Vinyl Records - 45's and 33 1/3's

[tlyle]

Some of us worked in the industry when we spun vinyl records. I have several questions for you to comment about.

1. Are there any stations in Atlanta still spinning vinyl? What is content/type/genre?

2. What are your memories of vinyl screwups during airplay like skipping records, songs running out before you returned to the control room?

3. What did you do with records that you did not play? (We used them as frisbees out the back door. The lawnmower certainly liked them.)

4. What did your station do with all the old records when they migrated to digital and CD's formats?

 

[andyfrom88]

1. We still play vinyl at Album 88. We've got somewhere in the vicinity of 60,000 records at our disposal. Anything from Stray Cats to Mozart to Frank Zappa to Grandmaster Flash.

2. I recently had an Elvis vinyl skip and the skip went on for about 2 minutes because I was distracted by another DJ. The King was singing something like, "I'm in love I'm all shook I'm in love I'm all shook I'm in love I'm all shook..."

Side note: We also have a vinyl for Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry (signed by Dee) and even though it was left outside one night on Gilmer St., and is warped and wavy from moisture, it still plays every single night like a charm for our metal show.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

Is Andy from 88 the same person as Andy from 92.9 on weekends?

 

[TheRealOtherNeil]

I know WXRT in Chicago still plays vinyl on some specialty shows (Saturday Morning Flashback and Jazz Transfusion). My mentor, Bob Stroud, still plays scratchy 45's on his Rock n' Roll Roots show at WDRV in Chicago.

As for the two Andy's; Rev. Andy does the Psychobilly Freakout on Monday evenings on Album 88, he is no relation ot Rev. Andy who does weekends on DAVE-FM. It is pure coincidence.

 

[Bongwater]

I don't know about Atlanta, but overall, it's not unusual to find commercial stations that play vinyl SOURCED stuff (dubbed to whatever digital format their station uses.) It's VERY rare to find a commercial station that plays anything directly off the turntable itself. More stations still would rather use carts than do it that way anymore...

But whenever I hear vinyl sourced stuff, I swear it sounds WAAYYY better on FM - even with the snap, crackle and pops than anything digitally remastered. Especially on a VT'ed show, it better fosters the illusion that there really may be a LIVE human being in the studio....

 

[monkeymanmoi]

I never worked commercial, but definitely vinyl all the way in college and high school in the mid-80's. CDs came in the year after I left. I can remember accidentally picking up the needle a couple of times from the current track and then dropping it back down in a different part of the song. Oh, and how beat up the first few seconds of a track would get from all the cueing.

Unrelated, but I visit a lot of blogs around the net where people post out of print vinyl rips that never made it to CD. It's really amazing how good a proper vinyl rip can sound. At times you'd never even know it wasn't from a compact disc.

 

[radioboy]

When I began working in radio in 1979, WTAL-AM 1450 in Tallahassee, Fla. had 3 cart machines, a Revox
reel-to-reel player, and 2 turntables. There was also a patch bay for swapping between ABC and Mutual
(ABC News and Paul Harvey during the day, Larry King on Mutual overnights.)

The current singles, mostly on 45s, were hung from nails driven into a built-out block that held the Revox,
on the right-hand side of the board. The turntables were located in a counter underneath.

Well..one night I bumped into one of those nails holding the 45s, with the result, naturally, being that
one of them fell directly onto the turntable that was playing the song on-air. Nothing like a few seconds of dead air to make a young, green DJ nervous. I'd been on the air about 2 weeks at that point.

Right before I left WTAL, the station, under new ownership, was getting ready to change format, and boxed up a lot of the records. Some I was able to get permission to keep..some was later sold off.

Contemporary Christian stations WJEP near Thomasville, Ga., and WCVC in Tallahassee, Fla. both used
vinyl on the air. WJEP put their music on cart; WCVC played directly off a turntable until 2004.

WCVC had its studio in an old mobile home. If someone went out the front door and slammed it, the record playing on the air would skip or jump.

I've bought out the CCM libraries from both WJEP and WCVC for use on a self-syndicated classic CCM
show. I also obtained a country library from a previous owner of WTCL 1580 in Chattahoochee, Fla.

WCVC is now satellite-fed EWTN and WJEP has been silent since November 19.

(And I need a bigger studio for all these records!!)

 

[andyfrom88]

Is Andy from 88 the same person as Andy from 92.9 on weekends?

Yep. This is the (Rev.) Andy on Album 88 and DaveFM.

I don't know what Neil has been smoking.

 

[ssnake]

WREK still plays vinyl. More importantly, WREK accepts donations of old record libraries. If anyone wants to dump their old collection, give WREK a heads up. We'll even take your old Tony Orlando and DAWN, Englebert Humperdinck, and Robert Goulet LPs.

Most important thing I can say about playing vinyl in a radio station is to avoid using specialty cartridges and needles. We had some Shure "scratching" styluses and the things bent every couple of weeks. I was buying bulk packs of them from Guitar Center. We went back to the tried-and-true Stanton 500-ALII cartridges and styluses and those things are far more durable. If any DJ wants to scratch, he can bring his own headshells.

 

[TheRealOtherNeil]

Is Andy from 88 the same person as Andy from 92.9 on weekends?

Yep. This is the (Rev.) Andy on Album 88 and DaveFM.

I don't know what Neil has been smoking.

Wait, there is only one Rev. Andy? I feel like I have been lied to. When I call WRAS and ask for Webb Wilder, Rev. Andy says "sure, you got it." When I call Rev. Andy at DAVE with the same request he says he never heard of the "Human Cannonball."

 

[Bongwater]

Is Andy from 88 the same person as Andy from 92.9 on weekends?

Yep. This is the (Rev.) Andy on Album 88 and DaveFM.

I don't know what Neil has been smoking.

Wait, there is only one Rev. Andy? I feel like I have been lied to. When I call WRAS and ask for Webb Wilder, Rev. Andy says "sure, you got it." When I call Rev. Andy at DAVE with the same request he says he never heard of the "Human Cannonball."

Webb Wilder....now THERE'S an obscure one!

But back to vinyl, I played vinyl from time to time....some day, I'd like to do a classic rock show that was ALL vinyl. Like I said, it's imperfections adds some humanity to a program (along with heavy listener interaction.) Which radio can use these days....

 

[andyfrom88]

Is Andy from 88 the same person as Andy from 92.9 on weekends?

Yep. This is the (Rev.) Andy on Album 88 and DaveFM.

I don't know what Neil has been smoking.

Wait, there is only one Rev. Andy? I feel like I have been lied to. When I call WRAS and ask for Webb Wilder, Rev. Andy says "sure, you got it." When I call Rev. Andy at DAVE with the same request he says he never heard of the "Human Cannonball."

I never said I don't have multiple personalities.