Preservation Sound – Page 80 – information and ideas about audio history

Service Call

Post author By admin
Post date 10/03/2010
15 Comments on Service Call

Why do some of us (audio enthusiasts, recording engineers, musicians) choose to use old vacuum tube equipment? The reasons vary widely, but very few users would cite ‘better reliability’ as a positive factor. True, much old tube-based audio equipment designed for professional use (EG., Fender guitar amps) is designed so that it CAN be easily serviced. I haven’t found a tube guitar amp yet that I couldn’t fix. But ‘serviceability’ is different from ‘reliability.’

Is vacuum tube audio equipment inherently less reliable than solid-state equipment? I am not certain that this is the case. But there are a few basic conditions of tube equipment that would seem to make it more prone to breakdown.

*High Voltage. Due to the optimum operating points of many vacuum tubes, most tube equipment will have DC voltages upwards of 300 or even 500 volts present inside the chassis, flowing through the capacitors, resistors, pots, and transformers. This voltage is often near the stated working limit of these components. Compare this to solid-state, where 24volts is the most you will likely find.

*Filaments (tube heaters). Man look at those tubes glow. They look great, right? Yes they do. But remember that the glow is created by heaters. Their function is to make the tube hot. Very very hot. And they make everything else in the area hot. Drying out wires and insulation, causing potting wax to flow out, and generally contributing to the decline of the physical condition of all the components. Consider the amount of heat in, say, a Fender Twin amp. Each 6L6 tube is drawing (6.3Vx .9A)= 6 watts x 4 tubes. That’s 24 watts of pure HEAT present whenever the device is turned on. Solid-state equipment does not need heaters to operate.

*Layout. In order to conserve space in a chassis, and simplify the construction, tube equipment was often wired point-to-point, with lots of little hand-made solder joints. Compare this to solid-state equipment, where the smaller (due to lower voltage requirements) components can all be assembled on a board. Just take a look at the two devices here. Which one do you think is more likely to develop a problem due to mechanical shock?

(web source)

Anyhow, vacuum tube equipment tended to require more servicing than later solid-state equipment designed for the same purpose. A natural consequence of this was… more servicemen! Radio/Television repair shops used to be a common sight in America. Now, not so much. Even beyond the greater need for servicing in the tube-era, there is secondary reason: cost. Since so much modern ‘surface-mount’ equipment can be built by robotic automation, and produced offshore, modern equipment costs less. It’s often just not worth repairing. You simply throw it out. This was not the case in the 1950s.

Consider the cost of a basic 17″ television in 1951. $139.50. This is today’s equivalent of $1170. That’s a lot of money. If your $1170 TV breaks, you would likely get it fixed. Whereas in 2010, a 17″ TV will only cost you $168. Would you spend time and money to have a $168 TV serviced? Not likely.

A large range of publications once existed to cater to these legions of TV/Radio serviceman. We will look at several of these titles in the future on this site. For today, let’s consider Radio & Television News, which was the 1948-1959 title of the magazine that Ziff-Davis published for the professional readership market. Wiki has a good article about the long and complex history of this publication. Anyhow, the R&TN ran articles on electronic theory, service practice, general small-business professionalism, etc. They also had several articles in each issue which offered circuit descriptions and schematics for various devices. R&TN published several ‘Audio Feature’ issues that have some interesting projects outlined. Today we will look at some of these projects which have potential use in the recording studio.

FOLLOW THE LINK FOR MANY INTERESTING C.1950 DIY AUDIO PROJECTS.,..

Manufacturers

The Sound of ’51

In the process of preparing tomorrow’s post, I came across these circa 1951 microphone ads. Check em out. Some icons here, some forgotten specimens.

I have never used these BRUSH mics. Seem like communications, rather than recording microphones.

These particular EVs were primarily intended as HAM/PA mics. I have a few 630s and 636s and I’ve never been inclined to use them in the studio.

Ah. the ‘ELVIS’ mic. Perhaps the most iconic vintage microphone in the world.

The Turner 99 is a great mic. I own a few of these, and I do use them in the studio from time to time. They are very clean, with a reduced (midrange-y) frequency response. I have had good results using a 99 as a ‘close’ vocal mic, along with a good AKG or Neumann condenser mic as a ‘room’ mic, 6′- 10′ feet off the same performer.

I have never used an ‘aristocrat,’ but Turner did make a few decent hand-held dynamics back then… I have a model 510, which was their top-of-the-line, and it is a good mic; definately worth checking out if you want something ‘different’ but still useful.

Publications

en busca del sonido de edad

Post author By admin
Post date 10/01/2010
6 Comments on en busca del sonido de edad

We went to Buenos Aires (BA) a few years back to visit a friend who was working on a project there. It is a very beautiful yet decayed city. If you like faded glamor, I got a place for you.

The history of Argentina is long and sometimes dark, filled with tales of cannibalism, secret police forces, athletic games involving live ducks, and on up to recent obsessions with cosmetic surgery and psychology. It also has some of the finest architecture, food, and wine on the planet. 100 years ago, Argentina was one of the most prosperous and wealthy nations on Earth. Its fates have shifted. Visiting BA in the midst of the most recent Economic Calamity, I could not help but imagine Argentina as a vision of the United States in 50 years. Proud and beautiful and vast, but with many starving, huge dependency on foreign industry, and very low standards of conduct for elected officials.

We stayed in an old part of the city by the docks. There are many flea markets in this part of town, and I managed to find a few things of interest.

This circa 1960 Soviet microphone sadly did not work.

Purchased this very cleverly named chorus pedal from modern Argentine maker CLUSTER. This pedal is a clone of the EHX Small Clone, an effect which looms largest in our collective subconscious due to Kurt Cobain’s use of the device for the clean (IE, the verses) guitar parts in ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ 1992 was the year that this track broke worldwide. Hence “Spirit (of) (19)92.”

It’s a great sounding pedal with a very charming hand-finished quality to the enclosure. I don’t think these are available outside of Argentina.

Most exciting were the ancient audio-tech magazines that turned up in some of the numerous stores and stalls dedicated to old books. Here are some images and projects from: ‘Radio e Televisao,’ Sau Paulo, 1950; ‘Radio Chassis Television,’ BA., 1960; and ‘Radio Tecnica,’ BA., 1976.

Many more great images and schematics from a bygone world after the link….

Guitar Equipment Publications Synthesizers

I just wanna get up here and cook, man.

Post author By admin
Post date 09/30/2010
1 Comment on I just wanna get up here and cook, man.

Downbeat is one of the oldest music magazines in the world. They have been publishing since 1934. This is incredible. Downbeat primarily covers jazz music. Much of jazz was (and is) performed on acoustic instruments, or electric instruments where ‘fidelity’ and ‘natural-ness’ of tone is the desired effect. If you have been following this website you will probably guess that this is not of great interest to me. The late 60’s/early 70’s were an inclusive, experimental time for instrumental music though – consider Miles’ Bitches Brew period, Melvin Jackson, and even our friend Steve Douglas – and equipment manufacturers were beginning to create devices that our scale-ripping friends could use up on the bandstand. For evidence, let’s turn to some Psych-era issues of Downbeat and see what was on offer…

Selmer was not the only firm to offer an ‘electric saxophone’ kit. I have owned a few that VOX marketed as well. Basically these devices offer combinations of various primitive sound effects, from distortion, filtering and reverb, up to actual monophonic pitch-tracking. Some of the effects that you can get with these things are pretty radical (literally). Check out the earlier Steve Douglas post for an example.

Along the same lines, here’s a slightly later offering from Maestro, the effects division of Gibson Musical Instruments.

In an earlier post, I briefly covered the Gibson GA100, a late-50s guitar amplifier which was intended for use with classical guitar and acoustic bass. Baldwin marketed a similar product in the late 60’s. Willie Nelson has used one of these for decades with his lil buddy Trigger.

And while we’re on the subject, how about an amplifier that REALLY sells to the jazz guys?

I have used one of these (with the similarly humongous 2×12″ extension cab) and they are pretty funny…

Alright so if you’ve made it this far, I am guessing that you are prepared to follow the link below and see more of this fun stuff.

SEE MORE CIRCA 1968 DOWNBEAT ADs FOR OFFBEAT EQUIPMENT…

Concert Sound Icons

Mobile Personal Space

Finally got my act together. Moving to California.

Got the van hooked up. Custom Curtains.

Chose the perfect window-shape to tell what I’m about…

But most importantly- got the sound going.

Found this company that made the sound system for the Dead. Now they make lil’ mini-cabinets for cars (and vans).

It’s gonna be a great trip.

**************************************************************************************

‘Hard Truckers’ is a company that makes speaker cabinets and supplies touring equipment for rock bands. Specifically, it seems, bands in the ‘jam band’ scene. From their website, it appears that they have been at-work in their current incarnation since 2006.

The roots of this company go much deeper, though. According to Blair Jackson’s ‘Grateful Dead Gear’, ‘Hard Truckers’ was formed in 1975/1976 after the Dead went on ‘hiatus’ and their roadies were put out-of-work. But these were no ordinary rocknroll roadies – these were the men responsible for this great icon of the concert industry: the Wall Of Sound.

(images scanned from Mr. Jackson’s book. See photos for attribution).

I am not a Grateful Dead fan, but I have always been fascinated by images of the Wall Of Sound. Jackson’s book tells the story of this bold and bizarre experiment in live-sound-reinforcement. It’s a long and involved and technical tale, but suffice to say this: this was a band that was willing to go all-out, no expense spared, in order to try and solve what was essentially a new problem: how do you get ‘good’ sound for a loud band in a space that holds up to 20,000 people? And the space was different every night? Stanley Owsley, the Dead’s chief sound engineer, explored this issue, and the solution that he chose to pursue was to build ‘An integrated system where every instrument (PS: and the vocals) has its own amplification, all set up behind the band without any separate onstage monitors” (Jackson, p. 132). Ironically, this is the same logic that informs the “latest and greatest” “innovation” in sound-reinforcement, the very un-rocknroll Bose L1 system.

The Wall Of Sound did not last long, and the expense and operational-intensity (aka HASSLE) involved with moving and running this system is one of the factors that Jackson cites in the band’s decision to take a long mid-seventies hiatus… which is what lead the out-of-work Dead roadies to create the Hard Truckers company.

The little 5″ Hard Truckers that my pal Sundancer put into the Hermosa Beach Express (btw- FWIW – that watercolor and that original Hard Truckers product sheet came from the same lot) were essentially little micro versions of the PA cabs that the HT dudes had been making for Dead.

What a strange story. Check out Jackson’s book if you want all the details. It’s worth a read. These guys were really pushing the limits back then.

No one has ever published a book that tells the history of rocknroll sound reinforcement. This book will come someday. It’s a too-often overlooked part of the audio world. I heard a rumor that someone was working on a book about the PA system used at Woodstock, and this would be a good start. In a future post, I plan to dig a little bit into vacuum-tube PA heads. There is a lot to explore there.

Has anyone tried the Bose L1 system?

Anyone ever come across any of the original 1970s Hard Truckers cabinets?

History Synthesizers

Prepare The Piano! With a synthesizer?

Post author By admin
Post date 09/28/2010
19 Comments on Prepare The Piano! With a synthesizer?

‘Prepared Piano’ is a time-honored technique of altering a Piano’s sound “by placing objects (preparations) between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers.” Wiki tells us that John Cage is the most noted proponent of this form, and the great Erik Satie was an earlier practitioner. Sounds like good company to be in.

But why stop with the strings, hammers and dampers? Why not put something on the keys?

Dubreq was a British instrument manufacturer in the 60s/70s. Dubreq is most famous for its Stylofone, the little toy synthesizer instrument that had its star-moment in the bridge of Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” It’s called the Stylofone because you play the ‘keys’ with a stylus (pen) rather than by direct contact. You can still buy a Stylofone. I have one, and it’s the best musical instrument you can buy for $14.99. Potentially useful for certain types of tracks.

So once Dubreq conquered the world with a keyboard-that-you-play-with-a-pen, they dropped this bomb. The Piano-mate. I picked up this lil weirdo at the Flea market the other day for a few bucks. I had thought i was buying some obscure guitar amp. I was so, so wrong.

Seems like there was a real obsession with the physicality of the keyboard over at Dubreq HQ. Really a very uncanny obsession.

What is the Piano-mate? Basically, it’s a Synth/Organ which does not have a keyboard of its own. Instead, it has these 2 bars that you place ON ANOTHER FULL-SIZE KEYBOARD (let’s call it ‘The Host”). The bars have little plunger microswitches that rest on the Host-keyboard.

When you press a key on the Host, the Piano-mate responds with its own little squawk. The Piano-mate gives the user 3 different sounds (roughly, organ, elec piano, and ‘synth’), and it also has its own vibrato section. Oh and did i mention that it also has its own amp and speaker built in? And and that the whole thing nests together into little recesses in its backside? Really very odd.

The piano mate is interesting to me because it was not intended to be its ‘own sound.’ As the manual tells us, Dubreq’s concept was for the Piano-mate to augment the acoustic tone of an acoustic piano. So we are supposed to hear both sounds, acoustic and electronic, together as one experience. It’s a very strange hybrid.

OK so how does it sound? I find it a lot of fun to play. In my assessment, it turns any simple little piano-tune into instant Roxy-Music/ 70s Eno ballad-majesty. I recorded these 2 examples with my little Tascam DR08 dictaphone, aka the Digital Camera of Sound.

————————————————————— What you are about to hear is a single sonic event – no layering or multitracking. Give ’em a listen.

PianoMate_sound3

PianoMate_Sound2

This Is The Piano Mate Experience.

History Microphones

Microphone (hand) signals

Picked up this pair of circa 1951 Electro-voice 655A mics for $25 at the flea market yesterday. These were the top-of-the line in 1951, retailing for today’s equivalent of $982 each. Wow. that’s a lot of money.

They had no cabling. Just some bare wire. They also came with this great little RCA MI 91-B mic stand.

Anyhow, a quick check with an ohmmeter gave an encouraging result, so i wired them up. And they sound great! Not at all like what you would expect from 60-year-old mics that are beat to hell. Very articulate, good level, pretty high-fi. I own a ton of mics from the 50s and there are not too many American-made dynamic mics that I would actually want to use in a session. These have real potential.

Anyhow, how about that circa 1951 price though? I don’t think anyone was using these at home with their wire recorder. Audio used to be serious business.

E. picked up this book at a library de-accession sale some years ago. It was published by Hastings House in 1956, and it seems to have been used an a University of Vermont communications class.

———————————————————————- – Microphone technique and ‘identification’ is a big part of the instruction on offer here. Most of it is pretty unsurprising, but i found the extreme rigor of ‘Microphone hand signals’ to be really interesting. I have worked in broadcast production and recording studios for years and I don’t think I have ever been aware of a truly codified system of ‘hand signals’ for producers to use in the studio. Anyhow, here’s a quick lesson from the past. Also -check the ‘turntable hand signals’ at the end. These all need to end up in a hip hop video. “Open my mic!”

Follow the link for many more awkward-looking gestures.

Publications Uncategorized

Getting your moods together

Post author By admin
Post date 09/26/2010
2 Comments on Getting your moods together

El Cajon, California was probably a pretty mellow place in 1978.

This dude is killing it on stage.

How about these likely lads?

… and her…

I am not sure what happened to “Musician’s Supply, INC” of El Cajon. Does anyone know? Were they bought up buy another firm? Did their offices burn down after some sort of early ‘rager?’

MS, INC., may be gone, but Ibanez is still going strong. Sadly they don’t make these Gibson copies anymore.

Bob Heil was a major maker/operator of live-sound touring equipment back then. He was out of commission for a long while but now he’s back with a line of microphones that are getting great reviews. Here’s some of Heil’s c.1978 offerings, again from MS., INC.

I love the very DIY, shop-y style of this Heil kit. Seeing this reminded me of what a great story Bob Heil has. Read all about this fascinating audio pioneer here and here.

Anyone have any thoughts on the new Heil mics?

Anyone still using his c.’78 audio equipment?

Custom Fabrication History RCA Technical Western Electric

TECH: antique theater equipment

Post author By admin
Post date 09/25/2010
12 Comments on TECH: antique theater equipment

It’s a sign of real accomplishment for an artist to have a monograph of their work published. I would imagine that a few hundred are published worldwide by recognized publishing companies each year. But much more rare is the collector’s monograph. That’s right. You have amassed a collection of (x) that is so stupendous that “let’s make a book about it!” And the book costs like $60.

Of all the cults and sub-cults of audio-equipment collecting, few are more rarefied and costly than collecting antique movie-theatre equipment; especially equipment made by the Western Electric Company (hf. WE). I won’t go into WE; the company had such a complicated history filled with intense government regulation, so tightly intertwined were they with the communication industries in American life; check out wikipedia for the details. Suffice to say that, along with RCA, WE was a main manufacturer of the equipment used to playback sound in movie theatres at the dawn of the sound-film era (late 1920s). Since the equipment was designed for such purpose, quality and reliability was very high. Also massive.

(from “Recording Sound For Motion Pictures,” McGraw-Hill, 1931)

Here’s RCA’s theater system from that era:

(from ‘Audels New Electric Library,’ Audel+ Co, 1931-1958)

Mr. Yashima had quite a collection of this stuff.

(scanned from “Makoto Yashima Collection,” Seibundo, Japan)

It’s hard for me to say what the value of these WE components is, but i can easily imagine single pieces trading in the 5 figures.

Getting back down to earth, WE stopped making theatre-sound equipment in the late 1940s due to anti-trust regulations (complicated, right?), but RCA kept on building it.

This brings us into the realm of more accessible (even downright cheap!) devices. Even though this later hardware may be inexpensive nowadays, we are still dealing with equipment that is designed for ultimate reliability, and really very good fidelity. After all, tens of thousands of people sat in these theaters every year, paying a good fee in order to watch and listen to the latest films… this is a case where quality really matters.

I picked up this circa 1960 RCA 9362 booster amp for… maybe… $70? on eBay a while back. I had no idea what it was, but it looked like it might be useful in the studio. And here is where it gets technical….

Guitar Equipment Icons Manufacturers

ICON: Guild Instruments

Even if you have never played a guitar in your entire life, you are probably familiar with the Gibson and Fender guitar brands.

These companies have existed for decades (a century for Gibson) and they are, at this point, American icons. The brands themselves, divorced from the actual products that they represent, get licensed for use adorning other products.

(web source)

Other great American manufacturers are even willing to co-brand with these companies.

(web source)

Gibson and Fender guitars are of good quality, and their ‘classic’ models are functionally/sonically very different instruments, so it makes sense that they have existed for so long in opposition as healthy competitors.
There are, of course, other classic American guitar brands. Martin guitars. Gretsch Guitars. And Guild Guitars. Martin has been around for over 150 years, and they are primarily very demure acoustic instruments.

Gretsch is a newer (80 years?) brand, and instead are known for garish electrics of varied quality but undeniable curb-appeal.

And then there is Guild. Guild never really had a strong identity. They kinda walked the line between acoustic guitars for ‘serious’ folkies and electric guitars for players looking for ‘something different.’ But I have always found them to be the best value in a used (vintage) guitar. The acoustics are a great balance of the chime of a Martin acoustic and the growl of a Gibson acoustic. I love my old Guild acoustic.

It’s much better then my Martins, and i can’t afford a good vintage Gibson, so… Guild is where it’s at for me. And the electrics combine Gibson build quality with the offbeat charm of the cheaper American vintage brands like Harmony and Valco. If you feel drawn to Harmony and Silvertone vintage electric guitars, but you need something that will actual stay in tune and play well… get a Guild.

GUITAR was (is?) a British guitar mag. I picked up a pile of back issues while on tour in England years ago. Here are some great examples of Guild’s 70’s lineup, taken from advertising in GUITAR. (other manufacturers on display in the same issues are Peavey, Ibanez, and Barcus-Berry).

-please follow the link for gallery of vintage British Guild Ads, as well as the conclusion of this piece…-