Noel Maginnity Photo: Supplied
In music radio we laud the performers, sometimes we even laud the announcers who introduce them, but all of that would just exist in a vacuum if it wasn't for the work of the technical engineers who get those sounds onto the airwaves.
One of those technicians is Noel Maginnity, who for the best part of three decades as a Christchurch-based sound engineer helped RNZ Concert broadcast many hours of music.
And beyond that, numerous hours of archival material was saved and digitised thanks to Noel's ingenuity.
Last year, the Australasian Sound Recordings Association (ASRA) gave Noel a special award for services to radio in New Zealand, especially RNZ Concert.
Noel Maginnity in his element. Photo: Supplied
To mark the award, RNZ Concert host Bryan Crump spoke with Noel.
They discussed their shared love of sound, especially the sound of trains (Noel grew up in the railway town of Taumarunui), and how Noel's father was an amateur or 'ham' radio enthusiast.
Crump also talked with a couple of Noel's RNZ colleagues: RNZ Concert producer David McCaw and sound archivist Marie O'Connell. It was O'Connell who nominated Noel for the ASRA award.
McCaw remembers Noel coming to RNZ Concert in the early 1990s from the operations side of the company where he'd been part of the team responsible for radio transmission.
McCaw described Noel as a "white coat" - a technical whiz who used his knowledge of acoustics to accurately place microphones for the best possible capture of the sound of various instruments, especially lots of them in a large space like the Christchurch Town Hall.
Few other sound engineers could match Noel's precision.
Noel Maginnity in earlier days. Photo: Supplied
O'Connell said she nominated Noel not only because of the work he did getting the sound of music out of studios and concert halls and onto the air, but also how he helped save many precious recordings on old magnetic tape.
When such tape begins to decay, a layer of oxide is formed which makes the tape in the reel stick to itself.
The fix for sticky tapes was isopropyl alcohol, but the fumes from the fix left O'Connell's head reeling.
Noel's technical knowledge and ingenuity enabled him to rig up a machine that used an intravenous drip to apply tiny amounts of isopropyl to the tape. He also adapted an old car windscreen wiper to remove the excess isopropyl rather than have it overwhelm the tape reels.
His fix not only saved O'Connell from countless headaches, it also sped up the transfer of precious recordings to the Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision (the national sound and video archive) digital collection.
While Noel's strength was as a technician, he loved classical music, and Crump's interview concludes with Noel nominating one of his favourite pieces, Tchaikovsky's 2nd Symphony.
Noel is now retired, but you're still likely to find him working with machines. These days he's often found helping to restore and maintain old railway vehicles at the Pahiatua Railcar Museum.
Thanks, Noel, for all the broadcasts you made possible and all the recordings we can still listen to.
Music:
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich: Symphony No 2 in C minor Op 17, Little Russian (4), excerpt – Seattle SO/Gerard Schwarz (Naxos 8.571225)
