Peter Copeland

During this time he also ran a small disc-cutting business[1] as a sideline under the name Gosport Sound Products (he grew up in Gosport, Hampshire) – initially in his flat at Anerley, South London, and then in a small office in Bristol – doing long-playing disc copies of private recordings such as weddings (this was before the advent of cheap tape and cassette recorders) and disk mastering for subsequent pressings to be made.

As BBC Bristol was the home of the Natural History Unit, he developed an interest in making birdsong and wildlife recordings: he once paid for a holiday in Australia by recording wildlife atmospheres during it and selling them to the BBC Sound Archive.

He was instrumental in effecting the move to digital archiving[d] using the new techniques which were becoming available: he also did extensive research into the highly specialised and complex area of accurate reproduction of old recordings.

He retired from the NSA (by then called the British Library Sound Archive) in 2002 on reaching the age of 60, but continued to act as a consultant until his death from a diabetes-related heart attack on 30 July 2006.

He was still working on a Manual of Analogue Sound Restoration Techniques – a mammoth opus with sections on conversion to digital formats, noise reduction, correct methods of playing and equalizing 78 RPM and other old recordings: the British Library has published this manual electronically on its website.