At various stages in our lives together, I tried to persuade Pamela to let me hire a studio and make some professional recordings of her singing. She kept refusing and eventually I decided to buy some basic equipment and make some home recordings. It was before CDs became commonplace and so, with the help of her musical friends, a cassette tape was created in the wholly inadequate studio of our lounge.
Over the ensuing years the tape disappeared and CDs and CD players replaced cassette recorders.
Fortunately, the tape re-appeared just after her death and I decided to have it digitised. I packed it off to a company that did conversions but, when I chased up progress, they informed me that it hadn’t arrived.
While I had posted it on a Sunday as I was too impatient to wait and have it registered, it was posted in mid-November and I did take it to the main clearing office and put it in a Priority Posting Box.
After a couple of weeks of fruitless checking with the company, I reported it to the Royal Mail and was informed that I shouldn’t have used the Priority Box as they were very busy. I waited another week before petitioning Her Majesty’s service, imploring them to conduct a search. They explained that there was nothing they could do but said that they were hopeful that it would eventually re-appear.
After another week or so, the converters e-mailed to say that it had arrived and that they would process it as a priority. However, the return post took another two weeks and the converted CD was not quite as anticipated.
It seems that the service they provide is to create a consolidated track with all the songs together in a single MP3 file. Whereas, I was indebted to them for that, I knew of no way to separate the tracks so that I could upload a couple to the Tribute Page.
However, I don’t give in easily and I searched the Internet for special software and was soon able to divide the CD into separated tracks. More than that, my Internet and You-Tube explorations identified different software packages which would allow me to clean up aspects of the tracks (microphone clicks, dogs snuffling etc) and also apply some studio features.
Initially, I had put two of my favourite tracks into the Music Gallery in their original form and invited a couple of her dancing group to play the new music. I didn’t say that it was Pamela singing but nor was that really meant to be some form of test. I just thought it would be a pleasant surprise when they heard them playing. However, no-one phoned or e-mailed and I suppose I was disappointed and, more so, when I got back in contact as I think they thought I must be in a strange place, asking them to listen to tracks that had no particular significance.
Anyway, the morale of this tale is that perseverance pays off in the end. My home-made tape survived its adventures and made its way onto a CD and the consolidated track was separated back to individual songs. I am not at all sure about the despair I felt when the tape was "lost" but there was some magic in being able to add some studio effects as that brought me back to my original objective. I am particularly pleased with "She Moved Through The Fair" - my personal favourite - which has now been been restored to the Music Gallery with "room effects" and a professional fade at the end. I hope it enhances the experience of listening to the quality of the voice which stands apart from the circumstances and media used for the original recording.
The tracks in the Music Gallery now feature on a CD with a fuller catalogue of Scottish songs which will be available for release to her many friends from the 11th of January.
[If I can get to terms with a rather heavy piano, I may subsequently replace the CD with my early attempts as the whole process has been time-consuming and I was, perhaps, too anxious to get something released.]
If you have not already done so, please now visit the Music Gallery and listen to "She Moved Through The Fair" and "The Four Marys" and, if you would like a full CD of songs, then either leave a message on the Tribute Page or contact me directly on 0116 2841532 or by e-mail at path_finder@talktalk.net
Will