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Author Topic: Recorded changes...
Bob_Scopatz
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I realized today that I have lived to see the following types of recording media used for popular music:

78 rpm records -- a bit before my time, none of the stuff I ever bought NEW was on this...

45's and 33 rpm MONO ONLY records -- yep, I had a lot of these and remember being disappointed to get some new record home and realize it was mono, not stereo... I was a kid and didn't know the difference, but everyone laughed at me for buying mono.

<sniff>

Stereo 33 rpm -- by far the greatest investment of my time and limited capital. I've winnowed my once vast collection down to about 100 or so albums that I keep and never play *shudder* except to make a fresh recording on tape or CD!!! The very thought of a diamond-hard needle scraping across the vinyl as it falls inexorably out of alignment. [Eek!]

Reel-to-Reel -- not a big draw for me in terms of buying pre-recorded stuff, but they were lots of fun for recording our garage band's versions of unrecognizable tunes. In my later years, I acquired two of these machines and also learned how to use them in the days before digital recording for stuff like overdubbing in a synthesizer class I took. But it was possible to go to a record store and buy (usually special order) a favorite album on reel-to-reel format.

8-track tapes -- a continuous loop of tape that had 4 stereo sections (hence "eight tracks" and the player would *click* from one track to the next at the end of each loop, often in the middle of a song. I bought a lot of these because my first car came with an 8-track tape player. Well, I found one and shoved it in there...Cool [Cool]

cassette tapes -- a vast improvement over 8 track tapes, and the source of most of the earliest form of personal violations of copyrights. Cassette recording decks were cheap and reliable. Tapes were cheap too. Everyone I knew simply cherry-picked their friend's vinyl collections and made "personal use" tapes of favorite records. It was also possible to buy pre-recorded cassette tapes of favorite albums and while the quality was better than 8-track, it still pretty much sucked for anything but listening to in the car. Cars were noisier back then too, so it didn't matter as much if the sound system was clean. Just had to be loud. The worst thing was buying an album on casette and having your cheap-@ss car stereo eat it the first time you played it. That's why we almost always bought the records and recorded them ourselves.

CDs -- Now this is fun. I mean, they last forever, right? And you can record a cassette for use in the car. Oh wait! you can get a changer for your car! Oh wait! Now you can record your own CDs! The vinyl record industry all but disappears overnight. Oddly, cassettes survive for awhile longer, but now pre-recorded cassettes are about all gone too. bye bye. [Wave]

Of course, the real advantage of CDs is that they are digital. In effect, the medium is ones and zeros, not that disc thingy. So, nowadays, I can get my favorite music as "files" and they sit on any convenient storage medium I desire. And if I want to take it with me, I have choices like burning a CD, downloading to a "player" or just putting the file on my laptop computer.

The age of having to own a physical THING on which the music is forever etched or magnetically encoded is gone.

I feel fortunate, though, to have seen all these changes in my lifetime. I missed out older things like wax spools and wire cylinder recording devices, but other than that, I've seen and used every playable recording device and medium that man has invented or, now that we have digital portability, ever has to invent. I mean even if we get to the point of having music just "merged" into our neurons someday, it will still likely only exist in some non-medium dependant form. It will be digital bits of some sort, I suspect. Well...okay maybe it'll be a living neural net, but that net will probably still be storing something that started its recorded life as ones and zeros, just like today.

The other thing I was thinking about was whether I'd had ANY recording in ALL or MOST of the formats that have been available in my lifetime. The answer is almost.

78's aren't really relevant to MY generation's music, so forget them (although I had some great old swing band stuff that I've since recaptured in CD form, and there a couple of classical pieces that I had in 78's, reel-to-reel, record albums, cassette and now CD. But it's not really the same. I have old recordings of the pieces on 78's and new recordings of them on CDs. Not the same artists.

So...what albums have "done it" for me through all these years, and thus all these changes?

A very few:

1) Lola Versus the Powerman by The Kinks.

2) Ry Cooder's first album called "Ry Cooder" basically...

3) Who's Next and Tommy by the Who

4) Rock of Ages by The Band

5) Harry Nilsson: Nilsson/Schmilsson and Son of Scmilsson

Other things have come close, but these are the ones I have always had around and will always have around even if it means getting a specialized neural implant and hoping they don't get garbled by the resulting tumor growth.

Thanks for listening.

[Big Grin]

[ February 26, 2005, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: Bob_Scopatz ]

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Morbo
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Hmmm, I think Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Hereis the only thing I've had on tape, LP and CD.

There's a weird science fiction story from the late 80s or 90s that supposed that a tool held to a pot being spun on a wheel would make a crude recording, retrievable using advanced computers and microscopy, etc.

So you could hear an ancient, 3000 year old conversation, if it was held near a spinning pot! An original story idea, I thought.

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Lost Ashes
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Otis Redding's Sitting on the Dock of the Bay ... from the original Volt vinyl, up through 8-track (my Dad's) to cassette and as soon as I can find it, CD.

Rush's Hold Your Fire (vinyl, cassette and CD)

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Elizabeth
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I had only two 8-tracks. One was the Star Wars music, the other was Steve Miller Band. Forget the name of the album, but his biggie.
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Storm Saxon
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I see no Captain Beefheart in Bob's list. How can this be?
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Elizabeth
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SS, if he is old enough to remember 78s, you cannot expect him to remember everything.
Sheesh.

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Storm Saxon
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I think my first album that I bought myself was Agents of Fortune by Blue Oyster Cult.

My second album was The Best of Black Sabbath.

*lights lighter*
*Makes sekret devil sign*

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Storm Saxon
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I would laugh, Elizabeth, but I'm probably even more forgetful than he is at my tender age. [Frown]

[ February 26, 2005, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: Storm Saxon ]

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Elizabeth
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Are you saying, "That was so funny I forgot to laugh?"
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Elizabeth
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When I watch Clean House, Clean Sweep, and Mission Organization, there are so many clutterbugs who insist on keeping all their old albums.
We have a ton, too, and no turn table.

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Storm Saxon
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I actually don't own any albums any more...I think.
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Chris Bridges
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I have my albums, Teres' albums, my buddy Dave's albums, and until my friend Alynia finally bought herself a turntable I housed hers, too.

I was thinking about the "what music have I had in all formats" question myself, after I had just spent a weekend organizing my mp3 collection and suddenly realized I was going to have to write a column about it (possibly for next week).

Closest I could think of was Weird Al (albums, 45s, cassettes, CDs, mp3s), Pink Floyd (albums, cassettes, mp3s), and STYX (albums, cassettes, mp3s). The Who and The Beatles would probably be next. I'm currently buying songs off allofmp3.com so I can finally toss some of the heap of cassettes I still hang on to with an average of one favorite song each. Next I'll start whittling on the albums...

There's still quite a few where I like the music enough to keep the album, but not enough to buy the CD. Same reason I still have piles of videos. Not good enough to rate buying the DVD, but...

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Yozhik
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quote:
There's a weird science fiction story from the late 80s or 90s that supposed that a tool held to a pot being spun on a wheel would make a crude recording
This was part of the plot of the X-Files episode "Hollywood A.D."
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Chris Bridges
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I keep thinking of Tommy Lee Jones in "Men in Black, holding up a teeny CD. "Perfect musical reproduction. Looks like I'll have to buy 'The White Album' again."
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Bob_Scopatz
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[ROFL]

That's perfect!

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jexx
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Well, the X-files 'stole' the idea from the short story, because I remember that story, too. [Smile] I have it in an anthology somewhere...
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TomDavidson
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I suppose it says a lot about the era in which I grew up that the only music I ever had in record format was by artists like Anne Murray and the Sesame Street Players. [Smile]
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Annie
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I had a toy record player for a bit in the early 80s. The records were fat, plastic, with very obvious bumps. They played about 20 seconds worth of "This Old Man" on each side.
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Swampjedi
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I remember those toy records. I don't recall really listening to them, but instead using them as projectiles to hit my brothers with.

Who would have guessed that "This Old Man" was violent music? [Wink]

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ketchupqueen
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Kate Wolf.
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ketchupqueen
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Oh, and the Beatles.

Yes, I'm only 21, but I listened to my dad's records.

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Shan
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I have some records - including a great jazz album by a group called "Gamalon".

Sadly, I lack a record player.

*sobs*

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Allegra
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I never had records or 8-tracks but I remember the ones my parents had. I think almost all of the music I have had has been on CD. I had some tapes as a kid, but I did not feel the need to get Rafi on CD.
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