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78 rpm
Sept 29, 2004 23:47:07 GMT
Post by Alan on Sept 29, 2004 23:47:07 GMT
On Sat I went to a 78rpm night , excellent idea. Everyone was dancing and it was a real mixed crowd. Although I was surprised how few peole knew what a 78 was Anyway it got me thinking, and I had a look on eBay ; you can get some real gems, here are a few of the ones that people will know. Cheap too, its the postage thats a killer. Terry, Sonny Hootin' Blues B.B." BLUES BOY" KING and THE KINGSMEN titled * EVERYDAY I HAVE THE BLUES Champion Jack Dupree - County Jail Special // Fisherman's Blues Muddy Waters I'M YOUR HOOCHIE COOCHIE MAN' Petty I dont have a record player, I keep looking for a Dansette to have in the front room, but people dont know what they are either.
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78 rpm
Sept 30, 2004 17:27:49 GMT
Post by Larry Conrad on Sept 30, 2004 17:27:49 GMT
A good place to get those things, if you are "across the water", is a rural farm sale. An elderly farmer dies and his children don't need his house and land, or he is retiring and just wants to get rid of the odds and ends accumulated over a lifetime. So the contents of the house and barn are auctioned off. Adverts go into the local newspaper (the kind with the little "International News in Brief" box in a lower corner of the front page ) and get posted up on barns, in front of rural shops, etc. The event becomes a big social thing - everyone comes to check it out and gossip, and there are baked goods, hot dishes, snacks, and drinks on sale to benefit the local school, church, or whatever. But the local folks are looking for machine parts and practical things, and antique dealers coming out from the city are looking for furniture, household decorations and fittings and the like: big ticket items. Things like records, papers, and books often get auctioned off a big box at a time - "Who will give me a fiver for this box...", etc. I used to have an absolutely cool old Victrola and hundreds of 78s, all bought at these sales, and I doubt that I ever paid more than 10 cents apiece for the records - even that would have been high. These things can still be seen in the farm sales, but there are more people willing to buy them with the idea of sorting out what is worth keeping and reselling at a local flea market. So the prices have gone up, but not a lot so far as I have seen. That may be because, as Alan says, so few people can play a 78 or even know what one is. Larry
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78 rpm
Sept 30, 2004 17:44:14 GMT
Post by Richard on Sept 30, 2004 17:44:14 GMT
Alan If you make your way to www.weeniecampbell.com and click on the link to the 24 hour Country Blues Juke you will find that amongst the scheduled programs are a couple of 78 blues shows that I've put togethers playing only 78s. The snap crackle and pop is totally unfiltered... as it should be
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78 rpm
Oct 20, 2004 10:12:48 GMT
Post by Alan on Oct 20, 2004 10:12:48 GMT
Is it me or do Robert Johnson recordings sound like they play too fast ? Was the recording equipment running slow?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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78 rpm
Oct 20, 2004 10:42:54 GMT
Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2004 10:42:54 GMT
Alan I read somewhere that Robert Johnson did play slower normally but the recording company wanted faster and more upbeat numbers, so either made RJ play faster or as you suspect ran the recording equipment slower during recording. Certainly in some numbers his guitar is sharp by half a tone or more, but that could have been due to lots of retuning, although retuning of my instrument without a reference usually results in the guitar going flat rather than sharp. Maybe this is just a blues myth but I agree that some of his numbers do sound too fast. I play most of them slower and they seem to work much better that way.
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78 rpm
Oct 20, 2004 14:47:00 GMT
Post by Alan on Oct 20, 2004 14:47:00 GMT
yer he has a touch of the Al Jolson in his voice sometimes. perhaps the heat did something to the recording equipment.
Does anyone know what they used back then?
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78 rpm
Oct 26, 2004 16:23:12 GMT
Post by Richard on Oct 26, 2004 16:23:12 GMT
One of my daughters was just watching 'O brother where art thou' on video (- I've got 'em well trained...) anyway, Alan, the answer to your question about period recording equipment is shown working in that film ... the bit at WEZY radio where the RJ lookalike backs the Soggy Bottom Boys. If you don't know this film, well you ought to as it's great fun
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martinw
Serious MM Forum Member
Posts: 31
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78 rpm
Oct 26, 2004 16:35:06 GMT
Post by martinw on Oct 26, 2004 16:35:06 GMT
Bob Hall was saying at blues week that the temperature could make a difference to the pitch on recordings: the oil or grease on the mechanical parts was less viscous in hot weather making it run faster (sharp) and conversely slower in the winter (flat) when it was less fluid. He thinks that can make as much difference as a semi-tone but is mostly evident in field recordings. Strangely, Alan, I tend to go sharp with lots of re-tuning, but that is, unfortunately where any similarity between my playing and ther great RJ's ends
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78 rpm
Oct 26, 2004 17:11:33 GMT
Post by Michael Messer on Oct 26, 2004 17:11:33 GMT
Alan, your question about Robert Johnson got overlooked, I apologize. There are a lot of threads to keep up with!
RJ is running a touch fast on many of his recordings. He seems to have got faster since the CD was invented and Columbia Records did that massive re-mastering job.
I have done some research & re-mastering at what I consider to be the correct pitch of each song. It makes fascinating listening, and is much more 'real' sounding.
There have been a few papers published on this subject, but the people who wrote them went a bit extreme on the slowing-down process and made him sound like Son House on valium, which doesn't quite work for me! A semitone or whole tone here & there is great, but these guys went too far.
Also - listening as I have been recently to Charley Patton - WARNING....be careful of these very cleaned up versions of their music, like the Catfish box set for example....not only are the scratches & pops missing, but so is half of Charley's performance. The Charley Patton on Yazoo sounds better than the cleaned up version. Perhaps there is a whole new thread here>?
Shine On, Michael.
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78 rpm
Oct 27, 2004 8:55:15 GMT
Post by rickS on Oct 27, 2004 8:55:15 GMT
Michael, re; Patton - I have the JSP boxset that replaced ( & is far superior to ) the Catfish set, but haven't heard the newest Yazoo Patton release, which is supposed to be the best yet. Have you or anyone heard them both, so as to be able to offer a comparison ( before I go & shell out YET again on ol' Charlie)? IMO the JSP set is great value, since you also get the Son House & Willie Brown Paramounts thrown in for good measure..
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78 rpm
Nov 13, 2004 16:02:59 GMT
Post by Colin McCubbin on Nov 13, 2004 16:02:59 GMT
Not written by me, I pinched it from a web site, there are many similar references on the web. Go to google and search for "78 rpm" speed
This paragraph below is a typical statement:
By no means all 78s were actually recorded at 78 rpm. Even in the late 1920s English Columbia was still using 80 rpm, and prior to about 1921 speeds were widely variable. Some of the audio tracks included in the Music hall section of this site were transferred at speeds as low as 74 rpm, and I have come across records where the speed was as low as 68 or as high as 84 rpm.
To make matters worse, relatively few records state the speed (and when they do it's not always accurate).
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78 rpm
Nov 13, 2004 16:36:47 GMT
Post by snakehips on Nov 13, 2004 16:36:47 GMT
Hi there !
On the point that some people did not know what a "78" was, I was telling my (now ex) girlfriend about a 45 I had - she replied "what's that ?".
My heart sank quite a bit, as she was 10 years younger than me !!!!
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78 rpm
Nov 13, 2004 18:18:52 GMT
Post by Richard on Nov 13, 2004 18:18:52 GMT
She probably had a 44-20
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78 rpm
Nov 13, 2004 21:20:26 GMT
Post by Larry Conrad on Nov 13, 2004 21:20:26 GMT
When I was a teenager it never occurred to us to ask what speed these old records were recorded at. We just assumed that it was all a mess. Any time I played a "78" I started it at 78 and then adjusted the speed until the music sounded right. I didnt think what I was doing was unusual, and I guess that was the way everyone played old records.
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78 rpm
Nov 13, 2004 22:48:32 GMT
Post by Michael Messer on Nov 13, 2004 22:48:32 GMT
A good thread!!!
Over the past few years my opinions about cleaning up old records has changed. When I first heard old records with no hiss, crackle or pops, I was pretty impressed and wanted to bin all my old vinyl. These days, I have to say I prefer the original crackly uncleaned-up versions.
To clean up a mono recording ( and I am speaking from experience here, having worked on numerous projects with Catfish Records & having spent time with the master of this subject, the late John RT Davies), you have to remove part of the performance. There is a bit of a myth surrounding all this, that the computer programme and the technician can perform magic. Well that simply is not true - to remove the pops and scratches on a mono recording, you have to remove part of the performance that we are trying to hear.
Much of the so called 'magic' and wonderful sound that we experience when listening to these remastered 78s is more to do with compression & equalization, which covers up the horrible nasal sound created by cleaning up. I promise you that more of the performance can be heard on a pre-cleaned-up version than on a cleaned up one. On some performances it doesn't matter or notice as much as others, so it is more acceptable. Basically when I have done this kind of work I try to be as subtle as possible and not go for the real clean sound.
All of this is subjective and also relies 100% on how good the sound engineers are at doing this kind of work.
In 2001 I released a live recording of the late Ted Hawkins called "The Unstoppable Ted Hawkins" which I recorded in 1988 on a TDK C90 cassette at a gig. I took the cassette to the mastering guys, who are THE guys in this country for this kind of work, to remove the tape hiss and make it all sound a bit more professionally recorded. After two or three hours of messing about with their amazing software I decided to leave it alone and release it as a hissy recording. Everything that was done to improve it, actually removed something from the performance.
In saying all that..... I have not heard the new JSP Charlie Patton yet, I look forward to doing so.
Meanwhile....I am listening to a cleaned-up CD of Roy Acuff while I am writing this!!!!
Shine On, Michael.
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