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The LP turns 65
- Thread starter rtc
- Start date
Aren't 45s close to 65 as well?
In fact,yes: March 31,1949.
(Suddenly I feel old(er)...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_(music)
According to this they even had a "color code" for
various types of music at first:
(scroll down for color code)
http://www.history-of-rock.com/fortyfive_birth.htm
The 45 rpm was the first disc to be developed using
Calculus among other things:
http://www.history-of-rock.com/record_formats.htm
(Suddenly I feel old(er)...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_(music)
According to this they even had a "color code" for
various types of music at first:
(scroll down for color code)
http://www.history-of-rock.com/fortyfive_birth.htm
The 45 rpm was the first disc to be developed using
Calculus among other things:
http://www.history-of-rock.com/record_formats.htm
D
Darth_vader
Guest
No, I can't. Considering that early forms of LP were used for transcriptions in the '30s, and Western Electric/Warner Brothers used it as the basis for the soundtrack of a certain very famous movie clear back in the mid-late 1920s, I'd say the technology is much older than 65! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_record#History_and_physical_aspects)
Looks like The Register need to do a little bit of fact-checking before they publish.
Darth_vader said:
This was not consumer-grade gear. ETs of the day only yielded 15 minutes per side and were played laterally (inside out) as opposed to vertically (outside in). <I MAY have that backwards--it's been awhile.> Totally different type of stylus. Sizes were 10 and 16 inch, never 12, except for maybe one experimental release in the 1930s. This celebration is of the LP product as we know it today. These are similar, but by far not the same products.
frnkp2000 said:
The lateral vs. vertical distinction had nothing to do with "outside-in" versus "inside-out."
On a vertically-cut disc (which is what most ETs were), the amplified audio signal causes the needle to dig down into the groove, creating a "hill-and-dale" groove that's replicated on playback. When coupled with the heavy stylus pressure needed to reproduce an ET, the result was a limited playback lifespan - you were literally grinding away the recorded "hills" with every playback.
(I believe commercial cylinder recordings were also cut vertically.)
On a laterally-cut disc, like a commercial 78 or later a 45 or LP, the amplified audio signal causes the needle to move back and forth in the groove, creating the familiar squiggles that you can see when you look at an LP under magnification. The louder the signal and deeper the bass response, the more the needle moves back and forth. When you're trying to pack 25 minutes' worth of grooves onto one side of a disc, there's a serious technical challenge involved in cutting the grooves small enough to fit, and to avoid very loud passages sending the needle right out of the groove into the disc space supposed to be occupied by the next concentric circle of the groove. It was the technical development of the "microgroove" system that finally became a commercial reality in 1948, and that's what's very properly being celebrated this year. While there had been experimental microgroove recordings prior to 1948, and even some limited commercial uses, there were no consumer microgroove formats prior to the introduction of the LP, which has proved to be by far the most durable consumer music format in the history of the industry.
As for inside-out versus outside-in, that's purely a function of which direction the turntable motor spins. The reason broadcast ETs were usually recorded inside-out had to do with the quality of the recording. Because discs spin at a constant angular velocity (33 rotations per second, for a typical broadcast ET), the needle is actually moving much faster linearly through the groove on the larger outside of the disc than on the smaller inside of the disc. And just as with tape recording, the faster the linear velocity of the recording medium, the better the high-frequency response. If you started recording an ET at the outside and let it play through to the inside, the audio quality (never that great to start with) would get grungier as you approached the inside of the disc and the end of the recording. And if you were using multiple 16-inch discs on multiple turntables to record a show longer than 15 minutes, the transition from the end of one disc (at the inside) to the start of the next could sound pretty lousy. By ending one disc at the higher-quality outside, you could then have a cleaner transition to the start of the next disc.
I can remember discs with "lateral" and "vertical" on the label, or "start inside" and "start outside" and one would be circled or checked off. I always thought direction of play was the reason and never questioned it. Tapes, carts and LPs were the entrenched methods by that time. The very little experience I had with the old ETs only played outside in, anyway. Never used them on air, but spent many hours dubbing "worthwhile" ones to tape. Fuzzy memories!
frnkp2000 said:
And by today's standards, probably some fuzzy sounds.
I worked at one station that still had a lathe in place, but I don't think it was ever used the year I was there.
I was not uncommon in the 1956- 1960 era to still get it a few "old fashioned transcription disks" containing advertising cuts from agencies.
If we had any idea the "copy" was to be used over a longer period of time, we would make our own dub to tape, knowing that repeated use of the disk was going to wear it out... ahead of it's time.
My memory tells me (a memory as fuzzy as some of those disks became) that some agencies who had some kind of a "religion-like-hatred" of tape sent notes along with the transcriptions that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES were we to dub the disk to tape.
(Every age has had it's bone-head thinkers.)
My memory also tells me that in the world of radio stations we had a number of technicians and announcers that were pretty bone-headed in coming to terms with the fact that the LPs and the 45s were precision devices that needed to be handled "with kid gloves". Some station owners were slow to put in new tone arms that did not put so much pressure on the stylus. That extra pressure could just grind the micro-grooves to a trash level pretty quickly.
We often wax poetic over the "good ol' days" when everything was so wonderful and we had Rainbow Pie for lunch everyday in radio back in the era of "live and local" but I also have memories of some owners and managers who (by necessity.. I can now see) were very, very tight with the purse strings. Then circa 1960 came a whole new wave of "new to ownership" folks who made frugality and budget cutting some a step or two more intense than religion-like-thinking.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
I started in radio in 1975 and remember seeing old ET's around the station. An older friend told me that they would regularly use ET's well into the 60's, that this rather well financed station did not have cart machines until the late 60's.
Yikes!(c)
Joe
joeybabe25 said:
A "Yikes!" may be a bit overly dramatic in this case. ;D
When did carts hit the scene big time.... maybe 1960 and 1961?
In the articles on the history of LPs and 45s posted above I can't believe that RCA had wanted to push using multiple 45s for albums, especially since Columbia had developed the LP a year earlier. But they were perfect for singles, something that never really took off with cassettes or CDs.
anotherguy said:
Columbia may have developed the LP a year earlier, but that doesn't mean there was much of anything in place with the general public. RCA flooded the market with some very price-friendly little 45 player devices. For a family to "belly-up-to-the-bar" and purchase a new "radio console" with a player that could handle the LP was a bit of a marketing barrier. Remember, at this point in history, the idea of buying audio equipment as individual components was a vision yet to come. In fact, the little 45 players may be considered by some people as the very first move in that direction.
For all practical purposes, there were no stand-alone LP player devices (turn tables) in the market place, and if you could buy one, where would you put the thing? It didn't fit the home decor of the time. Remember, we are talking about a time where the ALBUMS of the day were 78s. If you look at a collection of 45s as a strange platform to distribute an album, just remember it was an era where buying an album meant coming home with this scrapbook looking thing that could hold maybe three 78 rpm records. No one at the time thought it strange that RCA would market the idea of albums on 45.
Strange was coming home from the record store with ONE single disk in a skinny cardboard sleeve. Columbia had some selling to do... which obviously they accomplished.... over time.
joeybabe25 said:
There were few stations better financed than WGN, and they were still using ETs (for one specific purpose) as late as 1985 or so!
http://www.fybush.com/sites/2004/site-040101.html (and scroll down to the bottom)
Reading thru David's site of old Broadcasting magazines it seems cart machines started to be marketed to stations in 1959. At the same time McKenzie repeaters, little steal boxes loaded with tape using foil que strips and the Gates 101, a giant roll gizmo of a very wide tape with a dial to select each indivual spot were being marketed. I recall using ET's in the early 1960's but we would dub them to tape. However, in 1965 looking thru the showcase KCBQ studio in San Diego I noted the jock playing a spot off of an ET directly.
Would anyone have any thoughts as to why some agencies would include a "no dub" dictate with the ETs? Were they concerned about copyright? Did they think their spots were that great that they'd become classics and be passed around?? <laughing here!> Or was this just a "because-I-said-so" move from the idiot nephew of the CEO? (who was also the copywriter!)
Just wondering what the possible thought process here was.
Just wondering what the possible thought process here was.
I never saw "no dub" on an ET. I'd be willing to bet that any radio station that could dub to a superior player would disregard that.
It reminds me of how often stations "broke" supposed rules. If I was interviewing someone, on tape, for a later newscast (for example) I would, of course ask if it was ok to role tape. If he or she said no, I still rolled tape. I just didn't use the tape. I used it to make notes.
Joe
It reminds me of how often stations "broke" supposed rules. If I was interviewing someone, on tape, for a later newscast (for example) I would, of course ask if it was ok to role tape. If he or she said no, I still rolled tape. I just didn't use the tape. I used it to make notes.
Joe
frnkp2000 said:
The perception of quality.
They had "big bucks" invested in their disk cutting technology and some low-budget stations put some crappy tape-dubs on the air and someone from the agency or the client heard a bad tape and laid down the law.
It was an era when tape-head alignment was pretty fragile on some of the budget level machines that stations were using and driving down the road listening to other folks stations of the era, I could tell by listening which station had a technical staff that policed such issues, and which stations were careless and sounded awful.
An ET may get worn and scratchy if used too long, but they never suffered from tape-head mis-alignment.
Never thought of that: tape misalignment. Reason is it never happened on my watch--I'm an audio "perfectionist". 
I'd drive the engineer crazy if a deck didn't sound right, even after a good cleaning. He'd come in with his little tweaking tools and..back in business. Of course he'd have to also check the recorder (s) in the production studio..but hey, all in the name of good radio. And DON'T say: "It's only AM" If folks are listening, it's RADIO!
I'd drive the engineer crazy if a deck didn't sound right, even after a good cleaning. He'd come in with his little tweaking tools and..back in business. Of course he'd have to also check the recorder (s) in the production studio..but hey, all in the name of good radio. And DON'T say: "It's only AM" If folks are listening, it's RADIO! LP really means micro groove LP. It must have been irritating to have bought an expensive HiFi just before the LP's came out.
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