Records

PBC_1966

I'm an avid record collector. I started by being given boxes full of 78s and 45s from relatives when I was about 5 years old and they were clearing out after their teenagers had left home. The hobby has grown ever since.

Well, a few years ago when I was chatting with some children about it, none of them had heard of a 78rpm record. I was disappointed, but figured that with 78s having gone out of production around 1960 they may well have not seen one unless they were interested in old music like me. I educated them on 78s before they left though!

Well, a few days ago I got chatting with some kids again and talked about my collection of LPs and 45s. "What are they?" one of them said with a puzzled look.

Oh dear..... At only 38 I suddenly feel quite old.......

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by PBC_1966
... and talked about my collection of LPs and 45s. "What are they?" one of them said with a puzzled look.

Oh dear..... At only 38 I suddenly feel quite old.......

lol Time moves fast!

My brother has 100s of singles as he used to to "Discos", and my own vinyl collection is stashed in my mothers attic I think. Don't have a turntable anymore, but I'd love to record my old albums to MP3, as replacing them all with CDs would break the bank.

The 78's were heavy things weren't they? We had some at home, but I only vaguely remember them being played.

Pigman II

You should listen to John Peel's show on BBC Radio 1. He loves 78's and even has a section on his show called 'the Pigs Big 78' in which he dusts off and plays an obscure 78 record each night.

PBC_1966

The 78's were heavy things weren't they? We had some at home, but I only vaguely remember them being played.

Yes, made of shellac, generally 10" diameter for popular music, and 12" for longer classical recordings. The groove size and spacing is wider than the microgroove of LPs and 45s, hence the different stylus for playing 78s.

For quite a few years popular music was released as both a 10" 78rpm and a 7" 45rpm version. I'm not sure about Ireland, but in the U.K. sales were roughly 50% of each by 1957, after which the record companies gradually phased out 78s.

In the last two or three years of production, some labels actually pressed vinyl 78s where were much lighter than the traditional shellac. I have several vinyl 78s of the 1958 - 1960 period on the Pye and Top Rank labels.

nlgbbbblth

Hmmmmm

You're talking as if records have vanished into obscurity and cannot be purchased anymore

I still buy most new releases on vinyl and a good deal of second hand stuff - and so do a lot of people I know

this perception that vinyl is dead and buried is seriously wrong

HMV, Tower, Secret Book and Record Store, Comet, Freebird, City Discs, Spin Dizzy, Macs, Final Vinyl, Big Brother, Borderline, Selectah, Mojo, Rhythm, Abbey Discs

that's 14shops in Dublin's city centre that sell vinyl - and I'm sure I've left some out

PBC_1966

Never going to vanish into obscurity while I'm around!

As you say, the fact that records are still made made it seem quite incredible that kids of 13 and 14 had never heard of LPs and 45s.

penguinbloke

I remember an episode of the turtles where they were locked in a warehouse full of lp's and raphael had to explain what they were.

and that was ages ago.

billy the squid

Ah the BBRT (Big Black Roundy things)
I havent seen them in HMV here in limerick, then I'm pretty lazy so i probably wasnt putting much effort into looking for them.

The sound off vynil was better than CD there seems to be something missing from the CD versions of older songs now.

My neice calls them Black CDs
although I can't think of an LB as being "compact"

bus77

Originally posted by fcddunne
The sound off vynil was better than CD there seems to be something missing from the CD versions of older songs now.

Yeah, It's somthing got to do with the way their recorded. The groves on a record are like little waves going up and down while digital music is recorded in stacks of blocks, little bits get lost inbeween each corner.

apparently

gonker

My neice calls them Black CDs

Thats what my kids call them

sceptre

Originally posted by fcddunne
Ah the BBRT (Big Black Roundy things)
I havent seen them in HMV here in limerick, then I'm pretty lazy so i probably wasnt putting much effort into looking for them.

Oh and it's such a big store:D

They don't have any. They've carried the odd disc in the past though.

The Golden Discs in Merchant's Quay in Cork is the first store I remember opening that never sold any records (they made a thing of it at the time but look at the size of the place).

I have four records. Blur's Stereotypes on pink vinyl, REM's Tongue in some kind of limited packaging, the Beatles' Long Tall Sally EP with the sleeve wrapped in plastic and some old McCartney record with Ode to a Koala Bear on the b-side (I can't remember where it is and I can't remember what rubbish is on the a-side). I've 120GB of mp3s on a hard drive and I rather the convenience. Last time I noticed, my younger brother (21) had hundreds of BBRTs and was as religious as Rob Gordon in High Fidelity about them.

pork99

My neice calls them Black CDs

There's a generation grown up - I suppose anyone born in the 80s - who cannot remember a time when most TVs were black and white, had no remote controls, there was no phone in your pocket, and a computer was a mysterious thing which occupied an entire floor of an office block. When flared trousers were a knock-off of sailor's trousers not a retro trend.

I can remember in my early childhood in the early-mid 70s our B+W TV only had two channel selections on it's dial (yes you had to walk over to the TV to change channel though much good that would have done you!) - one for RTE the other for white noise. I can't remember whether it could get Network 2 when that started or not. It also let you switch between 625 lines and 485 lines. Hi tech!

My uncle had a big varnished brown timber 1950s Bush "Radiogram" in his front room. That had a compartment built into it which was just the right size for 78s and had about a dozen 78s in it. Most of his collection was LPs and 45s though. He still has them, I should scan some of the covers they're kitsch classics.

pork99

I wish my uncle had owned one of these:

PBC_1966

Originally posted by pork99
There's a generation grown up - I suppose anyone born in the 80s - who cannot remember a time when most TVs were black and white, had no remote controls, there was no phone in your pocket,

Yep. I wonder how many of today's kids have never actually used a public payphone? By the way, a friend and fellow old-technology enthusiast told me the story of a kid introduced to an old rotary-dial phone for the first time. Apparently he'd never seen one before and had no idea how to use it. The times sure are a-changing.......

I can remember in my early childhood in the early-mid 70s our B+W TV only had two channel selections on it's dial (yes you had to walk over to the TV to change channel though much good that would have done you!) - one for RTE the other for white noise.

I guess I was living in luxury then. We had BBC and ITV in my house! Although BBC2 had been running for some years, we never bothered to get a UHF-equipped TV to receive it until about 1977. It was another couple of years before we went to color.

It also let you switch between 625 lines and 485 lines. Hi tech!

The latter was actually 405 lines, the old British standard. By the time Telefis Eireann (later to become RTE) started TV transmissions in Ireland in 1961, a decision had already been made to adopt the 625-line system. However quite a few people in the eastern and northern parts of the Republic had already imported TV sets to watch the British 405-line signals from across the border, thus in those areas Telefis Eireann started with a 405-line service.

Plenty of Irish TV history here: http://www.irish-tv.com/history.htm

pork99

Originally posted by PBC_1966
Yep. I wonder how many of today's kids have never actually used a public payphone? By the way, a friend and fellow old-technology enthusiast told me the story of a kid introduced to an old rotary-dial phone for the first time. Apparently he'd never seen one before and had no idea how to use it. The times sure are a-changing.......

You didn't release button A until you heard an answer? Or was it button B?

Had one of those dial phones until last year - had to take it out to install DSL.

But yes especially intriguing and exotic to 8-12 year olds.

Originally posted by PBC_1966
I guess I was living in luxury then. We had BBC and ITV in my house! Although BBC2 had been running for some years, we never bothered to get a UHF-equipped TV to receive it until about 1977. It was another couple of years before we went to color.

I remember seeing colour TV for the first time in a pub on a Sunday afternoon with my parents. Everyone on it had orange faces (or was it just an early appearance by Robert Killroy-Silk?) which clashed with the electric blues and mauves in the backgrounds. Was this because no one knew how to adjust the colours or because the early colour TVs were crap?

Originally posted by PBC_1966
The latter was actually 405 lines

Yes excuse the memory lapse - it's been a couple of decades since I even thought about that.

But yes back in monochrome 1 channel land television started at 5 pm in the winter and 6 pm in the summer.


"RTE anseo agaibh"

PBC_1966

Originally posted by pork99
You didn't release button A until you heard an answer? Or was it button B?

On the old A/B payphones you pressed button A when the person you called answered. That deposited your coin(s) in the box, and allowed you to speak to him. If the call was abandoned for any reason, you pushed button B (on the side of the box) to get your money back.

Was this because no one knew how to adjust the colours or because the early colour TVs were crap?

Well, phosphors have improved over the years, but a large part of it was due to improperly adjusted sets. The earlier color sets had a much greater range of adjustments needed to obtain a good picture. The biggest problem, which you still see today, is that many people turn up the saturation too far.

"RTE anseo agaibh"

I'm afraid my Gaelic is limited to things like "Baile Atha Cliath" and "Slante." What's that actually mean?

pork99

Originally posted by PBC_1966

I'm afraid my Gaelic is limited to things like "Baile Atha Cliath" and "Slante." What's that actually mean?

Despite having Gaelic literally beaten into me from an early age I regret that I only have a sketchy knowledge of it myself.

I think it means "RTE is here with you" - there is no alternative!

pork99

This is the sort of thing you are missing out on since the demise of vinyl

http://www.cenedella.com/stone/archives/000302.html

http://www.cenedella.com/stone/archives/000590.html

Executive Steve

what are you talking about i havent bought a cd in years, vinyl is way superior. i dj and there is simply no technological substitue for the tactility and the sensual pleasure of vinyl... i can appreciate that for the home listener they are a bit bulky and unweildy [in fact legging it through airports with a huge bag of tunes is a recipe for agonising back pain] but they are vital to the craft of being a dj actually being a craft and not just glorified button pushing which is what it is when yu start using all these hi tech bells and whistles like cd decks that do all the beatmatching etc for you....

vinyl sales are the only segment of the record industry to experience a steady and measured growth in recent years, they are also a perfect and inbuilt form of copy protection since its impossible to create a full quality copy without having to press up a run of a few hundred tunes to make it economical. in the tiny [by global scales] dance music vinyl industry theres a lot of nerves right now because as soon as the vinyl standard is abandoned there will be huge piracy issues that will potentially cause a lot of upset... considering that a huge worldwide underground success might still only sell 15000 copies worldwide every sale counts... at the same time the environmental and occupational health hazards of vinyl [its made from oil and it wrecks your back] are probably going to push it through in the next five to ten years. the best alternative is a tool called final scratch, it allows you to synch an mp3 file to a specially created piece of vinyl and lets you manipulate the mp3 using the platter as an interface. all you need is a laptop with your tunes, one small little box and you can plug it straight into any existing soundsystem setup.


as for record sleeve art, well sure there have been hundreds of horrid album covers but at least theyre big enough to have some visual impact unlike those tiny pokey fragile [and far more breakage prone] cds. as for the actual sonic qualities of vinyl as a music stroage medium, well analog does seem to give a warmer richer sound but to be honest you would need a really really well trained ear and some proper sound sytem diagnostic tools to really notice.... i went to see rohan play at the metropolitan the other week and like most dj's nowadays he uses cds for unreleased stuff / roadtesting works in progress etc without having to spend £40 sterling to get a ten inch acetate cut [softer vinyl like records that only last for a limited time before the grroove gets worn away] so the digital age is impacting on that side of the vinyl market at least.

as for me i'lll never dj with cds... it would just seem wrong, like picking your nose with gloves on, youre one step removed from the actual physical process of the music being played...

PBC_1966

I'd disagree with some of those worse album covers. First link, second pic ("12 Top Hits") is typical late 1950s/early 1960s artwork, and I love it! (50s/early 60s is my favorite era for pop music).

Nothing wrong with many of those others, although some of the obviously more modern covers are a bit disturbing if you ask me.

pork99

Originally posted by PBC_1966
Nothing wrong with many of those others, although some of the obviously more modern covers are a bit disturbing if you ask me.

Not so much the worst as either memorably dreadful or classicaly kitsch which I agree are great fun. My folks have heaps of albums & 45s in the latter category I must get around to scanning a few sometime.

the worst imho;

this guy has dismembered corpses in his cellar (he's showering to get the blood & guts off)


my God just call the police


wtf? I'm scared

Blisterman

I was born in 1986, so I have no recollection of vonyl being sold a lot, but HMV on grafton street have started selling reissued 45s, like Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin.

BTW, why are record needles so expensive? They're just peices of metal aren't they?

pork99

Originally posted by Blisterman

BTW, why are record needles so expensive? They're just peices of metal aren't they?

It's like any niche market product - low volume sales = higher prices

PBC_1966

These days the lower sales certainly come into the picture, but even so they're really more than just a piece of metal.

The actual stylus tip is sapphire or diamond, and has to be accurately set onto the end of the cantilever at the correct angle. The tips themselves are precision pieces of engineering. The tip radius for an LP/45 has to be in the order of 1 mil, less for stereo. Even the coarser-grooved 78s use stylii with a tip radius of around 2.5 to 3 mil.

So you're paying for precision engineering down to tolerances well under a thousandth of an inch.

irlirishkev

Pork99 wrote -
It's like any niche market product - low volume sales = higher prices

---

Don't record needles actually have a small diamond head on them?
K.

pork99

Originally posted by irlirishkev
Pork99 wrote -
It's like any niche market product - low volume sales = higher prices

---

Don't record needles actually have a small diamond head on them?
K.

Never looked that closely myself but yes I believe so.

Surely in these days of industrial diamond production the maunfacturing costs would come down if there was a mass market demand for them?

PBC_1966

Yes, in modern times a diamond tip is the most common. Back in the 1950s/1960s both sapphire and diamond were common. The sapphire tip was less expensive than diamond, but required more frequent replacement (typically 1000 hours of playing time, versus several times that for diamond).

Blisterman

I have no idea whether you're being sarcastic or not.

PBC_1966

Well, I have been accused of being sarcastic in the past , but I assure you that in this case I'm quite serious.

pork99

I remember the needles used to collect a little wad of dust & fluff you used to have to flick off occasionally to stop the needle skiding across the record. Doing that would make a static-y "crunch crunch" noise.

Blisterman

I checked, you're right, there is a diamond on it. That's strange.