Take a trip through music history with Archive.org's Great 78 Project | Hacker News Reader

Take a trip through music history with Archive.org's Great 78 Project

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40 pointscpeterso14 comments

"First things first for younger readers: An audio record generally can be defined as a flat, circular medium with a spiral groove cut into it to modulate an audio signal."

When things like this warrant explanation, I feel old.

Is that description even necessary? For LaserDisc and cassettes I could understand since they seem to have really disappeared, or at least you can't buy them in shops AFAIK. Vinyl on the other hand hasn't died out, I still regularly buy vinyl and I know many DJ's who still exclusively play vinyl. There are numerous record players for sale, and numerous articles about vinyl's resurgence in the last couple years. Sony[0] has even announced plans to start producing vinyl again after 3 decades. Vinyl may not be as mainstream as in the 70s but they are far from dead.

[0] http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/30/news/sony-music-brings-back-...

Cassette tapes are having a minor resurgence. Well, I hope it is minor. I can think of no good reason to use them today. Then again, I can think of no good reason to use vinyl today either.

There are probably better articles, but this was the first one in my search for a link:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/23/14360162/cassette-tape-sa...

So, yeah... Cassettes seemingly haven't quite disappeared.

Matt from Techmoan did a couple of videos about how to make cassette tape sound very good:

http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2017/1/24/pre-recorded-cassette... http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2017/5/8/a-true-tech-classic-th...

They're worth watching but to be honest it hasn't made me want to convert all my music to tapes.

Edit: The link I was actually looking for is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVoSQP2yUYA

Neat, thanks. I remember the old 'metal' tapes as sounding better. I imagine we could make them sound better with today's tech. Like you, I have no desire to return to them.

No, I much prefer digital audio playback. I'm pretty happy with CDs, though I typically burn them myself from quality files, if I use them at all. I'm more likely to just use an MP3 player.

I was a performing stage musician for a long time and as a second income. I'd like to think I know sound fairly well. I can, for example, appreciate a tube amp. What I can't appreciate is why people are using things like vinyl and cassette tapes. That just makes no sense to me, at least it doesn't when they say it is for the quality of the results.

No, no... Give me a high quality digital version and I'm happy. The missus' ex was an audiophile so she came equipped with a bunch of expensive gear and she often prefers vinyl. I've listened to the current tech results and I am not impressed. I'm happier with the digital files. I don't hear added 'warmth.' I hear inconsistent playback and artifacts.

But, yeah, I don't have any reason to convert my music to cassette tapes. And no, I don't want the album on vinyl.

>What I can't appreciate is why people are using things like vinyl and cassette tapes.

It's like mechanical watches: an objectively inferior product that's appealing because it's full of complicated moving parts.

That is understandable, to some extent. Though, I never see that as the listed reasoning. The closest that I see is that it's about the whole experience of loading the record and examining the jacket and linear notes while listening.

Well, that and cassette players aren't really all that interesting - at least not to me. A mechanical watch can be a thing of beauty. A cassette player probably could be, but I haven't seen one that is.

Though that makes me wonder if someone would buy a cassette player that was made so you can see the internal mechanisms in action and with the mechanical pieces being milled from things like brass. An ornate mechanical cassette player engineered for precision, if you will.

Anyhow, beauty and art is subjective - so I could understand someone finding the mechanical workings of a cassette player to be interesting and enjoyable. It may even be more enjoyable to someone who didn't live through those years and has mostly been exposed to all digital devices. Though, I don't think I've ever seen that as the justification.

Of course, they don't need to justify it for me. They can do what they want. I just find it strange.

Though now I'm kind of curious about a precision made cassette player that has exposed mechanical components. I bet someone would buy it.

Vinyl may not be the most practical method to listen to music. But it has become an analog pastime for me in my otherwise digital life. I've restored a few vintage turntables and receivers (70s & 80s era), as I enjoy their aesthetic and appreciate their quality construction. And the listening experience is particularly pleasing to me. I have access to dozens of great albums from my parents, making it a bit more practical. But there are quite few resources these days, locally and online, for affordable records - often much cheaper than digital, even. To each their own ;)

It always amazes me how short and limited our civilizations cultural memory is. It's great this is being done, perhaps this generation of musicians will find a new song in the archive to reinvent. This was done heavily in the 60's for rock, especially with blues, but the lens they were searching through was different, I am sure there are a lot of great songs that current listeners could enjoy (probably with added bass) that were not reintroduced in the 60's.

Also, how to download all the 78 rips at the archive.org: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2017/08/14/downloading-all-the-78...

(Don't actually do this, or if you do download some, give them a donation)

Or someone could just put them all into a central torrent.

Edit: Why not provide a method of getting all the torrent files for the associated songs then bulk adding to one's torrent program of choice?

So much fascinating content here. For example, just listened to Josh White's 1942 "House of the Rising Sun"...

https://archive.org/details/78_house-of-the-rising-sun_josh-...

...except the lyrics are a biiiit different than the ones made famous by The Animals in the 1960's. Though sung by a man, this older version of the song is from the point of view of a woman forced into sex trafficking at a whorehouse, warning her sister not to do the same. (The Animals' version was more about a man gambling.)

Thanks for finding this! The song was covered by many singers, and in the case of Bob Dylan and Nina Simone (very famous versions, the ones I personally know the song from) it kept the original meaning and lyrics. So the Animals version could be an outlier in changing the story.

I thought this story had just been posted recently, but ls shows Feb 26 2017 House Of The Rising Sun - Josh White and his Guitar.mp3

Another "and his guitar" version, with animals lyrics. http://wizard.dynu.com/house_of_the_rising_sun.ogg

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