Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Decoding the telephony signals in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'

corelatus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 141 posts

Re: Decoding the telephony signals in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'

#21

Post by hinkley »

raywu wrote: post #20
cassiepaper wrote: post #8

From: James Guthrie interview > Another piece that worked better than expected was the telephone operator. Roger was keen to illustrate the personal disconnect of being on the road. We were in L.A. at Producer’s Workshop so I phoned my neighbour, Chris Fitzmorris in London. He had the keys to my flat and I asked him to go there and said that I would call him through an operator. “No matter how many times I call”, I s…

> Initially, I was shocked at how slowly everything moved! I was used to working really quickly when producing and engineering albums. Suddenly it was like the brakes were on and often it was difficult to get the momentum going. Eventually, I adapted to the Floyd pace. One of the great things about working with this band is that you are allowed time to be creative, to pursue an idea even if it takes some time. The Fl…

“The Floyd”?

Ironic that Have a Cigar was released four years before The Wall:

    The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think
    Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?

Re: Decoding the telephony signals in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'

#22

Post by joey_spaztard »

This brings back memories of being a clueless script kid in the 1990s.

I knew those tones as CCITT5 tones.

In the days of blueboxing I had a 486 laptop that I acquired because the harddrive died and booted from floppys, a DOS program called 'The Little Operator' that played tones and a photocopy of a book about telephone switching.

Re: Decoding the telephony signals in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'

#23

Post by hinkley »

defaultcompany wrote: post #15

On the cassette tape version of The Wall I had if you flipped the cassette over during this phone call sequence it would end up being right in the middle of another song (can't remember which one) which has this recording playing as part of the background. I feel like it couldn't have been intentional but who knows.

I’m betting subconscious but intentional. I’ve heard a couple artists talk about how they organize an album and there’s a vibe they’re going for but I didn’t get the impression any of them had it down to anything like a science.

Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz. It’s just two artists putting a story arc together by feel and getting the same shape. A bit birthday paradox, but a bit shared vibe.

In the case of The Wall, I would bet a certain degree of symmetry was being reached for. Few artists want to leave or start an album on a sour note, but there will be songs in the middle that are.

One of the things I miss from the pre-streaming era is that “nobody” listens to whole albums at a time anymore, and I find that a shame. I used to start humming the next song on the album when I would hear things on the radio. Makes it worse when they trim the intro or outro for radio play though. I prefer the album version of Wish You Were Here, for instance.

Re: Decoding the telephony signals in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'

#25

Post by abdullahkhalids »

matthiasl wrote: post #6
robthebrew wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember London area codes being 01 (or 0441 from USA) followed by 6 digits, so maybe 3 are missing. It would be interesting to see if that landline is still available, but with 1000 possibilities (01ABC831) maybe a google search might be the way to go.

Interesting. Normally, films use deliberately fictious numbers, e.g. in the US it's always xxx555xxxxxx. Wikipedia says the UK uses various area codes for the same thing, including 011x and 01x1. The Pink Floyd number is a bit unusual---it's not made up. According to a previous analysis, the call was the album's "Chief Engineer James Guthrie who called his own London apartment", with a neighbour answering the phone.…

There are some hits in this old phonebook [1], but one needs to pay to view the records. Maybe some one else can do this.

[1] https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1025/?name=Jam...

Re: Decoding the telephony signals in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'

#26

Post by codazoda »

Young Lust is the song where this operator is heard.

Not being an audiophile, it took me some time to figure out the specific song. My brother had The Wall album, and I enjoyed it, but I never listened to it on my own. I went back and listened to it again for the context.

I really enjoy music but I don't listen to it as often I'd like. I think part of the reason is that I have difficulty concentrating when there is audio in the background. Some of my software engineer co-workers can turn on music or a video while they work, but I'm more productive in silence.

Re: Decoding the telephony signals in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'

#27

Post by wahnfrieden »

mrandish wrote: post #19
cassiepaper wrote: post #8

From: James Guthrie interview > Another piece that worked better than expected was the telephone operator. Roger was keen to illustrate the personal disconnect of being on the road. We were in L.A. at Producer’s Workshop so I phoned my neighbour, Chris Fitzmorris in London. He had the keys to my flat and I asked him to go there and said that I would call him through an operator. “No matter how many times I call”, I s…

It's cool to hear how that came together as an improvisation. It recalls a simpler time when a major album (or movie, TV show, etc) could just feature your neighbor and a random telephone operator without signing releases and clearing rights. It also gave Chris Fitzmorris (the neighbor) one of the greatest "random cool thing that happened to me" stories ever.

Musicians still release samples without clearing them

Re: Decoding the telephony signals in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'

#28

Post by kagakuninja »

hinkley wrote: post #21
raywu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Initially, I was shocked at how slowly everything moved! I was used to working really quickly when producing and engineering albums. Suddenly it was like the brakes were on and often it was difficult to get the momentum going. Eventually, I adapted to the Floyd pace. One of the great things about working with this band is that you are allowed time to be creative, to pursue an idea even if it takes some time. The Fl…

“The Floyd”? Ironic that Have a Cigar was released four years before The Wall: The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?

The band originally was The Pink Floyd (after changing their name from The Tea Set)

Re: Decoding the telephony signals in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'

#29

Post by Tempat »

peutetre wrote: post #2

> The number itself was probably made-up: it's too short and the area code doesn't seem valid. 44 is the country code for the UK.

See the note at the end of the article. It’s a real number but with some of the digits in the middle edited out of the recording.
Post reply on HN