The Documentary

Despite the political uncertainty in the UK at the moment the country’s reputation for top-class education, if you can afford it, is still on the rise. Liyang Liu meets two very different school children who have travelled thousands of miles to go to private boarding school in the UK. Recorded over six months she finds out what happens when they get there.

Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason continues the story of the recording studio, exploring how bands such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys brought avant-garde production techniques into the mainstream during the 1960s. The programme also charts the role jazz and dub reggae played in advancing studio production, and how increasingly sophisticated studio technology slowed down the recording process. But the advent of portable tape recorders – and then digital technology - saw the studio begin to shrink in size, while at the same time expanding access to the recording process. With it came a boom in in alternative music which was previously ignored by the major record labels, and bedroom producers making music on home computers kick-started an explosion in electronic dance music. Today, digital studio technology has become so sophisticated that it can help even the shakiest of singers deliver the perfect performance. The series is produced in association with the Open University.

The recording studio has changed dramatically since the advent of sound recording - as has our understanding of the ‘perfect take’. In the first of two programmes about the history of the studio, Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason explores the limitations of the acoustic era, and how the switch to electrical recording ushered in the age of more intimate recording, giving rise to the superstar crooner. We look at the how, after World War 2, a boom in independent recording studios run by army-trained communications engineers helped to drive the birth of rock n roll, and how technology developed during the war made it possible for musicians to start recording music that was physically impossible to play, using techniques pioneered by a man better known for his guitars – Les Paul. The series is produced in association with the Open University.

Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason explores how samplers and drum machines created new musical genres. During the 1980s, samplers and drum machines fuelled a new wave of music from hip hop to house to techno. In this programme we hear from the inventors behind this landmark technology and reveal how it first found traction with millionaire rock stars, rather than hip young DJs, due to its huge expense. We learn how cheaper Japanese products – first deemed a commercial flop - were then re-discovered, re-used and abused by dance floor innovators who created new musical genres which could never have existed without this technology.

The first synthesizer was so big, it filled an entire room, but during the 1960s inventors built downsized machines which would go on to revolutionise pop music. Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason charts the work of synth pioneers Bob Moog, Don Buchla and Dave Smith in the story of one of the most influential electronic instrument of all time. We learn how the synth came to sing with multiple voices, and how Japanese giants came to dominate the market - but arguably at a cost to creativity.