[MarcMannetje]

Simon, cheers! I am not shure, I think it was done in Dallas, studio’s tend to have their own sound, so the KYGO logo put into the Z100 cut by the exact equal sounding instrument might have been very hard to do in Holland…

[IainJohnstonMember]

Simon – Bee/Disney Village – thanks anyway!
I guess I’ll just have to take a recorder next time and hold the mic to that tannoy speaker up on the wall just round from the McDon&lds!

(…the things jingle anoraks will do to get hold of ” ‘Grails”!!!)

[IainJohnstonMember]

Fascinating! and does sound very close to known resings e.g. NorthSound.
Thanks N

(Will we be able to hear the rebuilt “final mix” with the vocals of that cut as actually done for K107.2 perhaps?)

[tyty21]

also speaking of packages redid, it also may go off, but, notice a little resimblance from cut 14 from stay kool, it is similar to a cut from do it again!

[AndyWMemberAuthor]

10 years ago Muff Murfin, myself, professor1036 and Rob Tovey set up a 28 day RSL station in Kidderminster called K107.2. We decided to use a selection of cuts from TM’s Knockout package as it had known heritage in the area.

Given what’s been happening on 107.2 in Kiddy recently I wonder how different it could have been had They Wyre not won it? I think there was another bidding group called Ace FM. I know we wouldn’t have had JAM. That would be for certain.

[Author]

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