Harry Desmond Briscoe (21 June 1925 – 7 December 2006) was an English composer, sound engineer and studio manager. He was the co-founder and original manager of the pioneering BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Born in Birkenhead, and a drama studio manager for the BBC in the 1950s, Briscoe began to develop an interest in the use of electronic and electroacoustic techniques as a source of material for productions. Along with Daphne Oram, he worked on the BBC Radio production of Samuel Beckett’s All That Fall (Tx:13 January 1957), Giles Cooper's The Disagreeable Oyster (Tx:15 August 1957), and Frederick Bradnum's Private Dreams and Public Nightmares (Tx:7 October 1957). These works featured some of the earliest electronic effects used by the BBC and highlighted the need for a facility to provide such material. In 1958, Briscoe and Oram founded the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, with a remit to provide material for use in BBC radio and television programmes. Some of his first work with the workshop involved providing sounds for the popular science-fiction serial Quatermass and the Pit. Under his direction the Workshop grew from being a small back room department to being one of the most acclaimed electronic studios in the world. He remained with the Workshop until 1983, although he stepped back from organisation duties in 1977. In 1983, with Roy Curtis-Bramwell, he wrote a retrospective of the Workshop entitled The First 25 Years: The BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

The 1969 BBC album "Narrow Boats - Voices, Sounds and Songs of the Canals" (REB 56M) was arranged and produced by Desmond Briscoe, and edited by Dick Mills of the Radiophonic Workshop, using recordings from the BBC Sound Archives.

There would have been no Radiophonic Workshop without Daphne Oram, despite the fact that she worked there for less than a year. She was a remarkable woman and a true pioneer, whose achievements have never been fully recognised. As well as her work in electronic music she also composed many orchestral pieces, all of them as yet unperformed. This year though, Sonic Arts Network (www.sonicartsnetwork.org) are to mount an exhibition and concert celebrating her life and work.

Daphne left the BBC in 1959 and moved to Tower Folly, a Kent oast-house that she had already started converting into a home and studio. Here she produced music for film and theatre, using the techniques of musique concrète and primitive electronics. Over the next years she was to develop her own Oramic Synthesis, an extremely novel way of producing electronic sounds.

At that time, the most advanced electronic instrument in existence was the RCA Electronic Music Synthesizer Mark II. Built in 1957, it consisted of a huge array of steel racks and was bigger than the average living room. The machine (which still exists) was controlled, or 'programmed' by means of a roll of paper, punched with holes. It also offered an alternative: the parameters could instead be drawn onto transparent film that passed over a series of photo-cells. Daphne's Oramic system was similarly controlled by drawing, but for each parameter there was a separate roll of 35mm transparent film (known as 'clear leader' in the film industry). The 10 rolls of sprocketed film were mechanically linked, and passed over a horizontal 'drawing table' where the operator could make marks on the film to control pitch, envelope, intensity, and so on. Additional rolls of sprocketed recording tape or 'mag track' could be used to record the results; this section was referred to as the 'multitrack' recorder.

Daphne seems to have preferred to draw onto the film using a brush and special ink, but felt pens or sticky tape could be used. Her machine had several oscillators with variable waveforms, again controlled by photo-electric cells. This part of the machine was even more bizarre: a selection of glass plates, each with a cut-out pattern, could be fixed to 'cathode ray scanners' to change the waveforms. It was effectively an oscilloscope in reverse! Reading contemporary accounts of how the Oramic system worked is confusing nowadays [see photo and diagrams,courtesy Sonic Arts Network, overleaf], as the words analogue and digital are used, but not in the sense that we know them. Continuously variable parameters were regarded as analogue, while those that could only be switched on or off were 'digital'. However, Daphne did eventually go digital in the modern sense.

I met Daphne Oram once, in 1989, and inquired whether she still used the Oramic system. Surprised and delighted that I'd even heard of it, she laughed "Oh no, not that old-fashioned thing!" She then explained that her old Oramic system had been swept away and replaced by something far more modern! She'd been working with 'some clever young chaps' who had helped her to build a new, computer-controlled synthesizer. "It's a huge improvement!" she said. "Now, when you draw the parameters, they're digitally scanned into a micro-processor"

Yes, it still used rolls of 35mm film!

Although her name will be forever associated with her 'realisation' of Ron Grainer's Doctor Who theme, Delia Derbyshire proved herself to be an extremely original and sensitive composer. She had a degree in Music and Maths from Cambridge that may have accounted for her unusual and analytical approach to sound: she is reputed to have always carried a book of logarithm tables that she used in her work!

During her time at the BBC, the Workshop composers were not always properly credited, so consequently there is no complete catalogue of her music. She also 'moonlighted', producing library tracks under various pseudonyms. Some of her music is available on CD, though, and she has a MySpace tribute page.

Blue Veils & Golden Sands and The Delian Mode, two pieces that she made in the Radiophonic Workshop, are particularly outstanding, featuring organic sounds that seem to 'shimmer' as their harmonics slowly change. She claimed to have made the sounds by analysing the partials of her favourite metal lampshade and replicating them with sine-wave test oscillators! Before Delia, electronic music had a reputation for sounding 'ugly'; she proved that it could also be extremely beautiful.

In 1973 she left the BBC and gave up composing, working for a short time with Brian Hodgson at Electrophon Studios. Then followed a series of curiously directionless moves: she went to Cumbria to work as a radio operator on the gas pipeline; was briefly married; she ran an art gallery, and made a disastrous attempt at teaching music in York. Eventually she settled with a partner who brought much-needed stability.

In the late '90s her interest in electronic music returned and she began working on an album, but sadly, it was never finished, as she died at the age of 64 after cancer treatment. In a 2001 obituary Brian Hodgson wrote of her: "One night many years ago, as we left Zinovieff's studio, she paused on Putney Bridge. 'What we are doing now is not important for itself,' she said, 'but one day someone might be interested enough to carry things forwards and create something wonderful on these foundations.'"

Dick Mills (born 1936) is a British sound engineer, specialising in electronic sound effects which he produced at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Mills was one of the original staff at the Radiophonic Workshop, joining in 1958 as a technical assistant. At first he was employed to handle the hardware of the Workshop but soon found himself recording effects. Some of his earliest, uncredited sound work was on the 1958 BBC science-fiction serial Quatermass and the Pit. Another of his prominent early recordings was the "Major Bloodnok's Stomach" sound effect, a significant part of the popular The Goon Show.

Although he recorded much in those early years, it is for his later work on Doctor Who for which he most remembered. In 1972, he took over from fellow BBC Radiophonic Workshop sound effects producer Brian Hodgson, who he had sometimes previously assisted, and continued providing "special sound" for every episode of the programme, with the exception of two four-part stories, until it ended in 1989. He also provided special sound for the Doctor Who spin-off K-9 and Company. As such, he has the distinction of having more on-screen credits than anyone else in the history of the series. Owing to his technical know-how, he managed to bring to the position new methods of recording sound effects quicker than before. Besides his sound effects on Doctor Who, he also produced and compiled the first of the programme's music compilations Doctor Who - The Music and Doctor Who - The Music II. Over the years, many of his own sound effects have also appeared on various compilations.

Other sound effects he provided included material for the cult series Moonbase 3, produced in 1973 by then-Doctor Who producer Barry Letts, and also occasionally sounds for The Two Ronnies.

Mills' work was acknowledged in a Doctor Who documentary broadcast on The Lively Arts in 1977. The same year he appeared on the BBC's children's magazine programme Blue Peter to demonstrate how some of the Doctor Who effects were realised and how children could make their own sound effects at home. He also appeared in the 2004 BBC Radiophonic Workshop BBC Four documentary Alchemists of Sound.

He is also the author of many books on aquaria and tropical fish, as well as a former editor of The Aquarist and Pondkeeper magazine and a member of the Federation of British Aquatic Societies Council.

Brian Hodgson (born 1938) is a British television composer and sound technician. Born in Liverpool in 1938, Hodgson joined the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1962 where he became the original sound effects creator for the science fiction programme Doctor Who. His main claims to fame are the sound of the TARDIS (which he created by running the back door key to his mother's house along a bass string of a gutted piano, then electronically treating the recording) and the famous voices of the Daleks, which he created by distorting the actors' voices and feeding them through a device called a ring modulator. He continued to produce effects for the programme until 1972 when he left the Workshop, leaving Dick Mills to produce effects for the remainder of the show's run.

Earlier, in 1966, with fellow workshop musician Delia Derbyshire and EMS founder Peter Zinovieff, he helped set up Unit Delta Plus, an organisation which they intended to use to create and promote electronic music. Based in a studio in Zinovieff's townhouse in Putney, they exhibited their music at a few experimental and electronic music festivals, including The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave at which The Beatles' "Carnival of Light" had its only public playing. After a troubled performance at the Royal College of Art, in 1967, the unit disbanded.

Also in the late sixties, Hodgson and Derbyshire, along with fellow musician David Vorhaus, set up the Kaleidophon studio in Camden Town. The studio produced electronic music for various London theatres and, in 1968, the three used it to produce their first album as the band White Noise. Although later albums were essentially solo Vorhaus albums, the debut, An Electric Storm featured collaborations with Hodgson and Derbyshire and is now considered an important and influential album in the development of electronic music.

During this period the trio also contributed, using pseudonyms, to the Standard Music Library. Many of these recordings, including compositions by Hodgson using the name "Nikki St George", were later used on the seventies ITV science fiction rivals to Doctor Who; The Tomorrow People and Timeslip.

After leaving the Radiophonic Workshop, he set up the Electrophon studio with John Lewis, in Covent Garden, where he was later joined by Derbyshire. In 1973, he worked with the Doctor Who composer Dudley Simpson, under the name "Electrophon", on the album In A Covent Garden (sometimes credited to "The Unexploded Myth"). It featured Hodgson and Simpson's arrangements of several classical compositions for synthesisers and a 16 piece orchestra. Their versions of Tchaikovsky's None But the Weary Heart and Debussy's "La fille aux cheveux de lin" later appeared in the Doctor Who serial "The Robots of Death". The duo also released the albums Zygoat, in 1972, and Further Thoughts On the Classics, in 1974. In 1975, Hodgson collaborated with John Lewis, under the name "Wavemaker", on an album of experimental synthesiser work named Where Are We Captain ?... and later, in 1977, on New Atlantis. Besides records, Hodgson also spent his time at the studio writing scores for ballet and film including, with Derbyshire, the music for the 1973 horror film The Legend of Hell House.

In 1977, leaving the Electrophon studio in the hands of Lewis, he returned to the Radiophonic Workshop to replace Desmond Briscoe as its organiser. In 1983, he became the head of the department, remaining there until circumstances forced him to resign in 1995.

In 1983, he appeared at Doctor Who's 20th Anniversary celebrations at Longleat alongside many cast and crew from the series.

Maddalena Fagandini is an electronic musician and television producer. She was employed by the BBC in the early 50s as part of their Italian Service before becoming part of the pioneering BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1959.

Her work with the Radiophonic Workshop involved creating jingles and interval signals, using musique concrète techniques, for BBC radio and television. In 1962 one of her interval signals was re-worked by future Beatles producer George Martin and released, under the pseudonym "Ray Cathode", as "Time Beat". She left the Workshop in 1966, following the introduction of synthesisers, to become a television producer and director.

John Baker (1937–1997) was a musician and composer who worked in jazz and electronic music. He was educated at the Royal Academy of Music where he studied piano and composition. In 1960 he joined the BBC as a sound mixer, before transferring, in 1963, to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop where he remained until 1974.

He was the most prolific of the early Workshop composers, developing a trademark style, creating music by manipulating tapes of everyday sounds such as blowing across the top of an empty bottle. A rare snippet of Baker at work was included in the 1968 documentary film Music, which more famously featured the Beatles working on Hey Jude in the studio. A jazz pianist, he brought a sense of rhythm to the Workshop which some of the other more mathematical composers lacked. His work included many signature tunes for BBC television and radio. He was also particularly interested in combining recorded electronic music with live musicians.

Baker's private life was affected by alcoholism, which led to his 'retirement' from the Radiophonic Workshop in 1974. He produced very little work thereafter.

Two compilations of his work entitled The John Baker Tapes were released in July 2008 by Trunk Records.

David Cain (born 1941) was a composer and technician for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. He was educated at Imperial College London, where he earned a degree in mathematics. In 1963, he joined the BBC as a studio manager, specialising in radio drama.

He transferred to the Radiophonic Workshop in 1967 where he composed various jingles and signature tunes as well as the complete incidental music for the BBC's radio productions of The War of the Worlds in 1967, and The Hobbit in 1968. He also produced the Workshop's 1973 adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. He remained with the Radiophonic Workshop until 1973.

His 30-second composition "Crossbeat" was used as the original theme for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's morning radio current affairs program AM, which premiered in 1967.