IQ Beats is proud to announce our latest custom music-imaging package for LBC, our third in a longstanding relationship with Executive Producer Chris Lowrie and the first under the ownership of Global Radio. LBC is London’s premier News/Talk station on 97.3 FM and across the UK on DAB digital radio.

Composers Patrick Napper and Steven Scalfati worked closely with Programme Director Jonathan Richards and Mr. Lowrie to produce a package bringing together a contemporary, authoritative and confident sound to reflect LBC as a “news talk” station and live orchestrations, using strings and horns, to reflect the emotion of real and honest conservations. It is a winning combination not previously found in any other package and is designed to confirm London’s premier talk radio station as bold, modern, confident and proud.

The package is a true achievement and is the culmination of 4 months of focused composition, communication, coordination, scheduling, production, recording, editing and mixing made possible by the talent of Steven and Patrick, the clear vision laid out by Jonathan and Chris at LBC, and the 80 other persons instrumentally involved in the package.

Chris Lowrie had this to say:

We are delighted with this exciting new sound for LBC 97.3, making us stand out from the rest of the market. It’s fresh and distinctive and reflects LBC as the best talk station in London.

Chris Lowrie, Executive Producer, LBC 97.3 FM

The package is diverse with themes for: Daytime, Nighttime, Top of Hour, Travel, Breakfast, and 911 News. In addition, there is an absolutely majestic Main Theme as well as a huge workpart kit of atmospheres and Logo ID’s.

Head to IQ Beats.com to hear the vast majority of the the new LBC 2008 Package, or click More to view video and images from behind the scenes. (more…)

Heading into a new year is often a time for reflection and the crew here at IQ Beats would like to take a moment to look back on a fun 2007, briefly touch on things to come and issue some well deserved thanks.

The year was filled with quite a few interesting custom packages, a ton of cleverly crafted re-sings, many additions to existing packages, a few groundbreaking one-off commissions, forays into the music world outside of radio and a whole bunch of tequila Fridays.

Let’s first have a look at the larger custom packages:

• 104.6 RTL – Berlin
• Fun Radio – France
• 100.7 The Wolf – Seattle
• Fox FM – UK
• Newstalk 106 – Ireland.

And some of the more memorable re-sings:

• Angel 88.9 – Athens (Heart Network)
• Kick 104 – Rapid City, SD (The Wolf)
• Froggy 99.9 – Fargo, ND (KSON)
• KWJJ – Portland, OR (The Wolf)
• Bright FM – Sussex, UK (Heart 106.2)
• KBWF – San Francisco, CA (The Wolf)
• Megaswara – Jakarta, Indonesia (Fox FM)
• KQFC – Boise, ID (KSON)
• WPKR – Oshkosh, WI (The Wolf)
• Eagle Radio – Surrey and Hampshire, UK (96.6 TFM)
• Q102 – Dublin, Ireland (Heart 106.2)

Packages that received new cuts:

• BBC Radio Manchester: Main news theme freshening and remix, the Manchester Now theme, a new Sports theme, a fresh new Traffic theme, and Anniversary theme celebrating one year on-air as BBC Radio Manchester, and close to 3,000 new presenter sings.
• Country X Factor: Spawned 20 new cuts
• Heart Network: Two Christmas themes, a Feelgood Music Live theme, Feelgood Friday theme, two more breakfast Anthems, two breakfast comedy themes, and a bed for Heart Laugh
• LBC: An all-new Top of Hour for 2007 as well as two additional themes used at various times of day

One-off Commissions

BBC Radio 1 – The world’s most-listened to chart show was due for a freshening up and a distinctive new theme was the order. IQ Beats composer Patrick Napper delivered with a great cut that continues to sound fresh on air.

Savebuckets.com – Mr. Phil Angel of UKRD came knocking for someone to craft a piece of music based on a zany idea in his head and we delivered a custom theme featuring a men’s choir used to promote the online comparison shopping site.

Big Ups (In alphabetical order)

Arno Müller, Bad Animals, Ben Wong, Big Bang & Fuzz, Charlie Nordstrom, Chris Bailey, Chris Lowrie, Cliff Goldmacher, Dan Akers, Dan Schulz, Dave Howe, David Sabee, Elliot Mulhern, Eric Paul, Francis Currie, Gary Eckert, Henry Vienayoko, Hoppy Gilmore, Ian Fish, Jamie Hunsdale, Jamie Scott, Jimmy Dulin, John Helde, John Ryan, Jonathan Richards, Jonathan Yudkins, Josh Evans, Kate Dinsdale, Lance Tidwell, Mark Browning, Mark Hall, Mark Sadler, Martin Bruce, Martin Dumschat, Matt Vaughn, Michiel Lisseveld, Mike McAuliffe, Mike Moore, Mike Ryan, Music and Images, Paul Gulmans, Paul Hollins, Paul Jones, Paul McGrath, Peter Gordon, Reed Ruddy, Rick Stewart, Rob Newby, Rob Walker, Robert Puff, Ross Ford, Russ Evans, Russ Pahl, Sam Hofstedt, Scott Mahalick, Simon Beale, Simon James, Simon Walkington, Stuart Barrett, Stuart Davies, Studio X, Tim Ryan, Tom McGurk, and Wendi Wills.

We are sorry if we forgot to put you on the list, but here’s to having you on it next year!!

IQ Beats resident composer and all-around music man Dudley Taft has been hard at work on a new custom Country package for a well known heritage station that we can’t wait to share with you.

Due to arrive shortly into the new year, it will feature our group of singers in Dallas and include leads by none other than Annagrey LaBasse. You may remember her as the seriously smoking female vocalist on our KSON package.

The package is comprised of 8 main music themes and will include sings for weather, morning show, traffic and a legal ID. Besides relying heavily on the six string slinging of Dudley, the tracks will be peppered with tasty morsels from two of Nashville’s finest: fiddle player Jonathan Yudkin (Carrie Underwood, Big & Rich, Leann Rimes) and steel guitar master Russ Pahl (Taylor Swift, Brooks & Dunn, Rascal Flatts).

The ecclectic Wordblender project featuring the music and production of IQ’s very own Patrick Napper along with words and dark poetry by underground writer RJ May has just officially released their fifth album to little fanfare yet rabid critical acclaim (among the 13 people that have heard it thus far).

The long silence has broken. Word. The new Wordblender CD has now been mixed and is due out by the end of the year. Anatomy features 17 new songs criss-crossing genres, taking the spoken-word format into uncharted territory. The CD has been recorded slowly over the last three years and features many top-notch musicians from the Seattle area. Final mixes were engineered by Geoff Ott at London Bridge Studios (with the exception of two songs that were mixed by Justin Armstrong at Robert Lang Studios). Anatomy is gathering high praise from those who’ve heard some of the songs. Possible live shows may happen early 2008.

The IQ crew are found all over this with Steve Scalfati providing sax, piano and background vocals, Kip Beelman and Dudley Taft both with background vocals, and Dark Side of the Moon-inspired vocal stylings by none other than jingle diva Karen Vander Weide.

The tequila was out in full force as the gang quietly celebrated the release of the album with an intimate listening party at the home of RJ and wife Kari. The cheese platter proved almost as popular as the Cazadores and the new record!

IQ’s very own Michael Berlin celebrated his recent birthday on Saturday night at hot spot The Alibi Room with the IQ crew, two dozen close friends, and a gaggle of other revelers and party makers. The tequila flowed freely much to your surprise, right? After the night we had, alibi’s were in high demand.

Happy birthday Michael!

As it’s been previously shared, Friday afternoons here at IQ HQ are often reserved for some fine tequila sippin’. This Friday was no exception and featured the best tequila one could possibly ever have.

Our pals at BBC Radio Manchester have been nominated in the BEST ON AIR IMAGING PROMOTION IN UK RADIO category for the Radio Academy’s 2007 Promotions and Marketing Awards. Another IQ Beats client competing at this year’s P&M Awards are Heart 106.2 in the BEST LOCAL/REGIONAL ON-AIR PROMOTION category. Is IQ providing the imaging muscle needed to win these types of things? We shall see when the winners are announced on Wednesday.

BBC Radio Manchester have also been nominated for the BBC Local Radio Frank Gillard Awards in the STATION SOUND category. Need we remind you that they won Station of the Year last year doubtlessly powered by their shiny new IQ custom package? Winners will be announced on 24 November.

Managing Editor John Ryan’s submissions star IQ’s Steve Scalfati and Patrick Napper alongside the deft production work of Stuart Barrett, Toby Whitehouse and the lovely Kate Dinsdale with voice talent from Trish Bertram and Craig Kelly. Good luck guys!

On Saturday, August 18th Michael Berlin, Steve Scalfati and Kip Beelman loaded into Studio X, Seattle’s one and only world-class recording studio, to record a mens choir for a new venture with creative being headed up by Phil Angel, friend of IQ Beats and the head of the UKRD radio group.

It’s called Savebuckets.com and it’s basically a shopping website where users can find the lowest available price on items as well as reviews… Much like Cnet or PriceGrabber. It doesn’t really matter what the website is for since all we were concerned with was working with Phil to realize what he envisaged for the project.

By working with engineer Josh Evans so that Kip could be free to be the photographer, having David Sabee of Seattle Music handling production coordination and with Steve’s score prepared by copyist Robert Puff, the session went off without a hitch.

Mens choir in between takes

Our able-eared engineer

Scal listening intently

Getting client approval the ghetto way

Savebuckets.com | .48MB

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The extraordinarily talented Patrick Napper has just finished a productive vocal session with engineering maestro Kip Beelman adding his own vocals on yet another new Heart Breakfast comedy theme as part of the IQ Beats Heart Breakfast Collection. Can Heart ever get enough of these things?! Does Patrick’s ability to keep composing these things ever end?!! And now he’s singing on them? No, no and yes!

Patrick really has a knack for composing upbeat morning cuts that have the right amount of energy to kick-start your day or that comedic nuance to drive home the silly lyrics penned by either Creative Producer Paul Jones or Heart Breakfast Producer Jamie Scott. That said, keep your ears tuned to London’s Heart 106.2 FM to hear a new Heart comedy theme featuring Patrick.

You may remember us posting about Patrick working with filmmaker John Helde to compose an original piece for his documentary film called Made in China… Today singer Qi Zhang and John stopped by IQ Beats World Headquarters to put Qi Zhang vocal icing on Patrick’s compositional cake. I guess it’s good they’re finally at it considering Emmy award-winning mixer Dave Howe of neighboring Bad Animals will be mixing the film for international release in less than four days from now.

Patrick Napper, Qi Zhang and John Helde