Showing posts with label turntables. Show all posts
Showing posts with label turntables. Show all posts

Friday, March 04, 2016

Dropping the needle on another show


Music, the way it used to was and, more and more, still be.

I have records, and I'm not afraid to play them. Now, that's the answer to the $64,000 Question.

I imagine you'd be surprised to know exactly how much of the music on 3 Chords & the Truth comes to you in the the old-school manner, off of old LPs, 45s and even 78s. Welllllllll. . . .

I'd have to say most, actually.


BESIDES, old Zenith "Cobra-Matic" record changers are just so cool. As are old LP jackets. 

I think that about covers it until later, when we'll drop another episode of the Big Show onto the platter and see how it plays.

That is all.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Hitchin' a spin


This evening, after watching the network news and its tales of death, mayhem and Trump -- and then reports about all the non-campaign goings-on -- I found myself with a stark choice.

Happy, poppy tunes from 1971 or slitting my wrists.


I trust I made the wise choice. Thank you, Vanity Fare, wherever you are.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Sounds just right. Not perfect, right



OK, there are better record changers out there than this 1956-vintage Zenith.

To be overly truthful, it's really a rebranded Voice of Music 1200-series unit with a "Cobra" tone arm stuck on it. There are even better changers of this vintage out there, if you're willing to pay up.

But to me, this sounds absolutely right. Just enough rumble, a wee bit of hum . . . it sounds like youth. My youth. It sounds like a console stereo in the living room, with the grown-ups playing their music on it.

You can almost smell the hot vacuum tubes burning off a thin coating of dust . . . even when your amp in 2016 is quite solid state. If you're over 50, you KNOW that smell, and you know it well enough to smell it in your mind's nose.

No, sometimes with the right album, you don't want sound that's perfect. You want sound that's right.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Tonight's vinylpalooza


I'm cheap enough that paying $15 for this 1959 stereo release gave me serious pause at the LP bins of an Old Market antique emporium.

On one hand, I'd rather find a gem for a song at an estate sale or something.

On the other hand, the records from this vendor are usually in marvelous playing condition.

On the third hand, a stereo rock 'n' roll record from 1959 -- the mono version of Bobby Freeman's Do You Wanna Dance album came out the previous year -- and from an indie label, no less. That's likely on the rare side, making the $15 price not a rip-off.

I'll say!

BEFORE LISTENING to this early-rock classic this evening, I did a little Internet price checking for the stereo version of Do You Wanna Dance . . . Jubilee 1086 for all you record geeks out there. And the low price I found it being sold for was something like $29.95. The high price (on eBay, of course) was . . . was . . . gulp! . . . $110. I understand a mint first pressing goes for $200.

Mine seems to be a second pressing. Sigh. I coulda been rich.

Now note that amid all this "What's it wurf???" nerd-o-mania, not a word was written about the actual music, which was great despite following the rock-album convention of the day for a hot act. That would be:

SIDE A
  • Cover something.
  • Cover something.
  • Cover something.
  • Original that'll never be released as a single.
  • Cover something.
  • Hit record we named the LP for.
 SIDE B
  • Cover something.
  • Cover something.
  • Original that you'll hear nowhere else. Ever.
  • Cover something.
  • Original that sounds exactly like the big hit on Side 1.
  • Cover something inspiring. Or something.
That is all. Good night, and good listening.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

How your hi-fi stereo record works

Click on the picture for larger, readable view

This afternoon's vintage-LP listening comes with a technical note.

And our tech talk today centers on a question: You ever wonder how stereo records put the stereo on the record?


Well, the top photo of the inner sleeve of our 1958 release by David Carroll and His Orchestra explains how the modern marvel of stereophonic records work. And it also contains a caveat for the stereo newbie, as nearly everyone was 57 years ago -- do not play this thing on a monophonic record player.

A mono cartridge on your mono phonograph will tear this sucker up.

See the explanation on the record sleeve for why that is.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Vintage LP du jour

 

On the menu tonight at La Maison de Trois Chords is The Friends of Distinction's Real Friends album, a nice 1970 vintage for our listening pleasure.

Not only does it feature one of my all-time favorite songs, "Love or Let Me Be Lonely," it also sounds better than many new albums right out of the shrink wrap, even though this particular LP left its shrink wrap around 1970.

DO YOU THINK I still could get me a "Complete RCA Catalog" if I mailed a quarter to Dept. C, Rockaway, New Jersey 07866?

On the other hand, maybe I can dig out the Complete RCA Catalog that I did get for 25 cents back then.

Once a geek, always a geek.

That is all.

Thursday, September 03, 2015

Let's dance!


Here's some of what's been on the old record player the past couple of days.

In 1956, Capitol Records got Benny Goodman and some of the old orchestra gang together to recut some of his classics in hi-fi. And boy do they sound good in high fidelity, pointing out the advancements in recording technology in just the decade and a half or so since the originals came out on 78 r.p.m. discs.

THE ALBUM, The Benny Goodman Story, featured selections from the motion picture of the same name that had just hit movie houses all across America.

What's interesting about this album, which just may be a first-run pressing -- given the packaging and red Capitol label, which changed to turquoise sometime that same year -- is how the cardboard LP sleeve came inside a paper outer sleeve. I don't think I've ever run across that sort of packaging before for a record album.


And that's your bit of vinyl-nerd bait for the day, all the way from the fabulous '50s.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Cool jazz on a hot summer's night

Was anybody better than Billy Eckstine?

Several were as good but none better, I don't think. And this 1959 stereo version of Eckstine's 1958 Billy's Best album makes for fine listening on a hot, steamy Midwestern eve.
 
Hell, it would be just as wonderful on a frigid winter's night on the Plains, too. 

So this was tonight's musical selection here in the Revolution 21 studio here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska, deep into the dog days of summer, with state-fair season still a month away and college football a little further out than that.

UNLIKE many vinyl aficionados, I have nothing in particular against compact discs or good-quality digital audio files. But, damn, there's really nothing like putting an old LP on the turntable, basking in that particular smell of aged cardboard and paper. Nothing like holding the record sleeve in your hands and dreaming of your lost youth . . . or the days when jazz ruled the western world and you were yet a glimmer in your mama and daddy's eyes.

Maybe you can't hold this '50s classic of American popular music in your own two hands, but you can always listen to 3 Chords & the Truth and dream sweet dreams about a culture at its zenith that's just showing off.

Because it could.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Que sera, sera


You never know what's going to end up on the ol' phonograph in the 3 Chords & the Truth studio.

Last night, it was this 1955 LP by Doris Day. Tomorrow night, it could be Waylon Jennings. Who knows? Certainly not yours truly.

What I do know is that, sooner or later, it'll all end up on the Big Show. Keeps life -- and listening -- interesting, it does.

You'd be shocked, shocked to learn how much of the music on the program comes from where I find a lot of the good stuff. That would be estate sales and Goodwill, where lots of albums and singles that never found their way to CDs or downloads sit waiting to be rediscovered and loved anew.

AND WHILE I enjoy these vintage sounds in the comfort of the studio, I find I'm also getting a lesson in how tempus keeps fugiting at an alarming rate. For example, Miss Day's Day Dreams album came out in 1955, a mere six years before I came on the scene.

As an ambivalent member of the Baby Boom generation, that doesn't seem much like ancient history. But then I do the math and see that 1955 was 59 years ago. In my mind, 1955 is the day before yesterday, even though I wasn't born yet.

But in 1955, Doris Day was 31 years young. Now she's 90.

So listen up, kiddies, and listen good. It could happen to you -- and it probably will. I know, year by year, it's happening to me.

Sigh.

Wednesday, May 07, 2014

This was an entertainment center


Did you know there were wireless remote controls in 1940?

There were -- for your top-of-the-line Philco radio-phonographs.

Did you know there were phonographs that worked kind of like modern CD players?



IN 1940, there were -- on your deluxe Philco radio-phonographs. The electronics giant's Beam of Light record players were as easy on your 78s as they were hard on your bank account at the end of the Great Depression.

When you dialed up the phonograph on your radio-frequency remote, the tone arm would come down on the record, a lightweight sapphire stylus with an attached mirror would lower onto the record and reflect a light beam off of the moving mirror to a photovoltaic cell, which would modulate electric current into electrical impulses that would be amplified and . . . voila!

Music.

If you love old electronics like I love old electronics, it doesn't get much cooler than this. The miracle of modern technology -- 70-something years ago!

And the glowing tone-arm head just looks cooler than hell. The whole thing is just cooler than hell.

Friday, November 09, 2012

An important reminder


Advanced pickups aren't just good in bars and nightclubs. They're absolutely crucial on phonographs.

That's why it's important not only to play your Miracle Surface long-playing records only on the best equipment, but to make sure you're playing your stereophonic albums on the right equipment.

















After all, an RCA "Living Stereo" LP with the advanced Miracle Surface is a terrible thing to waste.

This important hi-fi reminder comes to you courtesy of Revolution 21 and 3 Chords & the Truth.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Rock-a-bye, baby!


If I'm tossin' and turnin', turnin' and tossin' all night. . . .

And if I kick the blankets on the floor, too. . . . 

Well, then my lovely bride can just blame Bill Black and His Combo.

More likely, though, she'll blame me for making this my choice for before-bedtime listening.

You do know Bill Black, right? Elvis' bass player in the early days?

WELL, this absolute period piece of an instrumental R&B LP is what Black did with his time when Elvis was off fulfilling his commitment to Uncle Sam with the U.S. Army in West Germany.

Listening to this absolute period piece of an instrumental R&B LP is what I do when it's time to go to bed . . . but not quite yet. Night owl that I am.

Yeah, it'll show up on 3 Chords & the Truth by and by. Of that, you can be sure.

Sadly, Bill Black died in 1965 during a third surgery to remove a brain tumor. He was only 39.

Praise God for records and used record stores, where musicians and their music live forever.

Friday, October 26, 2012

A Capitol idea!

 

My vinyl geekery knows no bounds. This is why I've been having a Capitol time the last couple of days.

(Insert groan here.) 

What we have here aren't just fine mid-century jazz LPs by the George Shearing Quintet and Dakota Staton. Oh, no!

No, what we also have here in the Revolution 21 studio are the first two iterations of Capitol's iconic "rainbow" label.

The Shearing LP, for example, is the second "rainbow" label the record company used, starting sometime in 1959. That makes it easy to tell that this album, though first released in 1956, actually was pressed and purchased no earlier than, say, late '59.


Because Capitol changed its label design again in 1962, putting the logo at the top, we know this record is an older pressing than that. (I told you my geekery knows no bounds.)

The third version of the "rainbow"? That's the one we know from, say, the original pressings of "Meet the Beatles," etc., and so on.


AND WE also know (getting back to the vintage album at hand) where it was purchased -- Younkers department store at one of the nation's first shopping malls, The Center at 42nd and Center streets in Omaha.

At left, on the other hand, is the very first of Capitol's "rainbow" labels, which featured the vertical "LONG PLAYING HIGH-FIDELITY" on it. The company introduced the new LP label in 1958, and the modification on the Shearing album first appeared the next year.

Being that this LP -- "Dynamic!" by Staton -- was a promotional copy, I'll betcha it's from '58.

Gee, I wasn't even born then. That's old.

I wonder how record geeks got along without me. Fortunately for them, I showed up in 1961.

Anyway, how much you wanna bet this stuff shows up on the next edition of the Big Show, otherwise known as 3 Chords & the Truth.


BE THERE. 

Or be square. 

Aloha!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Not MacGruber . . . the other one


In a previous life as production director of a one-lung radio station, the budget I typically had to work with was . . . zero.

But stuff still had to get done. Studios still had to be made functional. Despite the lack of cash -- and the boss' legendary stinginess with what spending money we had -- there was a radio station to run as professionally as possible.

We had to sound good.

Let's just say I became rather expert at turning nothing into something. I became especially good at raiding the junk room and turning cast-off equipment into a decent production studio.

Yes, I have a Ph.D. in jury-rigging. It got so that the station's contract engineer took to calling me MacGyver -- after the '80s TV show in which Richard Dean Anderson could make anything out of anything to get himself out of a jam and foil the bad guy.


AT THE TOP of this post is my latest MacGyver moment. The tone-arm rest on my vintage Technics turntable broke -- don't ask. And after a long time futzing and trying to figure out how to fix the damned thing, this is what I came up with.

It looks good, it works fine . . . and all it took was the cap off an old felt-tip pen (the perfect size to fit over the base of the old tone-arm rest), some bonding putty to fill up the cut-off pen cap, thick wire from an oversized safety pin, a black marker and some super glue.

Considering that the repair-shop bill would have been more than the turntable's worth after 34 years, I would classify this as an "elegant solution." That is, I would call it that if modesty allowed.

Thursday, December 01, 2011

Four walls . . . and a 78


Stand back, people. I got my geek on.

And I'm gonna show you something. More precisely, I'm going to let you hear something.

First, however, the setup. In three . . . two . . . one. . . .


IT'S IRONIC that, after introducing the 45 almost a decade earlier, RCA Victor had pretty much perfected the 78 rpm record by 1957. As I told you in an earlier post that sadly lacked an audio-visual component apart from a snapshot of an old Elvis record, RCA's "'New Orthophonic' High Fidelity" was all that.

Let's once again say that like my Elvis 78s, this old Jim Reeves record -- after 54 years and God knows how many plays -- sounds better than most new vinyl today, what there is of new vinyl today, and better than a lot of CDs being cranked out today. Imagine when it was brand new. . . .

Anyway, I've been telling people how it has been all but lost to history how good 78s could sound, and now I've decided to show you. Enjoy.

AND NOW the technical notes. . . .

|geek|

The video was shot with a Nikon CoolPix L20 digital camera. Ambient audio was recorded with a Studio Projects C1 condenser microphone, while the audio from the 78 was off the Webcor record changer's phono output. Both the phono out and the mic output were fed into a Soundcraft stereo mixer, then into a professional sound card.

The audio was recorded to a WAV file with Adobe Audition software, then synced to the Nikon video. The audio track was not cleaned up in any way, just normalized to 98 percent modulation.

|/geek|

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The dawn of hi-fi . . . at 78 rpm


In many cases, high fidelity spun into 1950s homes, and into popular culture, at 78 rpm.


And so did the king of rock 'n' roll.

I've been putting some more of the records of my youth onto the computer hard drive -- bringing my analog musical formation into the digital present, I guess. This is another of those, Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up" (above), on a glorious 10-inch shellac platter.

I couldn't tell you how many times I played this record -- this very 78 that's four years older than I am -- as a kid. The rough estimate: lots.


IN 1957, "All Shook Up" was magic. As it was when I first got a hold of it around 1964 or 1965. As it is today.

That goes as well for another of my little stash of Elvis on 78 . . . "Too Much." That's it at left, sitting on a 1955 Webcor record changer here at Anachronism "R" Us.

And you know what? After half a century and change, these records still sound pretty much like new. And I have many compact discs that sound a lot worse. A lot worse, because these old 78s sound great.

RCA Victor's "'New Orthophonic' High Fidelity" was, indeed, all that. All that and a pair of blue suede shoes.

I'm itchin' like a bear on a fuzzy tree to play this stuff on the Big Show, I ga-ron-tee.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Joy. Eight dolla, cheap!


Being 50 is a lot like being 18.

Except that you might be a little smarter and a lot wiser. Also, your knees are creaky, your gut is larger, and you find that joy is a lot more a matter of the heart than of the wallet.

No, being 50 is nothing like 18 at all. Forget I said anything.

If you are lucky, when you are 50, your mind merely still thinks it's 18. You just wish you could remember where the hell . . . uh . . . well. . . .

You just wish you could remember what the hell you were trying to remember.


OK. BEING 50 is a lot like being 18 in that you find you still can take unfettered, fist-pumping, sing-along joy in a record album you just brought home.

Of course, real 18-year-olds -- as opposed to the mental kind -- probably know not what a record album is, except that it's something old people talk about a lot. And the store you just left with your musical treasure wasn't Muslcland . . . or Sam Goody . . . or Leisure Landing . . . or any one of a bazillion corner record stores, because none of these things exist anymore.

No, the store you just left is an antique store. Or Goodwill. Or maybe the vinyl bin at the used-CD place.

YOU, sir, are old.

But your spirit is young.

And you believe in magic.

You also still giggle a little over Kama Sutra Records, but let's not get into that in front of the young'uns.

Friday, October 07, 2011

Pop a top with top o' the pops. Again.


It's late at night in the middle of the week.

You're drinking beer and playing this stuff -- the original half-century-old 45 RPM vinyl records, a ritual extending the full breadth of your recollection -- and you're contemplating life and this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

In that moment of being lost in yourself, in your memories, in the music (and perhaps in the beer), you are keenly aware of two things.



ONE. You were blessed with -- by accident of time, place and class -- an amazingly good foundation in popular music.

Two. You, by God, are a Southern boy, through and through. Even if, at present, you do a passable imitation of a middle-aged Midwesterner.

In the cold light of day, other thoughts worm their way into the keyboard and onto the blog. In particular, what is the equivalent for those a generation or two younger than a fool such as I?

What today, musically or otherwise, sets in stone one's sense of place, of culture, of identity? When does it happen -- mine happened at about the age of three, I reckon -- and what does it mean in these postmodern times?

What are the things -- the sounds -- that bypass the mind of the millennial and head straight for the soul? Do they understand identity and culture in the same way as their forebears? Indeed, does a young person in Omaha understand who and what he is in anything resembling that of a 50-year-old in Baton Rouge? Or a 20-year-old in Pascagoula?

Who am I? Of what am I? What do I hold dear? Hold sacred?

Eternal questions. I suspect how we answer them only has the whole world riding on it.

Welcome to the intersection of Culture and Everything.

Friday, September 30, 2011

A long, long time ago. . . .

Did you write the book of love,
And do you have faith in God above,
If the Bible tells you so?
Do you believe in rock ’n roll,
Can music save your mortal soul,
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?


-- Don McLean,

'American Pie'

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Eine kleine Nachtmusik


Frankie Carle entertains at the piano, through the decades and on vintage vinyl, late on a summer's night.

You want to know why I love estate sales? Because I can pick up original, first-generation LPs -- this one is from 1948 -- for about a buck a piece.

And why a 63-year-old sweet-jazz album for my listening pleasure on a Wednesday evening?

Because it's not Lil' Wayne. Or Lady Gaga. Or Ke$ha. Or Kenny G. We at 3 Chords & the Truth have a reputation to uphold.

Next question?