Preservation Sound

Tomorrow, 5.11.12, I’ll be a guest on Del’s “In Transition” show in the eight o’clock hour.  We’ll be listening to some recent productions I’ve put together at Gold Coast Recorders and talking shop about music, audio, love, loss, and life.  In addition to being a radio host and rocknroll aficionado Del is a veteran audio tech with a long resume that includes many of the greatest recording studios in NYC.  So it promises to be an interesting chat.   Listen in at 8AM tomorrow EST at 89.5FM in the New York Metro Area or stream it live at www.wpkn.org.

UPDATE: This segment has aired and can now+forever be streamed from the WPKN archive.  Click on this link to listen. My bit comes in around the sixty-minute mark.   One correction: in the piece I state that my tenure at SONY began in 1991; this is not correct.  I started in 2001.  Blame it on the A – M.

The 360 Systems ‘Spectre’

Today as PS dot com: a quick look at the then-new product-category of Guitar Synths circa 1979.  A great number of small manufacturers sprung up to offer these devices, and a few of the big names got involved as well.  What is required for a guitar synth?  Well, at minimum, independent pitch-to-CV and envelope-to-gate tracking and conversion for each of the six strings, and then some sort of synthesis engine (x6) to create the actual sound that you hear.  Some of the units covered in this post were only the first part of the equation, and you could certainly find monophonic pitch/gate-to-CV modules going back to the early 70s (anyone know the release dates of the specific Moog and ARP modules that did such?).  But putting it all together in a package that a guitar player might want to buy: this took some time.  Guitar synths never really caught on, probably due to the cost initially, but even as prices came down it really seems like the vast majority of players were just happier with a bunch of effects pedals.  In addition, there is something inherently retrograde with performing on the electric guitar regardless; it is very much a signifier of the 1950s and 1960s; so why muddy the waters of yr joyous celebration of the past with so much technology?

If anyone is still using any of these things on-stage or in productions, drop a line and let us know…

The Slave Driver, also from 360 Systems

The Ampeg Patch 200: Note Hagstrom-Swede.

The Gentle Electric (love that name…) model 101 pitch/envelope follower

The MCI B-35S system.  Anyone?

The Polyfusion FFI frequency follower.  Click here for previous Polyfusion coverage at PS dot com.

The Zetaphon

The Roland GS500 and GR500: early products in a line that is still being produced today, over 30 years later. 

The mighty ARP Avatar.  Below, a period advert…

…and click here to view the same-period ARP full-line catalog available for download at PS dot com.

Download a five-page article by Mortimer Goldberg as first published in DB magazine, 12/76:

DOWNLOAD:dB-7612-CBS_Radio-Art_of_Tape_Editing

Many thanks to T.F. for sending us this wonderful piece.  Anyone who is involved with editing audio or video should give this a read.  Goldberg gives an explanation of what goes into making ‘natural’ sounding dialogue edits, and my god he’s really got it down to a science.

Goldberg was a technical supervisor for CBS for over a quarter-century, and everything that he offers here is still very applicable to modern DAW production.  I was fortunate enough to learn these techniques first-hand from some of the wonderful audio-post engineers at the now-vanished SONY Music Studios in Manhattan, and the applications extend way beyond dialogue and into music production.  Even if you never do audio-post work, remember that our minds are incredibly attuned to human speech; if you can learn to make perfect, in-detectible speech edits, your music edits will follow suit.  Also notable: Goldberg offers a very insightful account of why the critical demands of Radio speech-editing are far greater than similar work for Television production.  Great stuff.

BTW, I have not been able to find any other issues of this particular ‘DB Magazine’ (as you might imagine, many publications have been offered under this title).  The full title seems to be “DB The Sound Engineering Magazine” and fwict it was published between 1968 and 1984.  Anyone know where I can get some back issues for a good price?  eBay is asking $14.95 an issue…

The Aria Pro-II TS-500.  It’s a super-strat, it’s a hippie sandwich, it’s a mock BC Rich…  Aria II was better known for their basses but plenty of guitars were sold as well.  All of the guitars in this post were once common sights at pawn shops and ‘somewhere in the back’ of yr neighborhood music store.  Many were made by the Japanese Matsumoku corporation and then sold in a variety of brand-names around the world.  I don’t see them too often any longer, except for the occasional flea-market appearance.  Since they had neither the baby-boomer appeal of Gibson/Fender/Gretsch nor the flash of 80’s shred-axes, these things traded in the $100 range for decades.  Now, like the mustache, some cachet seems to be building around them and prices have risen to the $500 – $1000 area.

The Aria Pro II PE-1000 of 1979.   I can recall playing some of the PE-series decades ago; they were very fine guitars; note the heelless neck. 

The Washburn Hawk of 1979, a good-quality instrument from their Wing series. 

The Westbury Custom S circa 1981, imported by Unicord (importers of Marshall/Korg/etc…).  Note the similarities to the Aria Pro IIs.

The Westone lineup of 1979. 

Any Matsumoku collectors out there?  Any know of any relevant players using these things nowadays?

Above: an Electra ad from 1979 which seems to be suggesting that by using their sound-effects controls incorporated into the guitar itself (rather than in foot-effect-pedals), you will develop a unique style and attain success.  Okey…  Anyone using one of these today?  Thoughts? 

Electra was a brand-name for Japanese-made guitars imported by the St Louis Music Co. in the 1970s.  There were also Electra-branded amps:  I had a pretty rad solid-state piggyback with a 15″ driver and footswitchable phaser/reverb/overdrive (i think…) in the early 90s…  pretty good sound for a solid-state amp… Anyhow, I can’t find any info on the amps online but maybe someone can send us a catalog?  As far as the guitars: there is pretty good documentation on the web: start with this page.  These dudes also posted the full 1977 catalog, which is one of the best I have ever seen.  To wit:

(image source)

Goddamn hippie cowboy space invader!  Nice.  Anyhow… here are some more interesting Electra ads from the mid seventies which I think no one else has bothered to upload yet… enjoy…

The Electra MPC guitar with modular electronic-effect plug-ins.   Gimme TANK TONE baby.

The Electra ‘Tree of Life’ guitars, part of a larger ‘carved-top-design’ trend in the 70’s…  see here for another example.

The Emrad amplifier was designed to the needs of jazz-guitar great Johnny Smith.  Handmade in a Colorado workshop, these 100-watt solid-state combos were soon also used by Sugarloaf, performers of this genre-defying 70s classic.

I rank this track with other ‘it could only have happened in the early seventies’ hazy-vibed jams such as Ride Captain Ride and Brandy.  Is it rock music? Pop? Lounge music?  The Emrad saga was a brief one; follow this link for the details.

With the estate sale/ flea market season upon us, I thought it might be an interesting experiment to try a Tumblr account. I’ll be posting images, sounds, and videos of the various audio-historical related flotsam that I happen upon across this great land of ours.

You can check us out at:  http://exploitandindustry.tumblr.com

…or follow us, if you are a Tumblr user – it’s super easy, fast+free to join.  Just go to Tumblr.com.

Hondo II: the First Name In First Bands.   Marketed as ideal beginner-instruments, Hondo II was the US brand name for certain guitars built by the Korean Samick corporation.  According to wikipedia, Hondos were built in Japan between 1974 and 1983.   Samick is among the world’s largest manufacturers of musical instruments, with much modern production of guitars taking place in Indonesia.  Anyways… by the time I started playing the electric guitar, the Hondo II name was already retired and they were simply branded ‘Samicks.’  Not sure what was up with the awkward name Hondo.  Was is supposed to invoke Honda, then known to Americans as a leading manufacturer of motorcycles? Here’s a look back at the company’s big push into the US market in the 1970s. 

The Hondo Longhorns circa 1981; updated versions of the circa 1960 Danelectro instruments.

The Honda II lineup circa 1981. We see copies of: Gibson’s THE PAUL, the Fender Lead II, an early Fender Telecaster, an EVH-style strat, as well as some generic-looking but original instruments.

The Hondo 781 EXP, a lurid instrument sure to inspire fist-pumping.

In 1979 Hondo offered Asian-made licensed-versions (not copies…) of the respected SD Curlee instruments. 

Anyone out there using Hondos these days?  Are any of the models worth recommending?  Let us know…