Sometimes I came in when I had hours to spare between assignments. You must understand that I did not just work in the Svem. Sometimes there were 3 hours between jobs and if the SVEM was free I could do some composing. Also when I worked in the SVEM myself I stayed a little longer to work on my probes. This is what I call the little tunes I made on Fairlight and you will find some on this site - I am not doing anything else with them except declare them to the authors' rights society BUMA/STEMRA. Of course there is the English meaning of the word probe connected to that word, but the Dutch word for "to try" is "proberen" and there you see a second reason why I call my little tunes "probes". (I told you I like languages!). They are below (and "inside") the photo.

Here you can click to hear 5 different "probes" - you can also click the persons on the photograph. 
Probe 1 was later used for a program. I have no recording of Probe 3, or I don't know where (and what!) it is. Instead I have here another kind of probe I called Triumph.
I don't have a clean recording of Probe 5, instead this is the version I remixed for my "Walhalla Symfonie". The first part is Probe 5 but then I added the ARP 2500 rhythmtrack and made another composition, I originally called that second part ProbeMCL, because I used (had to!) MCL. I recorded the ARP-sequence on tape and had Fairlight IIx with SMPTE run in time with the tape. Now I call this one Probe 5 plus.

I also recall a radio play I did and they wanted something special, so in the evening, after the recordings for the radio play, I went to the SVEM and made a little tune for that scene, so we could use it the next day.

It was part of a smart radioplay called "Het Vertrek" - this Dutch word has two meanings: "The Departure" and "The Room". In this play the main person is born (his departure from the first "room") and he has to go from one room to another. In those rooms things happen and he has to take tests to get to another room. His purpose in life (as he finds out in one of the rooms) is to get to a special room to get something (the word "precumonen" is used that has no meaning). But as he is travelling, the building, in which the rooms exist, falls apart. At the end most of the rooms are ruins and can not be reached. The computer that rules the building doesn't remember very much either. Then the main person starts a new life, because of course that's what it is: the life of a person who travels from room to room. And the end suggests we also travel from building to building. It is an impressive piece. Director was Willy Brill and the writer of the piece Ingrid van Delft. If I listen to the whole play I just can't turn away from it.

In 1986 Akai came with its S-900 sampler. It was 12 bits and that was better than the Fairlight we used in the SVEM. The Fairlight IIx was only 8-bits!. But... the Fairlight III was already there, costing a lot of money, but it was a 16-bit sampler and many more new features, including audio editing. We were impressed but didn't have the money..... yet

In 1986 was the Firato and we were told to represent the SVEM there. I refused. My argument was that we were there presenting the Dutch broadcasting corporations with an 8-bit machine, and the next stand could be the Akai-stand, with it's better sounding and 20 times cheaper S-900 sampler. I would feel foolish representing a studio that was out of date! A year later two new Jingle Production Facilities were built for the NOS where the S-900 sampler also found a place. I had to teach some technicians how to use it, but I wasn't allowed to work there myself - something I don't understand to this day!
Our chief who got us the Neeve mixing console, managed to get us the new Fairlight III as well. I still don't know how he did it, but he did. And we were as happy as children.
The next photo is the only one I have that shows the studio with the new Fairlight III.

The Fairlight III came and we had to present it a week later at the Firato, which was an annual event in Amsterdam (RAI) on Home Entertainement. Theo, Fred, John, Joost and I worked hard to study the new Fairlight and we were in the studio everyday, all day for a week.