Schulke SRP playlists

[lmossey]

I'm researching Schulke's SRP Beautiful Music format for a book and would love to have access to his playlists. Anyone have these? I used to work the format and wish I'd saved some of those sheets.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

I can't help you with specific information.

However, I would think that most of the lush, string-laden instrumental music that was the hallmark of this and other "beautiful music" formats, especially in the 1970's and 1980's, would have been recorded specifically for the format and not available commercially.

Also, with Schulke and other such formats having their music on reel-to-reel tapes, if you listened to a Schulke format station long enough and paid close attention, you could hear one song and know what there songs would come up right after that, since music on those tapes were in quarter-hour segments.

 

[davideduardo]

However, I would think that most of the lush, string-laden instrumental music that was the hallmark of this and other "beautiful music" formats, especially in the 1970's and 1980's, would have been recorded specifically for the format and not available commercially.

Shulke and Bonneville commissioned quite a large number of "custom music cuts" for the format, but the majority of the music was commercially available.

The vocals, of course, were all commercial releases.

The custom music was done particularly to be able to include instrumental versions of contemporary popular music titles that did not have a commercial recording available.

A consortium of smaller beautiful music users or syndicators such as Jerry Lee (Philadelphia), Art Kellar (EZ Communications), Kala Music, Música en Flor (Yours Truly) and others also did custom music.

But quite a few syndicators used 100% music from commercial albums, and used contacts in Europe and Japan to obtain recordings not released in the US.

The custom music was a complement, not the core. And most of us put our own names on the orchestras, irrespective of what the group that did the recordings was.

Also, with Schulke and other such formats having their music on reel-to-reel tapes, if you listened to a Schulke format station long enough and paid close attention, you could hear one song and know what there songs would come up right after that, since music on those tapes were in quarter-hour segments.

Shulke used matched flow, in 15 minute segments. The songs in each segment were selected for song-to-song flow. Every month, stations got a big box of new 15 minute segments and they sent back some of the existing library.

Most stations, however, used random select systems, where four or five reels of music would be on an equal number of tape decks, and blended. One reel would have the vocals, while the brighter stuff was on another and the slow stuff on a third one. According to the daypart, the blend was softer or brighter depending on how many hourly cuts from each category was used.

With the random system, there were no pre-programmed sets, and the sets were always different.

Shulke believed that a better mood was established by matched flow. Others of us who programmed as syndicators felt that random select made the station more varied and fun to listen to.

 

[ASchuelke]

I probably have 10 or 15 SRP reels in the basement, and I believe there are some cue sheets in them. I'll do some digging.
E-mail me. studio <at> wrjqradio <dot com>

 

[ASchuelke]

Oh, and by the way, I'm not related. The spelling of my last name is different.
My dad's name IS Jim, though.

 

[boiseengineer]

Boy did we get the complaint calls when we changed from SRP to Bonneville.
Beautiful music listeners were fanatical about the format.
I even answered a call from Ol’ Tennessee Ernie Ford after they changed vendors. He was at his summer cabin in central Idaho.

After the demise of BM on the station (it went country) for some reason someone stored hundreds of SRP boxes of empty reels at a transmitter site. The tape re-purposed for production.
I went through them all looking for a full one . No luck.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

If a Beautiful Music station was fully automated and running unattended, wouldn't it have been easier to operate with 15-minute "matched flow" segments on tapes as opposed to "random" segments (as outlined in this thread)??

If this format were still widespread on the dial today, it would likely be all on a hard-drive, which might have allowed Schulke (and Bonneville, and the others) to have client stations download new cuts, and might have allowed a compromise between "random" and "matched flow" programming: Yes, the music would have song-to-song flow, but also would be played in far more possible combinations than what ever could be possible from tapes.

 

[davideduardo]

If a Beautiful Music station was fully automated and running unattended, wouldn't it have been easier to operate with 15-minute "matched flow" segments on tapes as opposed to "random" segments (as outlined in this thread)??

Random is much easier to run on unattended automation. The walk away time for such systems could be as much as 6 hours, using 4 reel to reel decks with equal mixes.

With matched flow, you pretty much had to reload each deck after each 15' set, or you would have the same sets in the same order they last played in. The more ways there were to scramble the total number of matched flow quarter hour sets, the better. But it meant changing reels more often.

If this format were still widespread on the dial today, it would likely be all on a hard-drive, which might have allowed Schulke (and Bonneville, and the others) to have client stations download new cuts, and might have allowed a compromise between "random" and "matched flow" programming: Yes, the music would have song-to-song flow, but also would be played in far more possible combinations than what ever could be possible from tapes.

All the syndicators sent out a bunch of reels each month... some every 15 days... and older reels were retired and sent back. While there was a lot of song duplication on the update reels, there were newer recordings or different versions of standards. In general, the system worked well. While sending the reels by Internet or FTP would cut expenses, the real issue is how much of the library you ned and want to change each time.

When I was syndicating the format, I'd revise about 24 "hours" of material per month, in two 12-tape shipments. It took a total of about 2 hours programming time per hour, so there was a week's work there. Then there was recording and editing (de-popping and de-clicking and mastering) plus duplicating and shipping. At some point, adding new reels is too costly, and just not necessary to "freshen" the format; you always had to keep "The Last Farewell" and "Bright Eyes" no matter what!