Wednesday, August 30, 2023

14”

 


No 😉😊😉, it’s not John Holmes-que machism… I just got two seldom seen second-hand 3M/Scotch 14” reels for some 30 IPS upcoming recordings…





The MCI perfectly handles these monsters: to my knowledge, only a bunch of pro-machines are able to spin 14” reels - i.e. Studer A820, Stellavox TD9/TD88, Ampex ATR100/102… and MCI, of course - just setting high-torque button🥇 and, let me say (for hardcore reel to reel lovers), a very cool view 😎



From my audio archive - MCI, Stellavox, Nagra, Schlumberger 🎼

 


Straight from the vaults, some cool original pro-audio leaflets… have literally tons of material… every 5/10 years, I browse some thick archival containers and I always find something I didn’t remember I kept and stored 😏



















… vestiges of a world that no longer exists 😏



About the music in Venice (1567)

 Da: Cosimo Bartoli, Ragionamenti accademici, Venezia, 1567, p. 35v.


Spero bene che nessuno osi mettere in dubbio questa verità “sapendo chiaro, che mediante lei [la musica] si mantiene & regge questa Machina del Mondo percioche se non fusse la Armonia de sette pianetti, & delle altre sfere de Cieli, mediante la quale si mantiene questo ordine del Mondo, sappiamo certo che questa machina dello uniuerso si risoluerebbe in niente & si rouinerebbe."



Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Bo Hanson 🥇

 


Bo’s Opus3 label and minimalist recording technique and approach changed my musical like 🥇🙏🥇


Here shown while editing on Telefunken M15A.



My music system in 1992

 

Still at home: Garrard 301 with Shindo platter and bearing, SME 3012 and SPU G/Shindo, Be Yamamura SUT, Marantz 10B and Marantz 7C, DIY Western Electric 421A amp, Chiocciola speakers (Altec 416A and 806 drivers), EMT 930st, Sony WM6-C and Naim Snaps, ReVox G36 HS (Tim de Paravicini) and ReVox A700.


Studietto was many years to come.




Tom, the crooked tree

 


🪵 “My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. 

‘Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?’ they asked me the other day. 



I told them this story: 

In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. 

Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, ‘Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. 

Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. 

No one wants to look at you.’ 

And they grew up in that forest together. 

And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, ‘Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest.’

So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. 

And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.”


~Tom Waits



Ampelmännchen

 SATURDAY’s (GERMAN) WORD

Ampelmännchen

Pronounced: Am-pel-main-chen

Meaning: Little Traffic Light Man 


You'll encounter him every time you cross the street in Berlin.



I like the hat!





Thursday, August 24, 2023

A Kraftwerker’s VW

 


Florian Schneider's VW Beetle, built in 1949, new price DM 4,400, was sold in Düsseldorf in May 2021 to Kraftwerk fans from Tampa, USA. The couple (David Sanborn & Jennifer Huber) paid €52,000 plus $14,000 for the transfer to Tampa.






Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Bass-camp 😎

 


Three days into his first solo attempt at scaling Mt. Everest, Joe finally arrives at bass-camp.






MCI - a well-kept secret

 


My love for MCI’s reel-to-reel machines comes from those beloved Windham Hill’s disc by Alex de Grassi, William Ackerman, Michael Hedges: cover liner-notes always quoted JH-110’s as master-machine!

If it was good for them, it sure is ok for me 😏


My own MCI JH110B-14 with optional AEG platters 
🥇

It sounds amazing, a true Studer-killer ✅




Sunday, August 20, 2023

The Unicorn by John D’Angelico

 



Thanking The Fretboard Magazine for above picture 🥇



Ballfinger

 


Very elegant, like a B&O from the ‘70s, also shown with a nice Decca’s Wide Band disc 😏






Jack Casady - the ultimate hippy 😎

 


He modeled Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna’s sound with his subterranean Guild and Alembic bass, elevating his instrument from a background (yet substantial) musical back-bone to stage stardom!





He was at Woodstock and Monterey and survived the ‘60s abuses… he’s still alive and kickin’ and playing 🥇

Isn’t he the coolest, ever?!?

🥇