I might be going mad

The Archers
1

But… have they sped up the intro/finale music?

6 Likes
2

Yeah, you are going mad.

But so, seemingly, is everyone else, so dinna fash yersel.

If they could just speed up the rest of it, mind…

5 Likes
3

It’s possible—I’ll see if I can dig out some old epis to compare. The way they insist on tagging ads and trailers onto everything now, I wouldn’t be in the least surprised. (Changing the tempo of a recording without altering the pitch is quite easy to do with digital recording)

Incidentally, when the old Sidney Torch recording was replaced by a new stereo version by David Parry and the BBC SO, there was much complaint about the new one being too slow. This rather suggests otherwise (Bear in mind that 78 recordings frequently erred on the fast side, because of the limited playing time).

4 Likes
4

I’ve just overlaid the opening and closing music from 22 March 2010 and 6 May 2019 on each other, and I can’t hear any noticeable de-synchronisation.

5 Likes
5

Thanks HedgeSparrow! I must be losing it.

5 Likes
6

We-elll…

3 Likes
7

Update! I had accidentally put my player on 1.25 speed! Not going mad after all, phewf… Although I have had a very peculiar week of trying to work out why everything sounds a bit rushed.

4 Likes
8

That sounds very worrying; I’m glad you got it sorted out.

It being a bit fast would also make me think it was out of tune, I suspect, because I have that maddening thing, good relative pitch but not absolute pitch. This means that once I have heard an LP a couple of times I know what note the next track starts on, and so I can never happily listen to random playlists. (Unless I listen to them frequently, after which the LPs will probably sound “wrong”.)

3 Likes
9

Modern players can shift the pitch back down to where it should be. (They can also shift it up if you’re playing more slowly than standard, but not as well.)

Since a fair bit of television is clearly paced to be watched by people who aren’t paying close attention, I tend to watch it at 50% higher speed (I’ve worked up to that over time). (Another reason not to have an actual TV…)

5 Likes