Longplay
We are the sole generation to watch vinyl’s decline and(!) rise!
- These days, news reported vinyl purchases to exceed digital downloads.
- My birthday this year saw a very special present: My brother had produced his first ever record. Circulation: 2 – one for him and one for me!
- My last turntable didn’t make a move anymore for more than 15 years; I recently disconnected it from my HiFi – it still lurked around somewhere …
However, with that disc – that black shining vinyl disc from my brother – at hand, I had to find a way to listen to it …
A 70ies kid
I “learned” music in the 70ies. My dad had kind-of an album of single records: Kinks, Walker Brothers, … one had Omar Sharif on the cover, I recall (no clue what that one was). Also some LPs – Roger Whittaker, Bert Kaempfert, … I grew up with that stuff. We had a Lenco compact HiFi system with a turntable. It exists to the day. Records were played “wet” (anyone here knows what this means?).
Later my bro and I owned a cassette player – mono – which we used to create our own “samplers” from the albums we found at home. I recall, that some day in 1986 or 1987 I played Jethro Tull’s “Bursting Out” to my parents on my dad’s HiFi – and tried to explain it to them … they probably laughed upon my enthusiasm 😉
1988
My brother and I found a chance to leave home for a few days; we decided to visit friends in Kassel. Back in these days, HiFi was cheaper in Germany. I already owned some vinyl and needed a turntable of my own. My brother – bastard! – wanted his first ever CD (shall I mention that he was the one to buy a DCC recorder in the days when Minidiscs hadn’t made the race? – another story to tell another time ;))
After a week of fun, we returned home on a long motorway ride with a Technics CD Player (which still exists, too) and a Thorens turntable (the most basic you could get) in the booth of our Golf II — — and were caught on the border. In the end, that stuff cost us the same amount as in Austria – BUT Hey!: I had my first own turntable.
I later exchanged that one for a Technics – as it had more semi-automated controls (still sad, that the Thorens vanished into dust in some cellar).
Compact Disc
I commenced “Communication Engineering and Electronics” in autumn 1988. And one of my first classroom presentations was about compact disc technology. I was amazed by what technology could do with music! In the same year, “Flim & the BBs” recorded their album “Tricycle” fully digital – “DDD”, the formular for pure technical sound – still my favourite HiFi testing album of all times; while purist discussions in those years circulated around the inability of CDs to reproduce overtone harmonics and the warmth of an analogue vinyl recording.
In the years after, I moved most of my vinyl collection into a well cared archive. Some time between 1995 and 1999 I recall to own my first computer-based CD recorder. Some of my self-recorded – digitalized – vinyl CD-copies date from that time. And some vinyl of earlier times vanished in those days as I didn’t deem’em important …
Over time, my CD collection grow to a decent 1800 pieces store. And I admit, that I am proud of some stuff that can be found in there …
Rooting
I never understood about the capabilities of a DJ until around 2014 I discovered Freestyle Furioso! Dedicated to vinyl with a feel for the right tune to come … made me think of my polymere at home – still lingering in some cupboards …
And then – on occasion 2016 – I received that previously mentioned “disc”; one of the best presents I ever got … so – well: I had to find a way to play it — and therefore purchased the 3rd turntable ever in my entire life!
The only thing I didn’t expect was the overwhelming joyous shiver down my spine, when the first tone elapsed of it …
