Evolution of the DJ

This topic has 33 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated October 12, 2012 at 11:40 pm by MC G-Tek.

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October 12, 2012 at 6:08 pm #1260418
thelog
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@General Lighting 499877 wrote:

in the 1980s I managed to briefly borrow from school a Philips N4308 and a Ferrograph series 7 (these machines having been abandoned in favour of cassettes) and do proper old skool mix tapes…

even back then I genuinely wanted to work in radio or the rest of the yoof” media playing emerging forms of electronic music and UK produced pop, (not so I could smoke cigars and groom young girls)

shame that the same tech what makes it accessible wiped out the paying career path or I’d probably have stayed in SE England and be helping you lot set up studios..

Nice I said a while ago that my friends Dad had a sony real to real. Came in a suave case that opened up and was actually the back of the speakers. It was very 007 I must say.
[Now then now then, was that another Jimmy Sav joke]
October 12, 2012 at 6:17 pm #1260411
General Lighting
Moderator
@MC G-Tek 499878 wrote:

Cool piece of kit dude, like it. Woulda been great to have you down this way setting up studios for us all, curse the technology for ruining it!

the technology is a double edged sword though – without it you’d never have been able to broadcast your youtube video and all of us share the soundcloud tracks and mixes

OTOH when near everything is downloaded for free and kids are expected to work for nothing because the media is “fun” it creates a situation where I (and many other engineers of my age group and skills) end up setting up telephones and corporate networks/databases for the day job as we need to pay the bills. I’ve noticed too out of my friends who produce there are fewer and fewer now and those what remain are far younger but stop in their mid 20s as they run out of time and energy…

At least there is now the community radio station here and this forum to share ideas and advice further afield…
October 12, 2012 at 10:29 pm #1260421
leveret
Participant
@thelog 499869 wrote:

You know that. maybe even borrow their parents record player and do some scratching.

what’s this ‘scratching’, daddy-oh ?
October 12, 2012 at 10:48 pm #1260422
leveret
Participant
@General Lighting 499877 wrote:

in the 1980s I managed to briefly borrow from school a Philips N4308.

my parents had an original from the 1960s with fuse-sized neon tube level indicator. but i think i acquired one like yours. i had a whole range of lesser 4 track recorders too. they gradually gave way to perished belts, sticky rollers and general lack of tension – one particularly spider infested example after a time in the attic gave a nice display of sparks and smoke when i turned it on. :laugh_at:

my pride and joy was the uher portable but that is a different story by itself 🙂
still have the tapes natch and one player that still worked last time it was used !
October 12, 2012 at 10:52 pm #1260412
General Lighting
Moderator
the belts on the philips machines unfortunately turned into unpleasant rubber mush…

I think UHER 4000 reports are still prized and hoarded as the decomissioned auntie ones (they were only decommisioned in about 2005) all got bought up very quickly..

twitchers and natural historials especially still like them as even if you slightly overload recordings its not as rough as clipping a digital recording..
October 12, 2012 at 11:15 pm #1260423
leveret
Participant
i’ve certainly seen a machine like your second one, if it wasn’t at my uncle’s it was at an old boss’s place (1970s/80s bosses were much cooler for some reason).

yes i had a uher 4000 report how did you guess 🙂 what an amazing piece of kit and so robust to everything you could throw at it even if a bit quaint with its gear-shift speed selector. I must hold the record for having managed to totally destroy one. Well it did land on station platforms quite a lot for some reason …
October 12, 2012 at 11:22 pm #1260413
General Lighting
Moderator
The auntie ones usually had the gear shift locked into 19 cm/s by various means. otherwise reporters would set the wrong speed and screw up the interviews. BBC Radio Berkshire was still using them well into the 2000s except they’d just copy the spool of tape onto SADIE and edit the rest of the content digitally as minidiscs were notoriously flaky. You can now get a digital version of the Marantz PMD series which is a nice piece of kit but expensive….
October 12, 2012 at 11:27 pm #1260424
leveret
Participant
it was pretty well all mechanical in its drive iirc so very little to go wrong unless you broke a casting (ahem!) loads of nice long rods and brass drives inside and you were ok as long as they meshed. still it went nearly everywhere with me and was a great step up on the portable cassettes i used to use, and the recordings are a scene long gone from the railways …
October 12, 2012 at 11:40 pm #1260414
General Lighting
Moderator
its only now that digital stuff is reliable enough to use in the field but unless you are really skilled and/or set the limiters correctly recording something like trains isn’t going to be easy…
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