1983: The EVOLUTION of the RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP | Nationwide | Radiophonic Workshop | BBC Archive

“It was as though the valves to a vast, untapped reservoir of sound had been opened. The simplest, common note could be turned into something complicated and weird.“ Marshall Lee reports on the 25th anniversary of BBC Radiophonic workshop in Maida Vale. In 1958, the British public got their first introduction to the Radiophonic Workshop, through the terrifying, unearthly sounds of the television series Quatermass and the Pit. Since then, this experimental “noise laboratory“ has concocted countless sonic curiosities for Doctor Who and scored BBC programmes of every genre. Radiophonic Workshop director Desmond Briscoe considers how advancements in music technology - from magnetic tape to the kind of cutting-edge, computer-based synthesisers used by Peter Howell and Roger Limb - have informed the studio’s output. Originally broadcast 30 March, 1983. You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of t