Mick and Keith on a lone Unisphere
The Shure Unisphere was the predecessor to the ubiquitous SM-58. It’s basically a dual-impedance SM-58 from what I can gather. Check out these 40-year old adverts for the Unisphere and consider that despite all we’ve experienced in audio-technology in the past four decades, we’re all still basically using the same vocal mic on stage. Pretty incredible…
Rod Stewart with the Shure Unisphere
The Fifth Dimension with Shure Unisphere
Preservation Sound found photo #1: unknown rock band circa 1968. In this stage setup:Fender Precision bass; Blonde Bandmaster head with Black Tolex 2.x15 cabinet; Shure SM56 above the drum kit;unknown Teisco/Guyatone-type electric guitar; Additional unknown Fender amps; Burns Bison guitar; striped stovepipe trousers and turtleneck sweater; scarf.
Today on PS dot com: a tribute to a tribute. Have you seen The Hound Blog? The Hound Blog is written by one James Marshall, owner of the Lakeside Lounge bar in Manhattan. Marshall is also a music-writer and wow a real expert on early rocknroll. His Lakeside Lounge bar looms large in my memory; when i first moved to NYC in 1998, I played in a country-rock band that often played at the Lakeside. It was then (and probably still is) a very musician-friendly venue; small enough to fill with all your friends, decent amplifiers provided for your use, and a good atmosphere in general. Several years later I remember meeting author/music-journalist Nick Tosches at the LL one night; I am a big fan of Tosches’ writing and he made a much bigger impression on me than many of the more famous faces I’ve crossed paths with over the years. Thank you, JM, for running a great spot and running a great blog.
ANYways… a regular feature on the Hound Blog is their ‘Found Photo’ series (I think they are up to 66 at this point). The series seems to focus on snapshots of individuals in the 50s/60s whose sartorial style and general attitude exude a certain rocknroll style that we are used to seeing in Hollywood representation of early rockers/mods/general bad-dudes but rarely do we see in ‘real-life’ images. Today I offer the first two of what I hope to make a regular feature here as well: Preservation Sound found photos, selected based on… you guessed it… interesting old audio equipment.
Gibson SG; SUNN Spectre head and cabinet; Peavey practice amplifier perched on silverface Fender Deluxe (?); BOSS CE-2 Chorus pedal (on table next to ashtray).
Have you ever entered a long-abandoned space; a time capsule?
Not like a cave or a forest or a wood; those are natural places which exist independent of any time-keeping, in a vast seamless stretch.
I am referring instead to places touched and crafted by humanity, once; and then left, sealed up, like a pharaoh’s tomb. How do you think Howard Carter felt when he first entered King Tut’s tomb? What do we feel when we enter these ancient spaces?
They are filled with unfamiliar objects, layers of dust (matter once organized and differentiated, now becoming undifferentiated), and what else? Ghosts? What is a ‘ghost’ if not the /voice/ of a departed individual that still /speaks/ to us through the discourse established by their abandoned objects/spaces?
Our bodies can move freely through the three dimensions of space, unless shackled by disease or coercive force; but most people intuitively feel that we cannot move freely through time. This restriction on controlled movement through time is tolerated, at best, and suffered deeply at worst. Most feel that we move forward through time, at a rate that does seem to vary with activity and age; but backward through time? Can we access the past? Do we ever feel that we are using the force of a prior moment?
The future holds possibilities, certainly; but the past does as well. Just as we can chose our current actions from a certain set of possible actions, and therefore chose our futures to a degree, we can also chose our pasts. We can chose which elements of the past we incorporate into our lives. There is an essential difference, for instance, between filling your air/space/life with the music of Led Zeppelin and the Beatles vs filling your life with the music of Jim Ford and Pearls Before Swine. While Led Zeppelin and the Beatles are certainly two of the finest musical groups to ever make a record, the great success that they experienced ensures that they will become part of the fabric of all subsequent musical culture. They are already baked-in, as it were, to 99% of rock music that you might experience on any radio station or television show today. This does not make them bad: but it does make them inevitable. Experiencing the legacy of Zeppelin and the Beatles is not a choice; it is mandatory. On the other hand, when we chose to heavily involve ourselves with forgotten, cast-off bits of history, we can actively re-shape our own contemporary reality. Obscurity, as a preference, is not simply motivated by a supposed hierarchy of accessibility or a badge of time-spent-in-the-trenches; when we engage ourselves with the entombed, the brilliant-but-dead-end bits of history, aren’t we really crafting a unique present moment for ourselves?
The films of Quentin Tarantino are often described as post-modern because he mixes cultural signifiers of many different eras and subcultures in a non-heirachical way in order to arrive at a new and unique meaning. Consider Samuel Jackson’s character in the clip above: The suit of a jazz musician from the 50s; jheri curl hairdo from the 80s; the highly charged speech patterns of the 60s civil rights movement; driving the 1970s sedan. What year is it again? Tarantino is making films for a wide audience, so none of these are particularly obscure references in and of themselves; he wants to entertain you, not send you to Google after the movie to look up what the hell was going on. But the overall affect is still achieved through a kind of time-play. This demonstrates that yes the past, as well as the future, holds immense expressive possibilities.
When we’re working in the studio, and we record a vocalist with an ancient microphone, what exactly are we doing? What effect are we creating? It’s not likely that we’re trying to trick anyone into thinking that this pop song was recorded in 1932. We’re generally not even trying to reference the historical period 1932 via the recording. But we do have the potential to build a new space that exists along a different axis entirely. Not a past-plus-present but a denial or refutation of single-vector linear time. I don’t think this actually happens very often; we can use all sorts of audio equipment from the entire 100-year history of recording technology and still easily end up with ‘just a pop song,’ be it a genius one or a terrible one. But there is real possibility in this.
If you are reading this website right now, you are probably involved in the recording of music in some way. You probably own or admire antique or ‘vintage’ recording equipment, and use it in your work. Why do you do it? What is the benefit for you? What expressive power does it have? Are you taking full advantage of those possibilities?
Download 25pp of excerpts from the 1980 ‘Music Emporium’ mail-order catalog: synthesizers, keyboards; effects pedals; pro audio equipment:
DOWNLOAD SYNTHS:Music_Emp_Keys_1980
DOWNLOAD EFFECTS PEDALS: Music_Emp_FX_1980
DOWNLOAD PRO AUDIO: Music_Emp_audio_1980
Keyboard instruments covered, with photos, text, and (often) pricing, include: ARP Axxe, Odyssey, Quadra, Quartet, Omni II, and 2600 keyboards, Moog Micro Moog, Mini-Moog, Polymoog, and Multi-Moog, Korg MS-10 and MS-20; Oberheim OB-1, two-voice, OB-X, and four and eight-voice systems; Roland RS-09 and RS-505 string machines; Roland MP-600 electronic piano; mechanical keyboards from Hohner (pianet and clavinet) and Wurlitzer (200); Leslie 820, 860, 147, 760, and 815 rotating speaker systems.
Effects pedals include full lines from MXR (many…), Morley (VOL, SVO, PWO, WVO, PWB, PWF, PWA, PFA, and PRL), Mutron (III, Phasor II, Vol-Wah, Octave Divider, and Bi-Phase), and DOD (250, 280, 401, 640); plus interesting oddities like the Gizmotron, eBow, Altair PW-5, and the original Pignose amplifier.
Audio includes a wide range of mics from Shure, Sennheiser, Beyer, Sony, plus some predictable selections from the AKG and Electrovoice lines; Teac tape machines; Technics 1500 and RS-M85; the Tangent 3216 mixing console; time delay effects including Loft 440, Lexicon Prime Time model 93, MXR digital delay and flanger-doubler; Roland space echos, Tapco 4400 and Furman RV-1 reverbs; compressors including MXR mini, Ashly SC55 and SC-50. Biamp Quad Compressor, Ureil LA4, and DBX compressors 163, 160, 162, 165; plus a host of mainly graphic EQs including Biamp EQ210, EQ270A and EQ110R, MXR Dual 15 abd 31, Tapco C-201, Ashly SC-63 and SC-66, and Ureil 537 and 545 parametric filter set.
DOD effects pedals circa 1980
The Gizmotron, which is sort of the mechanical equivalent of an e-Bow; it was invented by Lol Creme and Kevin Godley of band 10CC; I have never come across one of these but wow would I love this for studio work. Check out some amazing sound clips here.
The Korg MS-20. This is our house monosynth at Gold Coast Recorders and lord do these things sound great. Pitch to CV conversion built in!
Loft 440 Time Delay effects. Loft was a Connecticut maker of Pro Audio kit in the 70s/80s. Much previous Loft coverage on PS dot com; maybe start here…
I just got a new MacBook Pro and guess what. My Protools LE 8 does not work on it. Big surprise. Everytime this happens (which means everytime a new Mac comes into my life…) I inch closer to replacing the PT LE system that I use for demos at home with one of these 70s four-track reel systems. Of course, an Mbox and Laptop weigh about 100lbs less and take up 1/10th the desk space. Is anyone out there making demos (or album masters) on a Teac/Tascam 1/4″ reel system? Drop us a line and let us know…
Technics RS-M85 cassette deck. Beautiful looking machine. Working example on eBay right now for $138…
The Urei LA4 was the compressor that I learned on at school. The studio had a pair and they sounded great. Simple and effective…
I don’t know how accurate it was to have ever called the Beyer M69 a popular microphone, but they do have a good sound. We have a pair at GCR and they are a good alternative to the SM58 as a handheld dynamic. To my ears they sound less boxy; seem to have less proximity effect.
For previous Music Emporium coverage on PS dot com (incredible as it may sound….), visit here…
Some highlights from “JAZZ” and JAZZ HOT,” French-language jazz musician/enthusiast magazines circa 1960. I can picture Michel thumbing thru these while waiting for Patricia to come back from her classes at Uni.
The RV guitar amplifier, as distributed by Conn. Beautiful little amp; it has a sort of a Carr vibe to it.
Anyone have any information on these lil fellas? Schematics?
Benny Goodman with an RCA 77 (and some sort of horn-type instrument?)
Billy Holiday about to make you weep via an EV 636. I have had a few of these and they can sound pretty cool. Good cheap vintage mic.
Studio scene circa ’60
When tracking overdubs I generally get by with a Royer (into some tube preamp/DBX comp) and a u87 (into an API/Purple comp) out on the floor. If it don’t sound good on one, it’ll sound good on the other (or both). Same thing but with a 77 and a U47? Yes please.
Seems like Stimmer was a guitar (and other) pickup maker. But what is that guitar?
Transistorized portable turntable
Download a four-page article from “Radio & Television News” 4/1956 regarding the Mullard 520 power amp:
DOWNLOAD: Mullard_520_amp
American industrial titan RCA offered schematics for a variety of tube-audio equipment in the back pages of their many “receiving tube manuals.” Mullard, a prominent British maker of vacuum tubes, similarly published a book entitled “Mullard Tube Circuits For Audio Amplifiers” (h.f. “MTCAA”). The designs are quite different from RCA’s, as Mullard promoted different tubes: EL34 rather than 6L6/5881; EL84 rather than 6V6; GZ34 rather than 5U4; and EF86 rather than 5879. The MTCAA also offered extensive plans for the fashioning of the actual sheet metal cabinet and transformer-cover. The four-page article I am offering here is quite different from the one in MTCAA, but either will get you on yr way to building this unit.
This design promises 35 watts from a pair of cathode-biased EL34s. It does require an ultralinear (IE, with screen taps) output transformer with a 16ohm winding for the negative feedback loop (such as this EDCOR model), but other than that it’s all very basic parts. Now if I could find some good cheap EF86s… Anyone try the new $17 Electro-harmonix EF86?
BTW, The Mullard book is still readily available as a reprint; well worth the $17 cover price IMO. There is a circuit for a 3-stage ‘mixing preamp’ featuring EF86 pentode inputs with a 12Ax7 on the back end, the second triode of the 12ax7 wired as low-impedance cathode follower… pretty tempted to try that one… anyhow, you can buy ‘MTCAA’ at Amazon Dot Com or at Antique Electronics.
RCA PA system heads of the 50s/60s are one of the best values in antique tube equipment. I’ve bought a few on eBay in the $100-range and with a little work you can have a really great studio amp for gtr or bass. Sometimes they even come with the microphone input transformers…
Download the fifty-page 1940 PRESTO RECORDING CORP catalog:
DOWNLOAD (part 1): Presto_1940_Cat_1
DOWNLOAD (part 2):Presto_1940_cat_2
Products covered, with text, some specs, and photos, include: Presto Model A, Model B, Model F recording installations; Presto Model C, Model Y, and Model K portable recorders; Presto type 8-A, 8-B, 28-A, 6-D, 6-E, 6-F, 26-B, 75-A, 75-B, 75-C, 9-A, and 9-B recording turntables; Type 62-A transcription turntable; Automatic Equalizer 160; blower system 400; 150 and 151 pickups; Microphone Mixer type 130-A, B, C; Preamplifier type 40-A and 40-B; Presto radio tuner 50-A and 50-B; Recording Amplifiers 85-A, B, 85-E, 87-A and 87-B; plus a range of parts and accessories including Green Seal discs, Orange Seal discs, and Blue Label discs.
Above, the Presto Model A, their top-of-the-line system circa 1940.
Presto Recording Corp was a pioneer of coated-disc ‘Instantaneous Recording.’ From 1933 through the end of WWII, Presto was the US leader in providing high-quality recording equipment to broadcasters, schools, studios, and government. There is a detailed history of the Presto Corp provided at this website, so no need to re-tread those waters. Basically, what Presto offered was a way to make good-sounding LP and 78 recordings that could be played back instantly on any home turntable. Unlike earlier commercial recording technologies, there was no intermediate submaster required. Presto was able to do this by having designed an aluminum (later, glass) disc that was coated with a special cellulose-based compound (featuring 51 ingredients!).
At right, the Presto 200-A Electronics package. This was a complete system of microphone preamps, cutting amps, patchbay, and AM radio tuner that was designed to accompany the Model-A pictured above. Presto’s ‘instant-disc’ technology was basically rendered obsolete by the development of magnetic tape recorders in the late 1940s, most notably, AMPEX (and to lesser degree, Magnecord). The specs for the better Presto systems weren’t awful: 50-8000hz frequency range, 50db signal-to-noise ratio; but this paled in comparison to the German Magnetophon technology that AMPEX built on, with a high-frequency response to 15,000hz.
On a more basic user-level: you could always record-over a piece of magnetic tape; but cutting into a lacquer-coated disc (at $16/unit in today’s money) was a commitment.
Presto Model C, their top-end portable system of 1940 ($20,000 in 2011 dollars; 138 lbs)
Looking through this catalog, the most fascinating aspect is the large range of mechanical devices and accessories recommended to insure the fidelity of the audio. Nowadays almost all audio control happens electronically; once the room is treated and the microphone carefully placed, our work as recording engineers leaves the realm of physical manipulation and enters a world of electronic control. In the era of analog disc recording, though, a careful recording engineer needed blowers…
…to efficiently remove the bits of cellulose material that the cutting needle carved out the the recording blanks;
viscous-oil-filled dampers to regulate vertical movement of the cutting head (a mechanical audio compressor, I would imagine);
…an optical microscope to examine the grooves that you just cut for quality-control purposes…
fresh sharp needles to do the actual cutting work…
and, if you wanted the ultimate in convenience, an ‘automatic equalizer’ to automatically boost the treble frequencies as the cutting head moved closer to the center of the disc (since discs spin at a constant rate, as the needle gets closer to the center of the disc, the actual linear speed of the needle relative to the surface medium gets slower, and as we know well in all types of analog recording, slower equals less high-end).
Above, the Presto 40-A microphone pre-amplifier, the one piece of equipment in this lengthy catalog that could still be of potential use to modern recordists. It uses two 1221 tubes to deliver 55dbs of gain (from what I can gather, 1221s are interchangeable with 6C6, the 6C6 being the predecessor to the 6J7, likely making these 40As likely very similar to RCA BA1/2/11 series mic preamps). If anyone has the schematic to the Presto 40 mic preamp, please send it to us… coincidentally I built a preamp with 6C6s a few years ago (based on a schematic from an ancient UTC catalog) and I liked the results.
UDPATE:
Thank-you to reader EL for sending us the schem to the Presto 40-A. Here ’tis as a download: PRESTO Type 40-A preamp schematic
…And here as well:
This must be a slightly later version of the 40-A, as the 2nd tube is a 6SJ7, which is a variant of the 6J7 that has the input grid connection in the base rather than on the top. Other things to note: the input transformer spec’d is an ‘LS-10,’ which I can only assume means the UTC LS-10… circuit-wise, we have the first 6J7 connected in pentode, coupled by a .1uf cap to the 2nd 6SJ7 stage, this time wired in Triode in order to more easily drive the output transformer. A ’50M’ resistor (or as we know them, 50K ohms) provides negative feedback from stage 2 to stage one. Thinking that this circuit could be nice as the back end to a 3-stage pre, maybe with a something low-gain like a 76 or 6J5 on the front end with a volume pot following.
UPDATE (2)
EL also provided some images of his particular 40A units… check ’em out…
Pretty amazing that these things made it all the way to Australia way back when… my lord can you imagine how much these things must have cost in their day?
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Update Sept 2013:
E.L. directed us to this eBay auction; a Presto 40a in nice condition (Nashville, TN) sold for $510. Here are some images:
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Anyone out there using any Presto equipment in their work? Drop a line and tell us about it….
UPDATE: a friend has alerted us to The 78 project, a series of new recordings of notable musicians made using just a Shure 51 mic and a Presto disc recorder. They sound great, and in the videos you can hear both the modern production-sound of the session via the camera audio-track and the actual 78 playback. Very interesting contrast…
