I started working with the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation (NOS) in 1973 as an assistent "program engineer radio" as we call it. After I and 8 others were selected, there was first a business training of 6 months, because the tasks I had to do are very specific for radio broadcasting. This training was in Hilversum in a former restaurant, "Santbergen", the NOS had bought for this purpose. Today it's called the "Media Academy".

I was an assistant from 1973 to 1976. As an assistent I worked in many studios to place microphones in the orchestras and go to theatres all over the country to assist in the recording of radio programs and concerts.
This was a great time, because I went to concerts of Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass, The Steve Miller Band, Charles Aznavour and many others. But also classical concerts, for instance in the famous Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Unfortunately I don't have any photographs of these years.

As an engineer I worked for all broadcasting associations, like the AVRO (general), KRO (Catholic), NCRV (protestant), VARA (Social-democratic), VPRO (social criticism), TROS (general), NOS and in later years EO (evangelical) and VERONICA (general). There were (and are) also a great number of small broadcasters. But none of the non-commercial broadcasters have their own technicians. They hired us (for free) from the NOS. The way the radio and television in my country works is very hard to explain, so I won't try it.

I also arranged something else and I wanted to know how the saxophone-part would sound. So I asked Piet Zonneveld, at the time conductor of the orchestra of the KRO-program "Van Twaalf tot Twee", if the saxgroup could play this for me. And they did and they were very serious about it too. Great guys! Leader of the saxophone group was Karel Reys, brother of Rita Reys a famous Dutch jazz-singer. He gave me some advice too about the key and range of the saxophones. Saxophones just don't sound nice when they have to pitch very high - this is something I take into consideration now when I play a sampled saxophone sound on a keyboard.

Before that all happened, I started making a montage for myself in 1976 as an assignment for myself after I finished my training. I called it "Muzikollage" which is comprised of the words "muziek" (music) and "collage". The idea was to make an arrangement using music on records. So I could manipulate the music on records the way I wanted. Sometimes I only used a few seconds of a particular record to use as a bridge between to other records. Some songs were used a bit longer, spinned up or down and even looped and partly reversed.
I only used tape, a tape-spinner (speedcontrol) and an effectunit (reverb-delay). I made two programs, each about 40 minutes long and it took me 3 years to make it (in my spare time) and I bought a lot of records during that time. One of those programs was actually aired in 1980 in a program called "Rauhfaser". 
I like to put a few fragments on this site without further explanation. There are 8 fragments, 4 from each montage I made. If you click on "Muzikollage 1", you can see a description of a part of Muzikollage 1.

Disclaimer: it is not my intention of publishing other peoples music on the internet. These are however fragments of existing records, edited in different ways. I merely want to show what you can do with arranging existing music.

But most of the time we were just playing for ourselves and rehearsed in a studio that was available at the time. Mostly we played in the old VARA-studio, now called the MCO, Music Centre of the "Omroep".(Broadcast system).