Vintage Things That Have Disappeared In Your Lifetime?

[hatsRme]

I know I mentioned this in another thread, but feel it's so important that I want to wave the flag again... (and apologies if this has been mentioned before) ...Hand-written letters

My wife came upon a box of letters from her high school and college days. To see and read the handwritten letters (one written on a brown bag from a college crony who claimed not to have enough money for stationary) was like touching the past. Especially true of the letters from those who have since departed. WRITE LETTERS (sorry if I'm yelling again...)!!

 

[Big Man]

I know I mentioned this in another thread, but feel it's so important that I want to wave the flag again... (and apologies if this has been mentioned before) ...Hand-written letters

My wife came upon a box of letters from her high school and college days. To see and read the handwritten letters (one written on a brown bag from a college crony who claimed not to have enough money for stationary) was like touching the past. Especially true of the letters from those who have since departed. WRITE LETTERS (sorry if I'm yelling again...)!!

With the (almost) disappearance of hand-written letters and printed photographs, I'm afraid so much will be lost to history. I can read letters from my family that have been saved for well over 100 years and look at old family photos 150 + years old. Sadly, those tapes we made for the VCR back in the 1980s are just about useless today.

 

[Fading Fast]

With the (almost) disappearance of hand-written letters and printed photographs, I'm afraid so much will be lost to history. I can read letters from my family that have been saved for well over 100 years and look at old family photos 150 + years old. Sadly, those tapes we made for the VCR back in the 1980s are just about useless today.

I have no expertise in this, but I have read that there is a school of thought that, over the long run, digital storage will prove less reliable than old fashion paper and ink and, therefore, as you stated, we might be at risk to loosing a massive amount of today's history 100 years from now. That said, good luck trying to get the younger generation to embrace anything but their beloved digital devises.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's definitely true when it comes to audio-visual media. Analog formats are the only true archival preservation systems, and smart archivists see to it that analog copies continue to be made.

 

[HudsonHawk]

It's definitely true when it comes to audio-visual media. Analog formats are the only true archival preservation systems, and smart archivists see to it that analog copies continue to be made.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't analog still used for pretty much all audio recording? Digital is fine for easy distribution to the masses, but isn't pretty much everything recorded and preserved analog?

 

[MikeKardec]

It's definitely true when it comes to audio-visual media. Analog formats are the only true archival preservation systems, and smart archivists see to it that analog copies continue to be made.

During the 1990s I worked with a company associated with Madonna's Maverick Films I have a memory of being around when they were "backing up" a number of her albums to a 78 rpm analog disk system. Higher rpm theoretically meaning higher quality but just one song per side.

Having archived many hours of analog audio tape I know that it is nearly useless after a decade or more if it is not kept in a VERY dry environment. Plenty of times I've had to "bake" Ampex 456 for many hours in order to get just one run without the emulsion flaking off ... well, it flakes off anyway but not so badly. Here you can see a couple of minutes of flaking near the capstan roller.



The only things that I know of that are REALLY even semi future proof are lacquer/vinyl disks and high quality photographic film stock. I'd love to know of something else ... and I'm no expert archivist ... but I haven't seen it yet. As it is I transfer to new hard disks every 5 years or so and repurpose the old ones. My back ups have back ups

 

[MikeKardec]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't analog still used for pretty much all audio recording? Digital is fine for easy distribution to the masses, but isn't pretty much everything recorded and preserved analog?

The answer to that is, unfortunately or not, "no." Digital is most people's and most company's preferred recording medium. Recorded on similar equipment and using the best practices there is no advantage that I see to analog. If you want a vintage sound, that is one thing, though you can get it without using much or even any analog equipment, but for a simple, accurate, recording no one I know has been able to justify it in the last 15 years or so. I work with people who design mastering rooms and studio mix stages and all of us theoretically love analog ... but it just makes no sense to use it. If you record carefully (meaning no hotter than -6bdfs) and carefully watch your levels in whatever software you are using, if you use top end A to D converters that ACTUALLY sound good rather than getting caught up in the high resolution fad product of the month, the sound is, flat out ... accurate. Which is all you can hope for. If you then want to modify it at least you have accurate to fall back on.

Analog is a crazy, though occasionally (on the right material) glorious, set of compromises. I nearly cried when I sold my analog multitrack recorders but I've NEVER used the one 1/4" 2 track I kept since then. When I sold my extensively hot rodded console and patch bay my life improved tremendously, noise went away and breakdowns stopped occurring ... I've just finished a huge 3 hour project that has taken 7 years and we didn't have a single equipment malfunction in the last 5 years. When I worked analog we were in constant "work around" mode bypassing this or that because something was wrong. It took a lot of brain power that could have been devoted to creativity.

My house is full of old tube stereos and such, I've got 15' of vinyl albums and a couple of vintage turntables but recording wise, and sometimes playback wise, well, I feel like a jerk for saying it but digital production is where it's at.

There are PLENTY of engineers who have never learned to record digital and many of the mistakes come from analog thinking, even from engineers too young to have ever worked on tape. The truth is you can screw up either by not understanding it and many do every day.

 

[LizzieMaine]

During the 1990s I worked with a company associated with Madonna's Maverick Films I have a memory of being around when they were "backing up" a number of her albums to a 78 rpm analog disk system. Higher rpm theoretically meaning higher quality but just one song per side.

Having archived many hours of analog audio tape I know that it is nearly useless after a decade or more if it is not kept in a VERY dry environment. Plenty of times I've had to "bake" Ampex 456 for many hours in order to get just one run without the emulsion flaking off ... well, it flakes off anyway but not so badly. Here you can see a couple of minutes of flaking near the capstan roller.

The only things that I know of that are REALLY even semi future proof are lacquer/vinyl disks and high quality photographic film stock. I'd love to know of something else ... and I'm no expert archivist ... but I haven't seen it yet. As it is I transfer to new hard disks every 5 years or so and repurpose the old ones. My back ups have back ups

It was only certain types of back-coated tape that had the hydrolysis problem -- basically the binder used to attach the magnetic coating to the backing was hydroscopic, and it absorbs water from the atmosphere. Ampex 456 was the main type of tape using this binder, but it was also the most widely used formula of tape during the '70s and '80s. I've never run into sticky-shed syndrome with Scotch brand tape, going all the way back to reels from the early fifties. The tape, which is backed with cellulose acetate, can, however get brittle -- and may even develop vinegar syndrome, although I've never personally seen it happen.

Lacquer-coated discs are a lot less stable than they might seem. That lacquer is nitrocellulose, as in nitrate, as in nitrate film, and has the same sort of problems with deterioration. The most common problem with it is that the plasticizer, usually castor oil, reacts with the other chemicals in the coating to form palmitic acid, which manifests on the disc as a greasy white powder. You can clean this off with ammonia to get a clean transfer, but you can't replace the lost plasticizer once it's leached out. Eventually the loss of plasticizer will cause the coating to shrink, crack, and flake off the backing platter into a cascade of highly-inflammamble little bits of black. Audiodisc brand discs are the worst for this sort of thing, and that was the most popular brand of blank used for radio programs in the 1940s and 1950s. Presto discs, which were more popular in the thirties, are somewhat more durable, but they're also liable to decay if stored in a humid environment.

The most stable recording formats are uncoated aluminum discs -- which can corrode if wet, and can be bent, but are otherwise stable -- and good old-fashioned shellac pressings. (I do radio transcription disc transfer work on the side, and have had plenty of practical experience with all these formats.)

 

[MikeKardec]

The most stable recording formats are uncoated aluminum discs -- which can corrode if wet, and can be bent, but are otherwise stable -- and good old-fashioned shellac pressings. (I do radio transcription disc transfer work on the side, and have had plenty of practical experience with all these formats.)

I know I've seen the aluminum disks in the past, I've always wondered what they sounded like.

I loved working in tape (as an employee ... as a producer, note my other entry). There was something really exciting when we'd do a mix and the remote "gang start" button would be hit and every tape machine, four or five of them, in the room would start to roll and those meters would begin to dance and heat would be pouring off of everything. I LOVE automated mix parameters, like inside a computer work station ... again as a producer ... but it was pretty cool to watch the mixer guy doing it all on the fly, playing the console like a musical instrument.

When I worked in film post back before the technology changed, the same event was kind of intimidating and stressful. You were many yards and sometimes a couple of floors away from the mix theater, in a room that held dozens of full-coat (movie film coated in recording emulsion) mag-na-sync machines. They'd hit record up in the theater and 20 machines would spring to life, each running a sprocket synched mono audio track. They were basically a movie projector with a magnetic playback head where the lens would have been and, like a projector, they were LOUD. 20 to 30 of them running in one room was REALLY LOUD. But, Praise God, they stayed in sync and when they didn't it was an easy fix. The later systems that tried to mix electronic SMPTE time code multitrack tape recorders with mag machines were a pain in the A$$.

That was "old Hollywood" sound production, which surprisingly lasted until not that long ago. When I started my first all in the box (all post production done in one computer) Audio Drama in 2000, no one had mixed an entire movie in a Digital Audio Workstation. I went back and forth with several Supervising Sound Editors I knew trying to get advice and few had confidence in it. The show we just finished was easily as complicated as post on a major feature and it was a piece of cake ... I can't even begin to imagine how long it would have taken if we'd been cutting tape. This show took 450 days, tape might have taken 900. I'd be an old man.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Uncoated aluminum can sound quite good if it's transferred properly. Some years ago I transfered a large stack of discs from Rudy Vallee's collection, dating back as far as 1932, and he'd played them over and over again with fibre needles. These types of needles were the only kind that could be used in the Era for these discs, because a steel needle would have gouged the aluminum under the weight of the arms then in use. Unfortunately they left a gummy residue in the grooves, and it took me quite a while to clean all this guck out. But once I did it, I was able to play the discs back with a specially-shaped diamond stylus in a lightweight arm and I was quite impressed with the sound quality. One of the sets of discs in this collection was Fred Allen's Linit Bath Club broadcast from Christmas Night 1932 -- a program which was released on LP in the 70s in a transfer done with fibre needles on old equipment. It was muddy, noisy, and garbled in some passages. When I retransferred it with the diamond stylus I was amazed at how clean and clear the recording sounded -- it was as good as anything I've ever heard off a lacquer disc. The quality is there, but you have to know what you're doing and have the right equipment to get it.

As for tape, all the years I was in radio I edited with a Gem razor blade on a splicing block, and have the scars on my fingers to prove it. I still have an Otari 5050 installed and operating in my office as a relic of those days.

 

[MikeKardec]

We used 5050s (as you could see) with oversized caps and DBX noise reduction that had been returned to the original circuit specs (DBX bean counters notoriously downgraded their components according to my engineer but the initial designs were excellent) and also had the cap mod. Delicious sound, competitive with recorders we could never have afforded. When I did production sound on a couple of little films (really little) I also used a Nagra but I can't say I ever had a fondness for it. They were an impressively cool bit of Jet Age design that could have appeared on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea but sort of thin and dry sounding. Today I might praise it as accurate as I did with some digital tech but at the time and in comparison I liked our Otaris. Of course you can't use an Otari on a moving train so, there's that.

Apologies to everyone else for geeking out ... I can't say it won't happen again but I do know I'm doing it.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Apologies to everyone else for geeking out ... I can't say it won't happen again but I do know I'm doing it.

Not at all. It's always nice to be able to talk shop. I wish I had more opportunity to do the same.

 

[MikeKardec]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't analog still used for pretty much all audio recording? Digital is fine for easy distribution to the masses, but isn't pretty much everything recorded and preserved analog?

There are still plenty of ADD and AAD CDs on the market, indicating an Analog original source ... but there are less and less produced that way. Tape stock is disappearing faster than 35mm film stock. The great old recording studios are going out of business, the two best of the few I have worked at in LA have closed in the last several years and fewer and fewer of the engineers who really understand tape production are still offering their services. It's really too bad.

There is a certain sound that tape has that IS the sound of Rock and Roll and some country music. It comes from hitting the electronics and the tape hard ... with a lot of signal. The tape medium becomes an effect. Someone who knows more about music recording should weigh in because there is a lot I don't know or that I'm probably not saying quite right.

Now there is a fair amount of analog electronic circuitry before you get to the Analog to Digital converter inmost digital devices and it is absolutely critical to their sound. It has seemed to me that as digital science advances the manufacturers tend to cut back spending on the analog end and a lot of equipment with very modern digital specs sounds no better because of the cheapening on the analog side ... the advances are more to keep cost down.

This is also an aspect in tube versus solid state electronics. There is no inherent advantage in tubes when it comes to accurate sound. But people tend to be willing to pay more for tube gear and those that buy it are purists and willing to buy a simpler piece of equipment. Top end solid state that doesn't try to lay a lot of games is equally good ... it doesn't have that cool "tubey" sound, however. That sound, to my ears, is wonderful but not accurate. For production purposes tubes are a maintenance nightmare and the sound tends to pile on, so too many generations of tube stuff in one recording has to be handled VERY carefully or it gets messy. Basically, tubes and analog tape require a top engineer on hand much of the time and those people are getting hard to find and hard to afford.

They both offer a fantastic sound but it is a SOUND, the goal of most audio recording is to, initially, capture the instrument or voice or effect without coloring it ... then you can do what you want in post production. Digital mediums are the way to go for mass distribution but it is pretty wonderful that a specialty LP market has been growing. Now all we have to do is hope for a similar turn around in bookstores!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm still waiting for 78s to come back. I've got plenty of LP reissues of the music I like, but rarely does "sound restoration" approach the quality of a clean shellac pressing played on well-maintained equipment. The digital-era idea that there shouldn't be *any* background noise on a recording leads to so much overuse of CEDAR and similar tools that the music ends up sounding like it's being played underneath a cardboard box.

 

[jamespowers]

I'm still waiting for 78s to come back. I've got plenty of LP reissues of the music I like, but rarely does "sound restoration" approach the quality of a clean shellac pressing played on well-maintained equipment. The digital-era idea that there shouldn't be *any* background noise on a recording leads to so much overuse of CEDAR and similar tools that the music ends up sounding like it's being played underneath a cardboard box.

They still make 78 records. I don't rember the name of the company but they never stopped. This company does decent job but they are expensive.

 

[MikeKardec]

I'm still waiting for 78s to come back. I've got plenty of LP reissues of the music I like, but rarely does "sound restoration" approach the quality of a clean shellac pressing played on well-maintained equipment. The digital-era idea that there shouldn't be *any* background noise on a recording leads to so much overuse of CEDAR and similar tools that the music ends up sounding like it's being played underneath a cardboard box.

"Over restoration" in anything is a matter of varying taste. As is the matter of wear and tear ... that first scuff or two on your leather jacket or on your nicely preserved classic car is an offense against nature but sooner or later it becomes just part of a pleasant patina. Enough patina and you are headed for junk. Entropy ... I guess it happens to us all. There is nothing wrong with a record sounding like a record and a recording sounding like it did when it was recorded. I've found that it's kind of magical what a good playback system from the right era does for music from that era ... after all it was designed to be played on that equipment.

That said some of the tools I've used recently put stuff from the CEDAR era to shame and for vastly less $$$. Digital has caused over concern with noise and other artifacts that younger people find hard to over look but it has also created a myriad of restoration programs that can work miracles without being over used. I'm just starting to look into all this because the next project will be sprucing up some old shows I did in the 1980s.

 

[hatguy1]

With the (almost) disappearance of hand-written letters and printed photographs, I'm afraid so much will be lost to history. I can read letters from my family that have been saved for well over 100 years and look at old family photos 150 + years old. Sadly, those tapes we made for the VCR back in the 1980s are just about useless today.

Yes. This will be a big stumbling block for
future historians.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's been many years since I saw a "bed and board" ad in the local paper -- "My wife Sally Punchclock having left my bed and board as of this date, I will not be responsible for her debts. SIGNED Joseph H. Punchclock, 123 My Street, Anytown USA." These were were common thruout the Era, and right up into the '80s around here -- and probably anywhere else where husbands and wives decided they'd had enough of each other.

There's an interesting discussion of these ads and just how far back they go -- as well as a bit of the other side of the story -- here.

 

[Stanley Doble]

If you are sore at your wife (or husband) there are worse things you can do than putting an ad in the paper. From the samples, you can't tell who is at fault, a wayward wife or a stinker of a husband.

Incidentally it seems in the beginning the word elope had no connotation of sexual misbehavior. Apprentices are advertized as eloping.

A quick search reveals that elope originally came from the Dutch word lopen meaning to run away.

It also reveals that the Victorians got up to more shenanigans that most people think.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A quick search reveals that elope originally came from the Dutch word lopen meaning to run away.

Or in rural American, "run oft."