Turntable
Related: gramophone - phonograph - playback - records - sound - Technics SL-1200
Unidentified turntable picture
A Definition
A machine that reproduces sound by means of a stylus in contact with a grooved rotating disk, used in the 20th century to play back recorded music.The DJ [...]
Despite his pivotal role, to this day the established forums of music criticism remain almost completely ignorant of who the DJ is, what he does and why he has become so important. If this site aims to do anything, it is to show the rock historians that the DJ is an absolutely integral part of their story. As they find space in their columns for another ten articles on the Beatles, perhaps they can spare the time to read this site. [...]Technics SL-1200 [...]
The industry standard turntable, the Technics SL-1200 was first released in 1974. In 1979, the current "MK2" version was released, which added quartz direct-drive accuracy. In addition, the SL-1200MK2 features: feather touch start/stop button, heavy duty aluminum platter, adjustable weights on tone arm, S-shaped tone arm, anti-skating control, high torque motor, removable headshell, slide pitch control (+/-8%), removable dust cover, and pop up target light.
Early History
It all began with the phonograph in 1877 - and it had nothing to do with music. Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) patented the phonograph and called it a “talking machine” and “sound writing machine.” The phonograph was actually nothing new to the existing technology of the time - the invention of the phonograph was by accident. Edison was working on ways to record telegraph transmissions (telephone) messages automatically. Edison’s original idea of utilizing a cylinder to record sound (phonograph) was advanced with Emile Berliner’s (1851-1020) design that used a flat disk to record sound (gramophone). Berliner’s new design allowed inexpensive, mass duplication – allowing the mainstream access to this technology. Further, the Victor Talking Machine Company (known today as RCA) eventually acquired Berliner’s gramophone and method for duplicating records, thus establishing the record technology into the mainstream. -- DJ Spooky via http://www.ums.org/pdfs/Studyguide/rebirth-sg.pdfScratching
Rap is where you first heard it --Grandmaster Flash's 1981 "Wheels of Steel," which scratched together Queen, Blondie, the Sugarhill Gang, the Furious Five, Sequence, and Spoonie Gee --but what is sampling if not digitized scratching? - Jon Savage [...]Kool Herc
By most accounts Herc was the first DJ to buy two copies of the same record for just a 15-second break (rhythmic instrumental segment) in the middle. By mixing back and forth between the two copies he was able to double, triple, or indefinitely extend the break. In so doing, Herc effectively deconstructed and reconstructed so-called found sound, using the turntable as a musical instrument. ... the whole chemistry of that came from Jamaica ... [Kool Herc] was born in Jamaica ... [more ...]No Fading, Nothing
... they had was a Sony amplifier with a Phono 1 and Phono 2 button, and that's how you switched from turntable to turntable. No fading, nothing. That was how the club like in those early seventies.
White DJ Francis Grasso invented the technique of `slip-cueing': holding the disc with his thumb whilst the turntable whirled beneath, insulated by a felt pad. He'd locate with an earphone the best spot to make the splice, then release the next side precisely on the beat...His tour de force was playing two records simultaneously for as long as two minutes at a stretch.