Vinyl record sales increasing

[Cousin Hepcat]

... The question I have is do any of these new bands have any music on vinyl or otherwise that I want to listen to?

Tourbillion, coming from someone who's listened almost exclusively to 30s-40s swing / jazz / etc for close to the last 10 years with only the occasional "new" CD in between, that's been my biggest question. It started nagging at me more & more. Recenly I've started taking some classes with people my age and realized I couldn't connect with them at all musically - and I don't want to miss out on someone who could otherwise be a soulmate for something that simple. (Round these parts there's not a big "retro/vintage" scene.)

So get lists from people you think are really interesting folks & connect well with otherwise & listen to Amazon & iTunes clips, borrow CDs - there really is a lot of good stuff, though just like the flea market stacks of 78s, a lot of crap to wade through.

You just gotta be prepared, no matter how careful you try to be choosing new music that YOU truly enjoy and feel has real artistic value, now & then you're bound to get a humiliating mistake in the mail:

lol lol lol

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[Sefton]

At least they didn't gut it and make it into a storage cabinet.

My father did something like that! (shakes head slowly...sighs...) My father gave me this great 50s tube radio. Big, full sized like a dresser. Made in West Germany. Beautiful glass plate and bakelite(?) or plastic buttons. AM and Shortwave. I used to love to listen to international broadcasts on her. Well, I went off to the east coast to college and when I came back a few years later I was horrified to find that he'd gutted the (still perfect) insides and made a cabinet for his records! To my Father it was just something old I guess....

 

[Sefton]

Recenly I've started taking some classes with people my age and realized I couldn't connect with them at all musically...
- Cousin Hepcat

You mean Bing Crosby isn't on everyones IPod?
(I'm not making fun of you by the way, I love old Crosby from the 20s/30s)

 

[Absinthe_1900]

My father did something like that! (shakes head slowly...sighs...) My father gave me this great 50s tube radio. Big, full sized like a dresser. Made in West Germany. Beautiful glass plate and bakelite(?) or plastic buttons. AM and Shortwave. I used to love to listen to international broadcasts on her. Well, I went off to the east coast to college and when I came back a few years later I was horrified to find that he'd gutted the (still perfect) insides and made a cabinet for his records! To my Father it was just something old I guess....

The worst example I ever saw was someone that gutted one of the big Victor Orthophonic Credenza's. (A Victor 8-30!:rage

If you ever get to hear a tuned Orthophonic Credenza, you won't believe how nice an acoustic phonograph can sound.

 

[Shimmy Sally]

My father did something like that! (shakes head slowly...sighs...) My father gave me this great 50s tube radio. Big, full sized like a dresser. Well, I went off to the east coast to college and when I came back a few years later I was horrified to find that he'd gutted the (still perfect) insides and made a cabinet for his records!

A friend of mine bought the coolest vintage TV set, but when we got it to his house and plugged it in, it pretty much gave a fireworks display. Tore my carseat in transport too. Anyway, he tried to get it repaired but ended up gutting it out and plans to put a plasma screen inside it
It's hard to know how and when to modify something like that.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

Vintage Television Sets

It can be somewhat more difficult to get a vintage television set repaired, than a vintage radio, or wind-up phonograph.

Vintage TV set run at extremely high internal voltage, and an un-tested vintage tv set should never be powered up if you aren't familiar with working on them.
(Always power up an untested radio or tv SLOWLY on a variac)

While I'm working on getting an old tv back to original, in the case of a vintage tv set, I can see in some cases replacing the internals with modern components, as some early tv sets can be very difficult to keep working. (In some cases losing the CRT is a kiss of death for some models)

 

[Pilgrim]

I have an upright Victrola and many old 78's - I also have a decent collection of 33 and 45 records.

As far as I'm concerned, I'd MUCH rather work with CDs. They last much longer, store in less space, and aren't so darned fragile. My opinion is shaped by having been a DJ for years and witnessing the wear suffered by many records.

IMO, vinyl is a pain in the patoot. Give me CDs.

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

You forget how good a vinyl record can sound if you're just used to scratchy oldies.

Atomic, when I just graduated and got my first jukebox & had some friends over, they went all google-eyed & gasped: "WOW! That doesn't sound like a record at all, sounds just like a CD!" lol You had to see their amazed expressions...

It isn't widely realized (i.e. the industry hasn't exactly publicized it) but CD has a limited lifespan, thought to be about 15-20 years. That's right, your wonderful CD collection is going to oxidize and become unplayable. So find the guy Salv mentioned and transfer your CDs to 78pm now!

CD-R's are the worst, have them go bad sometimes after 6 mos... You laugh, but there was not long ago an April Fools joke from the Library of Congress audio restoration dept, where they struggled with the instability of all available digital archiving media, and though magnetic reel tape has proved to last atleast 50 years, decided the best way to go was cutting & custom-pressing the most historically important one-of-a-kind material on 78s. I'll admit, they had me going for a while :eusa_doh:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1216161

You have to not only consider the expense, but also find someone with the skills to run a 78 RPM lathe. I was talking to a guy at work who has a friend who is apparently the only person left in the UK who knows how to cut a 78. It's a dying skill.

I cut a 78 for the jukebox - owned a 50s lathe for a while. New blanks are not that expensive, about $10 last I checked. Even designed my own label name & graphics, was thinking at one point between dayjobs about license jazz 78 reissues & authentic new band releases a la Rhino's late 1980s 78 reissue sets, before reality came a-knocking lol

Have read about everything there is on the topic of disc mastering, in print & on the web, 78s and microgroove... been fascinated with the idea of making records since I cut my first record in 3rd grade: read some article on Edison & got inspired, hooked a small speaker to my boombox with a thumbtack glued to the middle, got a "wax cylinder" (voltive candle with wick removed) rigged up to spin with my motorized Legos - it actually played back!

It is a dying skill. Got the recipie for making 78s (including not just shellac but specific ratios of lime, rock, wood pulp, carbon black... they needed to grind down the steel needles to fit the groove. Never got the timing & temparature cycle for the actual pressing though. Without that you're sunk unless you want to experiment with flash-steam-heating hot sticky goo with unknown hi-temp behavior! ) Fascinatin' stuff, if I had another lifetime & didn't have to worry about having a dayjob career or paying bills...

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

Hmm, I have one 78 (looks) it's red vinyl put out by the "Cambridge Institute of Los Angeles, Calif" called "Weight Reduction--an educational course of instruction". Probably not sanctioned by Cambridge University.

Magneto, there are some funny ones out there (as in "what the heck?!"), great stuff for parties. One of my faves: the Hartz 78 "Teach Your Parakeet How To Talk" lol Then there was the "laughing record" craze of the 1920s, now that just got out of hand...

Eight milk crates full of 78s in my bedroom closet. It's a wonder I have any room for shoes!

and the one I actually might get:
The Rondine Jr.
only $295.

Awww man, go vintage!

It's cheap, it's cool... it's the right thing to do Seriously, the one above, that's my Thorens, saw it in a movie & I had to have it... State Of The Art best consumer turntable you could get for around 1959 (the "golden era of Hi-Fi"), Swiss made, built like a tank but the pickup is light as a feather, plays all speeds with built in pitch control, and will accomodate a modern stylus (this one's now got a Stanton 500 w/ LP & 78 stylii). Less than $100.

The worst example I ever saw was someone that gutted one of the big Victor Orthophonic Credenza's. (A Victor 8-30!:rage

Absinthe, that's terrible, but... you want somethin' to cry about?? I've seen Original (not reproduction) 1940's jukeboxes, where the insides were gutted & replaced with CD changers, and in one hideous case, an EIGHT-TRACK! :cry: Why, Why!

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[LizzieMaine]

Did someone say Vintage Television?

Found in a trash pile, got it fixed up, and gee, I can't figure it out....

...I get the strangest programs on it!

 

[Salv]

Found in a trash pile, got it fixed up, and gee, I can't figure it out....

...

...I get the strangest programs on it!

That reminds me of the SF short story by Harlan Ellison - Jeffty Is Five. Jeffty had a radio that picked up newly-made radio serials that are no longer produced, broadcast by radio stations that no longer exist.

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

Found in a trash pile, got it fixed up, and gee, I can't figure it out....

Hahaha, good catch Lizzie! lol I found a working (after I put in a new needle) 50s tube amp phono console behind a goodwill one time... ended up advertising it locally "for free" & giving it to some guy who wanted to hear his parents' record collection, just didn't have anywhere to keep it.

Salv - there was a Twilight Zone episode of this old guy (in the early 60s), pulled a 30s Zenith upright radio out of the basement, & kept getting Tommy Dorsey's "I'm Getting Sentimental" but only when no one else was around. Hmmm... :beer:

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hahaha, good catch Lizzie! lol I found a working (after I put in a new needle) 50s tube amp phono console behind a goodwill one time... ended up advertising it locally "for free" & giving it to some guy who wanted to hear his parents' record collection, just didn't have anywhere to keep it.

Oh yes, I know how that goes. Right now I have several abandoned-but-salvaged radios out in my garage that I don't have room to house, including an Atwater Kent console from 1930. They're all fixer-uppers, and they're too big and heavy to ship, so I keep meaning to list them in the local shopper-sheet in hopes some local collector type will give them a good home.

Unless there's any New England FL'ers who'd be interested?

 

[Shimmy Sally]

Then there was the "laughing record" craze of the 1920s, now that just got out of hand.

The laughing records were great! Then there was the; "George?"..."Martha?"..."GEORGE!"..."MARTHA!" ...what were the names?

 

[dr greg]

watch out

A friens of mine works in police records..a memo came down the other day that burnt CD's were no longer to be used to store ANY information, as they have begun to deteriorate after 2 years..back to paper, so those who have dumped all their LP's after burning them to CD on the home computer are in for a shock..I stick with vinyl myself

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

The laughing records were great! Then there was the; "George?"..."Martha?"..."GEORGE!"..."MARTHA!" ...what were the names?

OH YEAH, forgot that one Sally!! the CAMEO laughing record, was it not? Or was it the Okeh? That was one of the Good ones lol lol then there was the one with the sour notes on the musical instruments... and of course, a decade or two later, the parody by Spike Jones...

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

A friens of mine works in police records..a memo came down the other day that burnt CD's were no longer to be used to store ANY information, as they have begun to deteriorate after 2 years..back to paper, so those who have dumped all their LP's after burning them to CD on the home computer are in for a shock..I stick with vinyl myself

Dr Greg, you've touched on a sore spot for me....

(Lizzie, if you're still following this thread, you mentioned you archive sound recordings, what do you put them on?)

I spent a LOT of time about a year ago starting to do really nice transfers of some of my fave 78s to MP3s, starting with _careful_ washing (in Kodak Photoflo solution as reccomended in the Library of Congress audio restoration book), playback with 78 stylus on megnetic cart (only wish I had Lizzie's "kitchen sink too" stylii set ), and most time-consuming, the digital cleanup, mainly using some professional EQ-time-analysis software to give all tracks a uniform, mellow volume & tone response, & eliminate annoying / fatiguing resonance peaks.

After as little as 6 months in some cases, some CDRs became unreadable - and I was using what was reported a good brand of blanks and burner, TDK! read everything I could find on CDR reliability: the only way you can really tell if you've just burned a CD that will last "longer" or "shorter", is a thousands-of-dollars industrial CD analyzer, which will map how "strong" (in-spec) the signal is over the disc surface.

Without that, it's a crap shoot. You can increase your odds by buying reputable brands & burners but as in my case that doesn't guarantee anything, some don't "pair well". There are so many other variables I can't list them all: type of laser, burn speed, is your burner in perfect alignment, blank media speed rating (you can actually "overburn" or "underburn" cds and that will make them go bad quicker), media chemistry, good production batch / bad production batch... and it's just a gelatinous ink goo that's forming the hills and dales of the information in the grooves, that just SOUNDS unreliable. DVD-Rs are by all accounts I've read 100x more UNreliable than CDRs (which makes sense; the same technology is packed in denser).

Wanted to save at least my more rare 78s to a more reliable media: read that most national archives (including Library of Congress and MPR) use 1/4" open reel analog tape. Best option. Quantegy still makes fresh tape (Dr Greg, that's the most reliable brand that the police used to use), but unfortunately I calculated it out, and it would cost me too much per minute. (Maybe after my career change...)

So since I know all my cassettes have lasted at least 20 years, did more research, and found the most reliable and sturdily-built cassette deck made: the Pioneer CT-F500 from 1979. HEA-VY!

Simple & easy to fix too: NO silicon chip circuits (except for the Dolby NR circuit, not vital), all solid state discrete components. And a best-seller, so quite common & inexpensive. Got one primo working shape, service manual, replacement belt set & stack of Sony & TDK C-60s. my best option i guess...

(now that celluliod film is being replaced by digital media, what about archiving film? guess we better start making 30-line TV record backups, huh lol )

Yeah, so when cool new releases are on vinyl, go with that...

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

If any new Loungers haven't seen it, click on LizzieMaine's profile and visit her website. Just trust me.

Lizzie, you're too modest, you ought to put the link in your .sig, too.

 

[LizzieMaine]

(Lizzie, if you're still following this thread, you mentioned you archive sound recordings, what do you put them on?)

Well, the organization I was working with -- The First Generation Radio Archives -- http://www.radioarchives.org
-- had me submitting the masters on DAT tape, which I didn't trust at all. I kept protection masters of all the discs I transferred as unprocessed AIFF files stored on CD-Rs, as well as analog tape copies. I have an Otari MX-5050 professional reel-to-reel deck that was liberated from a radio station, as well as a high quality JVC cassette deck for storing analog.

Most of my own old-time-radio recordings are on cassette, dating back to when I first started accumulating them in the mid-70s, and in all that time I've had maybe four or five -- out of over 5000 -- go bad on me, mostly cases of sticky-shed syndrome on industrial grade cassettes dating to the mid-to-late-'80s. I've never had a single name-brand cassette fail on me -- but then, I'm careful to store them properly, in their cases, in dustproof filing boxes.

I don't trust digital formats. Maybe it's just because I'm an analog gal trapped in a digital world, but that's how I am -- I don't trust any audio format I can't edit with a china pencil, a razor blade, and splicing tape.

Luddite Lizzie

PS -- Thanx, Tony, for the plug for my website. Over the next few days, I'm planning to add some additional articles I've had published in recent years, so feel free to stop by!

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

I have an Otari MX-5050 professional reel-to-reel deck that was liberated from a radio station, as well as a high quality JVC cassette deck for storing analog.

Wow, that's an impressive piece of equipment. Came this close to buying an Akai M-9, late 60s solid state, sound quality "good enough" but everyone seems to comment on how they just keep running & never die.

I've never had a single name-brand cassette fail on me

Good to know. Only ones I had shed were "driving copies" left in a hot car for a couple years before switching to the ipod & plug-in casssette adapter lol

I don't trust digital formats. Maybe it's just because I'm an analog gal trapped in a digital world

No, that's just logic. Talking about single-recording formats here (i.e. CD-R's, DVD-R's, DATs): What happens when an analog recording is damaged: records get clicks which can be fixed by playback through digital click-removal equipment; rental VHS videos get a line of static at the bottom; tapes get hiss; but they still PLAY. Digital: you put in the CD and it says "ERROR" , won't play at all; same with the DVD. It shouldn't be this way, but unfortunately, shortcuts taken in the software of playback of digital media seems to take an approach that, "if a few bits are messed up, then it's all gone". There's some protection for glass-mastered CD scratches, but for CD-R's, one scratch on the ink side is fatal, and with recordable optical disc media, the entire thing always seems to go bad at once in my experience.

For DATs, as one archival article put it, that's just adding BOTH the weaknesses of analog audiotape AND the weaknesses of digital media. It's the best option for digital-only content (computer data) but for audio & video, just go with analog tape.

And, analog is time-proven, digital isn't - game over

Swing High,
- Cousin Hepcat