Help for Mercury Theatre website!

[timbo]

Dear all,

I've just finished a website (http://bornalone.org) offering cleaned-up versions of the Mercury Theatre on the Air's early recordings, and I would be very grateful if anyone can help me to track down better-quality recordings of the original plays. In spite of my best efforts (I'm not a professional sound engineer but I've done what I can!) many of the copies are still pretty badly damaged, and all have come from heavily-compressed originals. I've written to numerous people but not yet had any results, so - more in hope than expectation - I wondered if anyone could provide me with any leads. I'm also hoping to add Welles' earlier 7-episode production of Les Miserables to the site, so if anyone can help me with a decent-quality copy I'd really appreciate it.

It's a project very close to my heart and as such the site is entirely free, there are no ads (and never will be) and all costs have been covered by myself. I've been wary of publicising the site too much as I'm still not 100% sure of the copyright status of the plays but I hope you find it useful and that you'll share it with anyone who might be interested. Please bear in mind that it's taken a lot of work, mostly very late at night, and there may be some mistakes in the texts (especially), cast lists and audio correction. Feel free to send me a PM (or you can contact me via the site) with any corrections or suggestions.

Thank you!

[Le Chiffre]

Welcome, timbo. Very nice looking and sounding site, keep up the good work. Wich2 alerted us to this Radio Spirits set, which is a ten-CD set of the early Mercury broadcasts for $30, if you wanted to do a direct comparison with your own work.
http://www.radioarchives.com/The_Mercur ... /ra080.htm

They also have an mp3 version of it for half the price.

[Wich2]

Salute, Tim.

You seem to have done solid work - but I'm not sure why you've cut the shows? The middle Station Break was a standard part of broadcasting then; and more than that, the Intros and Outros were often used by Welles and co. as a real part of the package.

I wrote an essay for the Merc set that Le Chiffre mentions:

http://www.radioarchives.com/The_Mercur ... /ra080.htm

(Click "Special Features," in the middle of the page.)

And the quality is indeed good (though in the interest of accuracy, it's from Radio Archives, not Radio Spirits.) As LC and I have been discussing in these pages, another good source of quailty copies is Jerry Haendiges:

http://www.otrsite.com/radiolog/

Beyond that, diligent searching can sometimes turn up very servicable copies online; but it does take some digging, as compression/sourcing there varies wildly.

Good luck. Keep us posted.

-Craig

[timbo]

Thank you both for the recommendations, and the excellent essay. I'll order the CDs and see how they compare, I'd be interested to know where they sourced the masters from but I doubt they'll tell me (no-one else has).

Just to be clear, I haven't removed any of the intros or outros (as far as I'm aware), and I quote from and mention them several times on various pages. I knew that removing the station breaks (and the intro music) might not be appreciated and I try to explain why I did it in the 'About' section. It was a very conscious choice which I'm happy to change if it turns out to be ill-judged, but I'll wait and see if I get any other feedback through the site.

I'm really hoping to engage people who've never heard (of) these shows before, so I may have made a few decisions which seem a little odd as a result. However none of these are irreversible, and once I've got hold of some really good masters I'll have a rethink.

[Wich2]

Dear Tim-

>Just to be clear, I haven't removed any of the intros or outros<

I think we may be thinking of those words differently... For example, I hear no title/opening to WAR OF THE WORLDS, and no afterword to SHERLOCK HOLMES. I do understand that those things aren't part of the main narrative; but to me, that's like having a site hosting Ford films, and cutting off the head and tail credits.

But it is your site, and I admire your goal of introducing these shows to new listeners. The medium was a big part of Welles' work, and the pieces deserve exposure.

Best,
-Craig

[timbo]

Thanks Craig, I thought exactly the same thing about cinema but I suppose in the end I decided the CBS intros were more like a TV announcer introducing a show, an intro you'd get rid of when releasing the DVD. I guess we just chose different metaphors...

Of the two shows you mention, the intro to The War of the Worlds is the music and the CBS guy saying hello, so I started with Welles' opening words (as with the others). At the end of Sherlock Holmes Welles doesn't appear and the CBS guy reads the cast list - that probably should have been left in though, I think I've done that a few other times when Welles doesn't speak at the end. I agree chopping off the credits isn't a good thing, I'm not sure why I did that.

[Le Chiffre]

It's not a huge loss, but editing them out is not a huge gain, either. It's probably best to leave the Mercury shows as they are, since there's not that much fat on them. Ditto (to a lesser extent) for the Campbell's, although it's interesting to hear them without the intros and without those nutty soup commercials. On the other hand, I have trouble listening to the Lives of Harry Lime episodes unless the commercial breaks are edited out. They stop the stories cold.

Here's an editing job I did on the Lime episode called "An Old Moorish Custom". Editing out the intro and commercial breaks takes it from a flabby 29 minutes to a lean mean 22 minutes:
https://vimeo.com/107055333

Thanks for the correction, Craig. I'll get those OTR dealers straight one of these days (note to self: don't post before 1st cup of coffee).