CLASSICS MIX

Initially made as the last episode of the non-stop-mix-show "In The Mix" on Radio Veronica on 23 November 1985.

Broadcasted on Radio 538 in a special 'Directors Cut' on ..-..-1999

Time 59:34

"Arriving at the studio past midnight ,I discovered, the mix
was 7 minutes too long, so the tape splicing set had to come
back in action.

Broadcast was at 2 PM, so with less than 2 hours to go, there was
no time too lose. Using the mechanical tape length indicator on the
tape deck, and a piece of paper to jot down the number of deleted
seconds the mix gradually came closer to the length required.
A couple of minutes before we had to go on-air the edit was ready.

Due to the mechanical nature of measuring, the mix was still a couple
of seconds to long. Apparently impressed by this last minute edit,
of a close to one hour mix, the Radio Technician muted the otherwise
holy and absolute standard 5-second-countdown-beeps before the
whole hour normally indicating the exact time.
In doing so he gave me the last couple of seconds the mix needed.

What can I say............It was one of those moments....."

About the "Directors Cut"
As you read above, 7 minutes where edited out of the original mix.
Putting all those bits back in, would take the flow and speed out of the mix.
The Classics Mix "Directors Cut" however ends with the original full length version
of Destination's "The party is over". The helicopter sound effect plus "The party
is over" were the actual end Ben used in the Disco 'Kwien' (pronounced Queen) back in
those years and was taken from the original chrome cassette tape he used back then.
To make up for the other minutes lost, 4 tracks where added (indicated by *).

The last dance record of the evening in those years would either be:
Antonia Rodriguez : La Bamba,
Kat Mandu : The Break or
Gary's Gang : Showtime
All of which can be found in this mix.

Technical Details
The mix was transferred into the Akai DD1500 where minor level adjustments have
been made, as well as improving a couple of cuts. (remember, 83 84 85 86 87 and
the classics mix were originally edited on tape, and tape splicing is limited to changing
the splice angle for a somewhat smoother cut.)
In the DD1500 the additional tracks were added, and the ending was restored to it's original length.


Equipment
2 x SL1200mkII turntables with Stanton Triple E cartridges
1 x Teac Tascam mixer 3A (8 channels)
1 x Teac Tascam 4 channel tapedeck for tapeloops
1 x Master Recorder: Revox PR99 with Studer "Butterfly" recording heads.
Speed: 38 cm/s 2-track
Tape: 1/4 inch BASF 911 at 510 nanoweber level
Sennheiser vocoder for robot voices
The Akai DD1500 was used for digital editing and mastering of the "Directors Cut".
The Direct ors Cut was then mastered onto the Tascam DA-30 DAT recorder

Reel to reel tape
The complete original mix didn't fit on one reel, and had to be transported in 2 sections.
The last 5 minutes of tape 1 were identical to the first 5 minutes of tape 2, and
whilst broadcasting Ben had to sync up the machines at the NOB (NOS at the time)
to make a very fast (and unnoticeable) live crossfade from tape 1 to tape 2.
Later these tapes were transferred to Sony F1 Digital, solving the live crossfade problem.

The 'Directors Cut' broadcasted on Radio 538 in november of 1999 was played from DAT.