How about 30 years ago...

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billisa

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Let's see, we had a monophonic RCA Victrola on which to play Meet the Beatles through Let It Be. The first stereo we had was a Hitachi cassette based stereo my dad brought back from Kuwait, along with a more portable Panasonic stereo unit. My first recordings were made on a "?" 3 1/2 inch reel to reel, via mike, so when the phone rang, I had to redo Revolution #9 AGAIN!!!

My first attempt (successful by the way!) at sound-on-sound recording was accomplished literally by taping some thin cardboard over the erase head on the Panasonic unit and just adding more material. Since I couldn't play any instruments, I "sampled" from records we had around the house. Not long after I got a Toshiba 7.5 inch reel-to-reel, stereo deck with built in amp/speakers that, via the owner's manual, was my first "reel" intro to English as attempted by "experts" who have never spoken the language.

By the time college came along, I began a career in radio and got to use other people stuff that was state of the art at the time (Ampex 2-channel 10.5 inch deck, UREA 16 channel board, patchbays that were NEVER labelled, etc). I remember being pretty damn good editing with a razor blade and spinning the capstan to get the tape up to speed sooner! I will also claim some award for perhaps being the first to practice the art of "cueing" (translate: scratching) on the air, which some thought was zany, but I KNEW was cool!

I bought a TEAC 1230 stereo deck that was built like a Hummer, but my most fascinating personal gear was a JVC KD-2 portable cassette deck and a pair of JVC HM200E binaural recording mic/headphones that still fascinate people today (though now I record with them on a Fostex VF80). I still have a cassette of a birthday party, where my now deceased father still sounds like he's sitting just 45 degrees to my right... The "reel" challenge today is not so much to understand all the new and wonderful ways we have to record life, but to enjoy it and be as fascinated by it as we were back 30 years ago.
 
Teac first consumer 4 tracks 3340, Loggins and Messina had just broken up, CSNY were on their 3rd album, Rick Derringer "Hey Lawdy Mama", Edgar Winter Band, Jim Hendrix was dead, Clapton and Duane Allman did Layla, Led Zepplin was working on Houses of the Holy, Kustom PA systems, oh yeah, the ones with the big padding all around. Fender Custom Teles had just come out, the first humbuckers on a Fender for $400. Three Dog Night songs were finally fading from the airwaves - Jeramiah was a Bullfrog - may it rest in peace. Disco was just a dot on the horizon.

Mini Moogs were not all that old. The Beatles were over, actually a few years earlier. Pet rocks were big. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils had released Jackie Blue. The first guy bands that wore makeup and used big hair were making the rounds.

Old Stratocasters and Les Pauls from the 50s could still be had for around $500. An old tele could be had for $100. Most Fender twin amps were around $200.

Virtually no one had attacked the home recording market except TEAC. If you wanted to record your band you had to pay for hours in a real studio. I think this was good because musicians concentrated on their sound and chops and let engineers focus on capturing the magic.

Today there is much more pressure on musicians because they are brought into high quality studios too soon without the aging process of years of playing live. They also don't focus on audience response as much as theatrical projection. The music comes off flat but the dancing is great.
 
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30 years ago.....1973. Man, that seems like a lifetime ago.

Grand Funk was telling everyone who would listen that they were an American Band. Elton was saying goodbye to the yellow brick road, and the Allman Brothers were Ramblin. Jim Croce was pretty cool and Deep Purple was playing Smoke On The Water.

I was 14 years old... and had been playing guitar for 6 years. It was still magical back then. A Kustom amp that had not been well cared for... an Apollo Fuzz Box.... an imitation strat... and an Alavarez acoustic for the James Taylor songs.

The fashion was terrible.... and the pictures family pictures from back then prove it :)
 
Ahhh...1973...well lets see...i was married to my first ex-wife...we were both 20...i was playing in a power rock group through my Kustom 200 bass amp w/2heads and 2 3-15" speaker cabs and my 1961 jazz bass and my old hagstrom 8-string bass, i had hair down my back and weighed a whole lot less...we could stay up till 3am and still get to work by 8 am without too much damage...we were sure we were gonna be superstars...I listened to Yes, Gentle Giant, Genesis, ZZTop, Allmans,Marshall Tucker Band, and many others.I had just bought a used Roberts two track w/sound-on-sound and had a shure mic mixer.It was awkward to say the least.I had recorded several local commercials in 8-track studios and one 16 track facility.I figured, one of these days I'm gonna own my own studio. 30 years later its still what i want to do.Yes i do own my own studio but its just a little one in my rec room.
 
If you go 33 years back (1970), recording studios were a completely different place than they are today... nobody but the (union) engineers could touch the "board"; 8 track Scully and 3M recorders were hot poo; most studios in my area (Portland Oregon) hated us rock-n-rollers and much preferred working with country western bands; when we asked that our tracks were mixed in stereo, we were asked "why?"; many artists were discouraged from listening in and contributing to "mix-down" sessions; the drug of choice was booze (encouraged in studios), followed by weed (discouraged in studios); it was rare to have an artist or band writing their own material; vinyl EPs (2 songs on each side) were unusual; 45s and "LPs" were the norm; most rock bands used Hammond B3s and/or Rhoad pianos; and, it was relatively easy to get AM and FM airplay. Oh yeah... "flairs" and "platforms" were very hip.
 
"Eight tracks" thirty years ago

Eight track had a different meaning. My dad bought quadrophonic, and didn't go with a cassette recorder because the stereo guy said "they would never last." So he bought a recording eight track (had an eight track in the car, too, so that was another reason) that didn't rewind--it only fast forwarded: you zipped up to the end of the "track," there were four, then clicked through the tracks back to where you wanted to be. Whose brilliant idea was that anyway? Some masochist who is rotting in a particularly nasty circle of hell right know, I hope. We used to bounce between that recorder and a TEAC stereo cassette recorder a buddy had (that may not have been quite thirty years ago, sorry) "overdubbing" live, listening to the final result deteriorate to nothing generation after generation.

Though the Beatles had broken up three years earlier, the local radio station (73 CKLG), was doing a ten year anniversary thing. The Carpenters, Roy Clark, Glen Campbell, John Denver and Flip Wilson were all over TV, and I had a little 3.5" reel to reel number that I would record TV with by sticking the mic up to the speaker. Man, did we have fun with that tape recorder. If I look hard enough I'm sure I'll find the tapes somewhere.

I had just bought Hot August Night and dreamed of conducting while listening on the old victor console. Crime of the Century, Dark Side of the Moon and The Yes Album were waiting just over the horizon for me...

God, to be ten again...
 
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