Olde Timers question on equipment

Ray Montee (RIP) · Post by **Ray Montee (RIP)** » 13 Nov 2004 7:58 am

Here on the Forum, there has been talk by some of the younger folks and their views of "olden day lap steels" and the like. How small they look and with all the limitations they pose on one's steel guitar playing.
It got me to thinkin' 'bout the olden days once again. I remember when we used to play to crowds of 700 to 1,000 people in an old grange hall, here or there. The PA System amp was about the size of a current day fishing tackle box (the ones that open up and spreads out with two or three or four open trays)....and could be carried by a typical young girl of those days.
It had three knobs; "on or off"; tone; and volume. It had a little red light that glowed when it was turned on.
The speakers were a couple of flat cabinet models sporting a single 10 incher in each box. We had but a single microphone thro' which all vocalist shared equally. At the Division Street Corral, the permanent sound system had (most likely, at best) a dozen or more 4 to 6 inch little speakers on the overhead rafters spread strategically throughout the dance hall.
THAT WAS IT, out west here, in the late, late '40's and early to mid-50's.
HOW did we ever survive without a 1,000 watts or more; 6 or 7 singers' micophones; miles of electrical cable; 6 or 7 floor/stage monitors; a dozen or more multi-colored stage lights and multiple switches? and a full-time SOUND MAN?
How was it back then, in YOUR neck o'the woods? Can you even remember, that far back?

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 13 Nov 2004 8:40 am

I asked Johnny Gimble one time, "how did the crowd hear anything at a Wills dance when all you guys had were 10-20 watt amplifiers with just a basic PA system, and there were 2000 people out in the audience?"

He said that most of the people didn't actually hear the band, just the folks crowded around the bandstand and the few hundred folks that were dancing. Most of the people were just there for the "event."

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Jennings Ward · Post by **Jennings Ward** » 13 Nov 2004 8:43 am

Yes Ray. I can rember back to 1940....The only thing that is differentis " WE HAD GOOD AND BETTER HEARING IN THOSE DAYS" The music was music ,not NOISE AND RACKET.... LIKE NOW. People had manners then also.....just MHO...No offense meant.....Jennings.....

BEAUTIFULL ANGELIC SOUND OF STEEL......

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Roger Edgington · Post by **Roger Edgington** » 13 Nov 2004 9:04 am

Ray, it wasn't much different in the old days where I grew up in Columbus,Ohio. My dad played rather good non pedal steel (D-6 Fender)in the 50s pretty much every weekend. He had state of the art equipment for the day. In 1954 he bought a new Fender steel,Fender bass,and Fender pro amp,no reverb of coarse.They used a 50 watt Bogan PA amp with two open back speaker cabinets each with a 12" speaker. They usually played bass and steel through the "big" Fender amp. They had a good bass and rythum guitar,so they didn't use drums. My dad about had a cow when my brother picked up drums and I blew up his amp playing rock and roll bass.

Their set up seemed typical of the day.They had as much fun as I do now and could pack up in 10 minutes and throw it in the trunk of a 49 Chevy.

On Saturday mornings,the local radio station had live bands on. They would do 30 minutes and change bands quickly at station break.I really miss those days.You are never shure what you are going to get when it's live. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's like Lester Moran and the Cadillac Cowboys.

Now I have stage lights,a big PA and sound man,CDs and things for sale,monitors for everyone,a stereo steel amp with two blazing 15" speakers, and a buss. Is bleeding of the ears normal? Funny thing is we still play the same songs dad did in the 50s and 60s.

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 13 Nov 2004 9:09 am

Yes Ray, I still remember when I started playing music jobs back in the late 1940's and even into the 1950's, when we carried a five-piece band and all of the instruments plus a PA system, in one vehicle!

It was crowded, but it worked, and most of all, that's when it was still "fun" to play!
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Farris Currie · Post by **Farris Currie** » 13 Nov 2004 9:43 am

Ray,this is funny,i was born in 41,i use to lay on the floor,watch my dad and others cut records with some kind of a machine,watch all that stuff fly.I put my ear right next to the speaker and listened to every bit.they took those records to radio stations for them to play!then we would set around and listen to the radio!wouldn't take a million dollars for those memories!!i went to a line dance 2yrs. ago, never seen such in my life,down rolling on the floor ect.yes, we've came a long ways alright!!!thanks for the memories guys!!
farris

Ron ! · Post by **Ron !** » 13 Nov 2004 10:07 am

Ray

I still have one of those old amps.
It's a gelooso made in Holland.

HOW did we ever survive without a 1,000 watts or more

These amps you are talking about were pretty heavey stuf for those days.
A 6 Watt gelooso,(the one I have)is about the same as a 500 Watt PA amp today.
Nice tubes on the amp too.One could build a great transmitter with such a tube.

Ron

Nikaro SD10 4x6

Farris Currie · Post by **Farris Currie** » 13 Nov 2004 10:10 am

what was the machine that cut the grooves and recorded the record?

Roger Shackelton · Post by **Roger Shackelton** » 13 Nov 2004 10:10 am

Hi Jennings,

quote:
The music was music ,not NOISE AND RACKET.... LIKE NOW. People had manners then also.....just MHO...No offense meant.....Jennings.....

No need to apologize Jennings, just tell it like it is. Things change, but it's not always for the good.

Roger

Roger Edgington · Post by **Roger Edgington** » 13 Nov 2004 10:10 am

WOW Farris. My dad had a home record recorder also. I've never done it but watched it many times as a kid. It was like a regular record player with two tone arms,one to play and one to "cut".I still have some around here,but are in bad shape.Some of the records were vinyl and some were metal. My mom had the job of taking a small brush and gently removing the waste material as it was cut away by the heavy recording arm. We didn't have real to real recorders yet.

Leigh Howell · Post by **Leigh Howell** » 13 Nov 2004 11:34 am

Yes, I remember those days. Everything was much simpler then in all aspects of life.
We had a 35 watt Bogen with two open back 12Inch speakers, and one Electrovoice mike. One thing I think we really would have liked to have were monitors. They are a big help. Of course we never played any large venues until the late 60's.
Leigh

Robert Thomas · Post by **Robert Thomas** » 13 Nov 2004 12:24 pm

Brings back memories. Started playing in the late 40's. I guess we all had very similar experiences, since what was available wasn't very fancy or much to choose from, but it did the job for us.
I feel we lost something with becoming so modernized. My first electric steel was a BR-9 Gibson with a matching, 28 Watt Gibson Amp. I believe it had a 8 or 10 inch speaker. I played all by myself at Grange Halls and the people just danced up a storm and some got drunk, but they all had such a good time. Never had a complaint about the music being too loud.

Jim Florence · Post by **Jim Florence** » 13 Nov 2004 1:02 pm

My biggest memory of those days was the upright "Dog House" bass,loaded into that 49 chevy, the two guys that rode in the back seat had a lot of trouble with their neck.
I bet you can't find a young musician nowadays that could figure out how to get that thing into a car.

Roy Ayres · Post by **Roy Ayres** » 13 Nov 2004 1:20 pm

Any of you guys remember WIRE recorders that preceeded TAPE recorders?

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Ray Montee (RIP) · Post by **Ray Montee (RIP)** » 13 Nov 2004 2:35 pm

Roy......sorry, but I'm not that old, but I remember seeing old black and white photo's of something they used to call a crystal set.

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 13 Nov 2004 6:26 pm

I think we had tin cans and strings when we started. One tin can on the mike stand with strings running out to the dancers who had their own tin cans to listen.

It wasn't too bad untill we played a polka. Then, oh boy. Talk about being hung up.

Al Marcus · Post by **Al Marcus** » 13 Nov 2004 6:46 pm

Roy-I remember the old wire Wilcox Gay wire recorders and then after that the ones that cut wax.
I made recordings on both. Dont' know what happened to the recordings.
The wax ones I kept for a while, I took them out one day to put on Reel to Reel, and the wax peeled off, "there goes all my playing". Now my Cassetes are brittle and breaking. Some fun.
Those were the good old days?...al

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Craig A Davidson · Post by **Craig A Davidson** » 14 Nov 2004 6:27 am

I'm not quite as old as some of you, but when I started we played thru one channel of our amps and sang thru the other. If you had an amp with verb you really had it made. One band I was in did have a Bogan PA head. It had two inputs,so with four singers we had two "Y" cables made and we shared a channel. Our front system was one column with four eights or tens in it I believe. Sometimes I miss those days.

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Roy Ayres · Post by **Roy Ayres** » 14 Nov 2004 9:09 am

For you "young-uns" the wire recorder stored audio signals by magnetizing a very thin metal wire as it passed through the recording head going from one spool to the other. The wire was probably about six or eight thousandths in diameter -- if not smaller -- and was soft enough to be wound onto the small spools. The main problem was that they tended to break quite often, and when one broke your only option was to throw it away. It was a happy day when someone finally came out with the magnetic tape recorders.

Wire recorders go back to 1868 -- a hundred years before they appeared as a commercial product. Here is an interesting web site on the history of wire recorders:

Wire Recorders

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Browse my Photo Album and be sure to sign my Guest Book[This message was edited by Roy Ayres on 14 November 2004 at 09:23 AM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 14 Nov 2004 10:48 am

As I remember, the amps and PAs of the '50s used by the first rock'n'rollers were considered very loud compared to the acoustic dance bands of the '40s. They allowed a three or four piece guitar band to sound as loud as a stage full of horns. The lead guitar in a very loud band I play with in rock clubs plays a Gretsch 6120 through a 15 watt '50s Tweed Deluxe, that gets boosted another 5 or 10 watts with an EchoPlex. When he turns it all up to the max, which you can do with the old tube equipment, it is very loud. Bands do play much louder since the '60s, but with modern solid state amps and PAs, you can't turn them all the way up and get good sound. So there may not be as much difference in usable volume as one might think just looking at the wattage differences between the old days and the present. Also, most of the modern wattage is used to get a lot of low end for basses and miked bass drums. In the old days they just didn't expect all that low end, as long as the mids were there for the vocals, which doesn't take a lot of watts. [This message was edited by David Doggett on 14 November 2004 at 10:51 AM.]

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 14 Nov 2004 10:56 am

Then the Grateful Dead came along and just ruined everything!

Blake Hawkins · Post by **Blake Hawkins** » 14 Nov 2004 12:07 pm

Roy,
I've worked with both home and professional disk recording equipment. The professional cutter was called a "lathe."
If you cut from outside to inside, you had to "chase the chips" to keep the material removed by the cutter from fouling the needle.
For that reason, many radio stations cut their disks from inside out, so that the chips fell behind the cutter and didn't have to be removed until you picked up the record from the turntable.
I have owned, worked with, and repaired wire recorders.
Actually, there was a method of splicing the wire, although not very satisfactory.
What you did was to tie a very tiny square knot to join the ends. It always made a noise when it went through the head.
In the early days of tape, wire actually had a better high frequency response. This advantage was quickly overcome as tape technology developed.
Do you remember that the first recording tapes were paper and supplied on metal 8 mm movie reels?
The first home tape recorder I remember was a "Brush Soundmirror."
Blake

Dave Grafe · Post by **Dave Grafe** » 15 Nov 2004 9:21 am

Then the Grateful Dead came along and just ruined everything!

I thought that was Hank Jr. - loudest workin' man in show business! Loudest band I ever heard, anyway, and I've been subjected to some pretty abusive rock bands at times.

As someone who has spent most of a lifetime on both sides of the sound console (and who used to fit the whole band, gear and PA in a Plymouth Valiant), I have noted a few developments over the years that have bearing on this discussion:

First and foremost is that the AUDIENCE is a lot louder (maybe 'cause of those car stereos they all listen to now). I did a show with Tony Bennett a few years back in a large auditorium with about 3500 folk in the crowd. Middle of the show he asked us to turn EVERYTHING off, including his stage monitors. It took a few minutes for the crowd to shut up but when they actually got around to LISTENING it sounded great! Piano, bass, drums and him singin' without a mic, you could hear it all from 200' away in that old symphony hall.

Second thing is that as sound equipment manufacturers develop more powerful gear in order to REDUCE DISTORTION AND INCREASE COVERAGE there is always some fool "sound man" (aka the brother of someone in the band who was willing to go along for free 'cause of the chicks and free beer) who thinks he has to turn it up as far as it will go.

I did a show the other day where the band's guy had it so loud that I had to go sit outside until break time. When they took a break he comes out, lights a cigarette and says to me "what do you think of my mix?"

"It's too &*$#@>!* LOUD is what I think! But the college kids in the crowd are loving it."

All I can say is that if you are still young invest in hearing aid stocks now, you'll make a killing in another forty years for sure.

True story, whatayagonnado?

Dave

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[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 15 November 2004 at 09:25 AM.][This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 15 November 2004 at 09:26 AM.]

Howard Tate · Post by **Howard Tate** » 15 Nov 2004 10:05 am

I always thought the manufacturers found different methods of measuring power in order to sell amps. An older 30 watt amp was as loud as a newer 100 watt. I remember when players would sit in and play thru the lead pickers amp, they would accuse the picker of "low holing" them, plugging them into the second hole that was not as loud.

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Mark Metdker · Post by **Mark Metdker** » 15 Nov 2004 10:30 am

Dave, I couldn't agree with you more. At every gig we will start out telling each other, OK boys, tonight let's just hold it down OK. Let's don't get too loud. That lasts for about a half a set, then forget about it. In fact, this past saturday night we were playing the third set, things were starting to get outta hand, we break out the hardcore rock tunes, 3 girls decide to bare and show us their best assets.......my ears were ringing the next day, but somehow it wasn't so bad!

I'm starting to feel like a dirty old man!

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