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Searcher and Stallion - Audio Dramas

Topics: Audio Drama, Searcher and Stallion, Science Fiction, Kendall Jackman, Wayne Tyler, Scott Howard

Language: English

Searcher and Stallion was a science fiction audio drama series originally broadcast on KRCL 90.9 FM in Salt Lake City in the early 1990s. Consisting of a narrator and original music, it told the story of a man who "awoke, alone on a laboratory table, with an ageless body and no knowledge of his past in a post apocalyptic world. Now in his exoskel, a powered suit of armor, he roams the galaxy with his robotic companion Stallion[...]"

The series was briefly revised around 2010, with a full cast production story titled "Dreams and Wings" and some original episodes were made available as MP3 files. Some of the episodes were broadcast and mixed live as they were broadcast on radio and not preserved. This collection includes MP3 files that were made available online during the show's revival, combined with other episodes that were recorded on cassette by a fan of the show as they aired on radio and then uploaded to the live internet streaming audio service Live365, which was captured by another fan of the show. Episode 5 from the story The Quiet Fear is incomplete and cut off at the end.

The following is the text from the defunct website searcherandstallion.com:

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Searcher & Stallion has come a long ways since the early days of production back in the early 90′s. The shows outlined below are all from the original series originally heard on KRCL 90.9 FM in Salt Lake City. Although some of these shows will never be available again, select stories are now being made available for download in the Searcher & Stallion Fan Forum. These episodes are only available to registered members of the forum so head one over and register today for a taste of classic Searcher & Stallion.

1/5/1992 - The Mu-Light Shift - 7 episodes - by Wayne Tyler

Commentary

Searcher and Stallion come to the aid of the Deerians, oppressed by Overlords of another race. Deerian scientists have discovered the Mu-Light Shift, a strange energy surge that annihilates all matter within its influence. Searcher and Stallion try to keep advancing Overlord troops from seizing the Mu-Light Shift and using it to wipe out the Deerians. But the Mu-Light Shift harbors a terrible and wonderful secret not even the Deerians know...

The first Searcher and Stallion story, conceived by Wayne Tyler during a meeting in 1991 between Wayne and Scott Howard, John Phillips, and Kendall Jackman. We knew we wanted to produce a narrative radio show based on Scott's Searcher and Stallion characters, but it took a few weeks' worth of discussions to decide what kind of character Searcher was, what Stallion was, what the exoskel could do, what setting the stories would take place in.

The text was written in the waning weeks of 1991. When a few episodes were complete, Scott, Kendall, and John got together in Kendall's basement to record. Equipment consisted of an old consumer-grade quarter-inch open-reel tape recorder, a Radio Shack microphone, and a six-channel mixer. Music, as well as what little Sound effects were used, were produced using Kendall's and John's music equipment, including the Roland Juno-2, Korg DS-8, Roland D-110, Akai VX-90, and S-700 sampler, driven by sequencer software on an Atari ST computer. Studio furniture consisted of a card table for the synthesizers and a cardboard box for John to use as a mixing desk.

Since we didn't have multi-track recording capability, everything had to be performed and mixed live onto the finished tape. Scott would read from the script, while Kendall performed music and sound effects, and John would mix down the performance. The mic picked up every sound in the room, and some from outside, too. We had no microphone stand, so Scott had to keep the mic quiet in his hands. Keeping the voice at the right level was difficult. Mistakes were frequent. Sound effects and music cues were missed. Keeping the narrative in sync with the music was difficult. The music was sequenced, so its timing could not vary. We'd frequently run through the music before the speaking was done, or vice versa, or the musical tension would develop too early or too late in a scene. It took most of a Saturday to record just ten minutes' worth of finished product.

The first episode was recorded Saturday, January 4, 1992 and was aired at 11:00pm the next night on Scott's radio show, Variables, which aired on Salt Lake City listener-supported radio station KRCL. We had also recorded very basic intro and outtro music to cap the story at both ends. The ten minutes' worth of narration didn't go far, but in the original concept for the show, the narration was designed simply to set the mood for music selections from commercial CDs to be played between scenes.

It's hard to remember the initial audience reaction the night the first episode aired. There were few, if any, phone calls. That would soon change. But for now, we were elated to hear the first episode come together, and relieved to have pulled it off successfully.

Recording of The next week's episode followed pretty much in the same way that the first one had. In other words, it was a harrowing, time-consuming experience that took up most of our Saturday, and even minimal quality could be maintained only with great difficulty. By the third week, we were ready to make some changes. A microphone stand was purchased. Kendall's camcorder was used as an additional recording device. This made it possible to record Scott's voice by itself on the open-reel recorder, and mix in the sound effects and music later in the process. This opened up time for Kendall to create more complex and detailed music. A new compressor module regulated the wide volume swings of Scott's voice.

Quality was not so much a hit-or-miss affair anymore, but principal recording and music composition still took most of a Saturday. We all had day jobs, and we could not afford to spend 100% of every weekend working on Searcher and Stallion. Kendall stopped producing original music in order to keep the recordings on schedule. From this point on, barring the rare exception, all music for Searcher and Stallion would come from commercial CDs in Scott's personal collection or from the station's library.

By the time the last "Mu-Light Special" episode had aired, audience response was clear. Calls came in every week from listeners who had missed the previous week's episode and wanted to know what they missed. The week after the final episode, we played all the scenes in the entire story, back to back, with no inter-scene CD selections. Even at that, it took about forty minutes to play the whole thing. It was hard to believe that we'd been able to produce that much material, given our limited means, but satisfying to know that we could pull it off. In fact, the next stories were already being written.

1/05/1992 - 1: The Mu-Light Shift, Episode 1

1/12/1992 - 2: The Mu-Light Shift, Episode 2

1/19/1992 - 3: The Mu-Light Shift, Episode 3

1/26/1992 - 4: The Mu-Light Shift, Episode 4

2/09/1992 - 5: The Mu-Light Shift, Episode 5

2/16/1992 - 6: The Mu-Light Shift, Episode 6

2/23/1992 - 7: The Mu-Light Shift, Episode 7

3/22/1992 - The Edge of Knowing - 6 episodes - by Wayne Tyler

Searcher awakens and explores an abandoned city to try to find out about his past

3/22/1992 - 1: The Edge of Knowing, Episode 1

3/29/1992 - 2: The Edge of Knowing, Episode 2

4/05/1992 - 3: The Edge of Knowing, Episode 3

4/12/1992 - 4: The Edge of Knowing, Episode 4

4/19/1992 - 5: The Edge of Knowing, Episode 5

4/26/1992 - 6: The Edge of Knowing, Episode 6

5/3/1992 - The Slaves of Freedom - 7 episodes - by Kendall Jackman

Searcher responds to a distress call from his old friend, Yorin.

5/03/1992 - 1: Drafted!

5/10/1992 - 2: Hope

5/17/1992 - 3: Descent

5/24/1992 - 4: A Savior

6/07/1992 - 5: A Map

6/14/1992 - 6: Confrontation

6/21/1992 - 7: Escape

7/19/1992 - The Quiet Fear - 5 episodes - by Scott Howard

7/19/1992 - 1: The Quiet Fear, Episode 1

7/26/1992 - 2: The Quiet Fear, Episode 2

8/02/1992 - 3: The Quiet Fear, Episode 3

8/09/1992 - 4: The Quiet Fear, Episode 4

8/16/1992 - 5: The Quiet Fear, Episode 5

8/23/1992 - Vacation Episode - One episode - by Scott Howard

Commentary

By this time, Scott had had enough of the frenetic production pace. We'd already skipped two weeks in July, and now we skipped another week to let Scott catch his breath. He really had to talk us into it, though.

The "Vacation Episode" was just a bunch of music with Scott throwing in ad-lib one-liners between songs – no scripts, no pre-recording, just Scott on the station mic. All I remember about it now was Searcher traveling to the "beach planet of Parthon 6." We'll have to pay homage to the "Vacation Episode" at some point, so keep your ears open for Parthon 6 to make a comeback.

9/6/1992 - The War - One episode - by Kendall Jackman

Commentary

Searcher comes to the aid of freedom fighters in their moment of struggle, providing the final bit of effort that tips the battle to victory.

9/13/1992 - The Drive - 2 episodes - by Kendall Jackman

9/13/1992 - 1: The Drive, Episode 1

9/20/1992 - 2: The Drive, Episode 2

10/11/1992 - The Nemesis - 12 episodes - by Brad Torgersen

10/11/1992 - 1: The Beginning

10/18/1992 - 2: The Preparation

10/25/1992 - 3: Time for Action

11/01/1992 - 4: A Trap is Sprung

11/15/1992 - 5: Times of Conquest

11/22/1992 - 6: Retaliate and Escape

12/06/1992 - 7: The Price of Freedom

12/13/1992 - 8: Fight or Flight

12/20/1992 - 9: On the Move

12/27/1992 - 10: Desperation

01/03/1993 - 11: Return to Center

01/10/1993 - 12: Battle to the Last

Jan 1993? - The Time Masters - 7 episodes - by Kendall Jackman

Jan 1993? - 1: A Curious Task

Jan 1993? - 2: The Journey Begins

Jan 1993? - 3: Into the Past

Feb 1993? - 4: Escape Into the Past

Feb 1993? - 5: Return to Danger

Feb 1993? - 6: Prisoners in Time

Feb 1993? - 7: A Dead End in Time

Mar 1993? - Mirror in the Shadows - 3 episodes - by Wayne Tyler

Mar 1993? - 1: First Warning

Mar 1993? - 2: The Mind's Eye

Mar 1993? - 3: Reflections in the Mirror

Jun 1993? - The Edge of Knowing (Remake) - 3 episodes - by Wayne Tyler

Jun 1993? - 1: The Library

Jun 1993? - 2: The Struggle for Knowledge

Jun 1993? - 3: The Discovery

Jul 1993? - The Stone - 4 episodes - by Kendall Jackman

Jul 1993? - 1: Mental Journey

Jul 1993? - 2: Guided By the Phantom

Jul 1993? - 3: Sojourn With the People

Aug 1993? - 4: Danger and Discovery

June 1996? - The Searcher - One episode - by L. Lynn Holt

Dramatized episode ("Page One") portraying Searcher as the man he was before the series began, and the circumstances that led up to his memory being erased.

Sep 2000? - Emergence - 3 episodes - by Allan Farrar

Sep 2000? - 1: Emergence, Episode 1 ("Page Two")

Sep 2000? - 2: Emergence, Episode 2 ("Page Three")

Sep 2000? - 3: Emergence, Episode 3 ("Page Four")