0:00

Hey, everybody, big special announcement

0:03

at long last, we

0:05

are going back on the road to do live shows.

0:07

And I could not be more

0:10

excited. I too,

0:12

am fairly excited. I

0:14

could tell it's gonna be great. Chuck. We're gonna

0:16

be back live on stage for the first time

0:18

in to three

0:21

years. Uh.

0:24

We were on stage in but at the very

0:26

beginning of and we're going to yeah

0:30

three, Yeah, three years since we've

0:32

trod the boards and we're about to trod

0:34

them boards again, Chuck. On

0:36

February first, second, and third, we're

0:39

going to Seattle in Portland, or Portland

0:41

and Seattle, and then for sure on February

0:43

three, we're going to wind the whole thing up in

0:45

San Francisco. Right, that's right,

0:47

We're going back to sketch Fest are

0:50

usually January home, but early February

0:52

home this year, for my money, the

0:54

best uh comedy

0:56

festival in the world, and we're

0:59

gonna be going to sketch Us. And again,

1:01

we're not sure the order yet. We don't have ticket

1:03

links yet, but we do have a little bit more information.

1:05

We just couldn't wait to tell you guys. So

1:08

tickets are actually going to be on sale very

1:10

soon. October six, there's going to

1:12

be a pre sale with a password UH

1:14

and we will probably put those out on our

1:16

social links. I'm not sure how you'll find

1:18

out, but you'll find out, and then on October

1:21

seven there will be general sale. We'll

1:23

give you more information as we get it. But again,

1:25

we just couldn't wait to tell you, guys, because we're too excited.

1:28

That's right, and you know what we're doing. We've got a great

1:31

uh working with some great new people with

1:33

our social media stuff. So you might

1:35

have noticed that our Instagram and our Facebook

1:37

have some new and exciting things happening. So that's a great

1:40

place to find information about the tours.

1:42

Very nice. So we'll see you guys in the Northwest

1:44

coast this February and

1:47

the rest of you, who knows, could

1:50

be a wild year. Welcome

1:53

to Stuff you should know, a production of

1:55

I Heart Radio. Y

2:02

hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,

2:05

There's Chuck, Jerry's here, and

2:07

Jack Black's lurking around, which makes

2:09

this stuff you should know. We

2:11

got the facts on wax w

2:16

s y s K. That's pretty great.

2:18

Sorry, pretty you

2:20

should have been a radio personality.

2:23

I used to want to be I wanted to be a DJ.

2:27

You came awfully close. Man. I have to

2:29

say that was a pretty pretty close to a

2:31

realized dream if you ask me. Uh

2:34

well, and what's funny is is the saying

2:37

wax and like are one

2:40

of our local record stores. Here's wax

2:42

and facts and old DJ saying

2:44

wax. In this episode

2:46

you will find out why they say wax. Yeah,

2:50

it's hopelessly outdated, but

2:52

yeah, it's still still applies to

2:54

us the next time. Let's do this.

2:56

This is pretty fun. I'm excited. Do you collect final, Lenny?

2:59

I think you do a little bit right, Yeah, a little bit.

3:01

Um. I don't like collected.

3:03

I just buy stuff that I want. But you

3:05

know, I'm vinyl, but

3:08

I'm not just like, look, everybody, check out my collection.

3:10

I just have a selection

3:13

of records. How about that? Yeah?

3:15

My deal is I have my records, most

3:18

of my records that I had growing up. Never

3:20

got rid of him, moved him every time like

3:23

a dummy. I

3:26

got uh inherited while

3:29

still alive my um

3:31

stepfather's record collection. He

3:34

didn't pass away, but he just said here, I'm done

3:36

with these. I'm so sick of music. It's

3:38

ridiculous. But that's where I got all that good

3:40

Like he has all the all that prog

3:43

rock from the seventies. He was way into that stuff.

3:46

Uh. And then I started buying

3:49

just sort of classic

3:51

favorites of mine, basically

3:53

kind of filling out newer classic

3:56

favorites from when I stopped buying records

3:59

up to this point. So I'm kind of running

4:01

out of room on my little three banger shelf,

4:03

so I'm slowing down the rate

4:06

of purchase. But it's

4:09

it's good, and through the miracle of modern

4:11

technology, I can play a record

4:13

through a Bluetooth set of Bluetooth speakers.

4:15

That is amazing, but it's also a tragedy.

4:18

Well, yeah, I wish I had a plugged

4:21

in what hi fi system I've

4:23

got them. I've got some like

4:25

just Rockford or rock File or whatever

4:27

shelf speakers that are

4:29

plugged into an UM I guess a post

4:32

amp or preamp, I don't know, one of the amps,

4:34

but it's not part of the record player and the record

4:36

players plugged into that. And

4:38

it seems clugy enough that I'm like, Okay, this

4:40

seems pretty authentic. Yeah, I

4:42

mean, you can tell we're experts here with our use of

4:45

Rockford Files and pre

4:47

post SAMP, right, so,

4:50

I but I mean still, you don't have to be a

4:52

total expert to to talk about vinyl, although

4:54

there will certainly be um

4:56

record store guys, the music

4:59

equivalent of com book guy, who

5:01

will right in and tell us how how

5:03

much we just totally suck forever and

5:05

like just got every single thing wrong. But

5:08

this is not for those people. It's for everybody else

5:10

who just wants to know how vinyl records work. How about

5:12

that? I think that's great?

5:15

Uh, And I think a few of these stats before we dive

5:17

into the history or in order thanks to

5:19

Dave Rouse who pointed

5:21

out that obviously in the uh

5:24

fifties, sixties, seventies, and into

5:26

the eighties some um,

5:29

certainly into the eighties, vinyl records were

5:31

sort of the thing, uh,

5:33

and their peak in the seventies there were more

5:36

than fifth, sorry

5:39

and thirty million records bought

5:41

each year each year, which

5:44

is about six with eight track making

5:46

up for the rest. Because of course you

5:48

had to play something in your conversion van, right,

5:51

you couldn't really, most most cars

5:53

weren't outfitted with record players,

5:56

that's right. But then the cassette

5:58

came along and the c D and

6:01

all but killed Vinyl. Uh. They

6:03

accounted for point one percent of music

6:06

sales at some point in the nineties, which

6:09

is a pretty big drop, I would say,

6:11

but then made a comeback in the two

6:13

thousand's because of nostalgia

6:16

and because of hipsters

6:18

and audio files

6:20

and certain movies and Record

6:23

Store Day and all other reasons. Yes,

6:25

But I mean like if you if you could rewind

6:27

back to seven

6:30

and you asked somebody if if they would

6:32

ever, you know, see Vinyl albums again, they would

6:34

just laugh in your face like they were done. They

6:36

were goners, right, And so the

6:38

idea that it came back is pretty it's pretty

6:41

remarkable as far as comebacks go. And

6:43

then in twenty I believe

6:46

Vinyl Records outsold CDs for

6:49

the first time since Night six.

6:52

That's a check of a comeback. And that's

6:54

not even to say that CDs were doing that poorly.

6:56

CDs actually had increased in sales

6:59

over the past few years as well, So

7:01

it wasn't like CDs were just tumbling

7:03

downward while Vinyl was kind of slowly creeping

7:06

upward. They were both creeping up and

7:08

Vinyl just overtook CDs. I

7:10

think in the year that vinyl

7:12

overtook CDs UM, twenty seven

7:15

and a half million Vinyl records

7:17

were sold around the world.

7:20

One it jumped up to forty one point seven

7:22

million. Yeah, baby, So yeah,

7:25

Vinyl is definitely back, and there's a lot of reasons

7:27

why it's back, And um, I

7:29

say we start with the history of the whole thing to

7:31

maybe explain why people like vinyl. I

7:33

think that's where you kind of find the birth

7:35

of the whole thing. Uh, totally some

7:37

other good news by the way, just to drag

7:40

that out a bit, is that cool video I

7:42

sent you from how It's made? Uh?

7:45

They went to that music record

7:47

that record pressing plant in Nashville,

7:50

which is, as thinks, still one of the biggest ones,

7:53

and they had to re expand and they were like,

7:55

hey, everybody, remember when we shut

7:57

down almost Well we're we have

8:00

open up a bigger place now, which

8:02

is awesome and it's a great comeback story. Yeah.

8:04

And I would guess the people who were buying

8:07

the point one percent of music sales

8:09

as vinyl in the eighties and nineties,

8:11

I had to just be exclusively DJs,

8:14

right, Oh

8:16

No, I mean there were always Vinyl collectors.

8:19

Um, they were just not nearly

8:21

as many. For a while. It

8:23

wasn't exclusively DJs because did

8:25

DJ and they didn't even use records

8:28

anymore, did they. I mean, that's a

8:30

pretty recent phenomenon. They were using vinyl

8:33

like throughout the eighties and nineties

8:35

for sure. When I guess we

8:37

should look into that, like when they switched to the carts,

8:40

Um, I would say in the tens

8:42

maybe, really, I'm

8:45

just guessing. But if it gets a response

8:48

like that out if you all guess every time, I

8:50

don't think so. I think they've had the carts for a while.

8:53

So the two thousand odds,

8:57

I mean, I think before that someone will know and tell

8:59

us. Whatever I do work for a

9:02

major radio company, we should just ask somebody.

9:04

We'll ask somebody, We'll get him

9:06

on the phone, we'll call in will be the caller.

9:11

I love it. So we're talking

9:13

the history now, Chuck, I'd say, um,

9:15

and we're talking vinyl records. But you can't

9:17

really talk about vinyl records without like the

9:19

beginning of records a recorded sound

9:21

in general. Um, And most people

9:24

say, who came up with recorded

9:26

and played back sound? Thomas Edison,

9:28

Of course it was you know, the

9:32

last quarter of the nineteenth

9:34

century, I think, And you're right, like, yes,

9:36

Thomas Edison definitely gave

9:38

us what we kind of understand is recorded

9:41

and played back sound. But um,

9:43

there was a guy who came a good twenty years

9:45

before him, although apparently Edison

9:47

wasn't aware of his work. But he was a guy

9:49

from France, Edward Leon Scott de

9:51

martin Ville. Yes,

9:54

and um, I've seen him referred to as

9:56

Scott apparently that's his last name, and I guess

9:58

he's from Martinville. Frank Okay,

10:01

oh, that would makes sense. So, um,

10:03

Scott was tinkering

10:05

around with something called a phone autograph

10:08

and if you um look into it and we'll

10:10

talk about how how vinyl records

10:12

are made later, but like he basically

10:15

said, here's how we're going to make records

10:17

from here on out. Here's the at

10:19

least the rough contours of the whole thing.

10:22

Yeah, and it's it's very

10:24

rudimentary. But as you will see when

10:27

we describe it compared to what they did later

10:29

on, it's sort of the same idea,

10:31

which is, and we'll get into how he

10:33

did it, but which is basically using

10:36

a vibrating tool to

10:39

cut and it vibrates because of sound,

10:42

and it makes a vibrating

10:44

representation of whatever sound you're making

10:46

and cuts that into something. Yeah,

10:49

what's astounding. This is the most astounding

10:51

thing that I've learned in a really long time, is

10:54

what is captured on record is

10:56

a natural language

10:59

of sound that humans

11:01

stumbled upon. And one of the first people,

11:04

possibly the first person to stumble upon

11:06

it is is edwardley On Scott

11:08

to Martinville and like,

11:10

like, this is this has always existed, we just

11:12

never tried to capture it. It It just didn't

11:14

occur to us. But when you look at

11:16

a record, you are you are

11:18

holding in your hands a

11:21

captured, encoded representation

11:23

of a sound that was made at some point in

11:25

time. And Scott was the first person

11:27

to figure out how to capture this. Yeah,

11:29

And it's funny, even after having

11:31

learned this, watched all the videos, being

11:34

able to regurgitate how it's done,

11:37

it's still a bit like black magic

11:39

to me. How you say

11:42

something into a microphone and it

11:44

ends up being cut into a

11:46

vinyl record and a needle can bring that sound

11:49

back out. It's it's still just sort of mind blowing

11:51

to me. Yeah, there is like definitely a certain

11:53

amount of black magic to it. And it's pretty

11:55

cool. Like it's the cool kind, you know what I'm saying.

11:57

It's not the kind where like somebody breaks a leg

12:00

because of it. All right,

12:02

So should we talk about the phone autograph?

12:04

Yeah, So what Scott did was

12:07

he took a um and I'm not quite sure

12:09

what inspired him to do this, but he took

12:11

an acoustic trumpet, you know, like the old gramphone

12:13

the crank record players that had like the big

12:15

horn coming out of it. Why did you say,

12:18

Sonny? Exactly, that's an acoustic

12:20

trumpet. And he put a little membrane

12:22

over the small and the narrow

12:25

end of it, and he attached

12:27

a boar's hair, one

12:29

single boar's hair to that membrane,

12:31

and then, uh, the boar's hair

12:34

was touching a glass plate, i think. And

12:36

on the glass plate he had put something called

12:38

um lampblack, which is

12:40

like soot basically, just put a nice

12:42

coating of it. And then he spoke

12:44

into the large end of that acoustic

12:46

trumpet and that black magic started,

12:50

That's right. And so what happened is that boar's

12:53

hair bristle would uh wiggle

12:56

and vibrate along, you

12:58

know, to match whatever sound he was making,

13:01

and it drew basically

13:03

what Dave refers to I think astuteley

13:06

as a sonic fingerprint. Uh.

13:08

Through that soot, it drew sort

13:10

of the visual representation

13:13

of sound for the first time.

13:16

Um. At the time, I think

13:18

he called it a natural stenography, is what

13:20

Scott called it. But at the

13:22

time he was like so great. Um,

13:24

I promised that this thing maybe

13:27

one day we'll be able to make a sound, but

13:30

we don't know how to do that, and everyone went, what are

13:32

you even talking about, dude? Um.

13:35

But through the miracle of science,

13:37

they actually got a computer

13:40

to uh virtually play

13:43

virtually as in you know, not like

13:45

virtually like it actually did, but

13:47

they use a virtual digital

13:50

stylists to actually

13:53

be able to play these early recordings

13:56

of this dude like singing French songs

13:58

and saying things, oh yeah frera

14:00

jacka and all that. It wasn't far a jacka,

14:02

it was well then who cares? Now

14:05

I've got the song in here somewhere. But uh,

14:08

I mean, you know, it's kind of creepy sounding, but it is.

14:10

And then some of it is just sort of hums

14:13

and noises, but it is

14:15

a human being. Uh, it's

14:17

all Claire de la loun. Uh.

14:20

It is a actual human being

14:22

speaking words and singing words.

14:25

And long before Edison did so.

14:27

Yeah, it's a good twenty years before Edison.

14:30

And there was one other thing that Scott figured

14:32

out, UM that was really

14:34

important, and he figured it out right out

14:36

of the gate. Is that when you

14:39

um are are etching on that

14:41

um, that glass plate covered

14:43

in lamp black with the boar's hair, the

14:46

boar's hair is just kind of wiggling right.

14:48

The sound vibrations are making it wiggle, and

14:50

that wiggle is transferring

14:53

acoustic waves into mechanical

14:56

energy that's being captured in those etchings.

14:59

But since the boy as um the

15:01

boar's hair is just in one place,

15:03

you have to move that glass plate and

15:07

you can't just move it at any rate. It has

15:09

to be a specified rate. And he figured

15:11

out how to move that glass plate and I

15:13

think one m a second, which

15:16

is really fast, UM.

15:18

And that means that if you read,

15:20

if you put that thing the

15:23

other direction, UM

15:25

at one m a second, then it would play.

15:27

And what he figured out was that RPMs

15:30

rotations per minute what would come to to be

15:32

a huge part of record playing was essential

15:35

because if you do it too fast, you have the

15:37

same amount of information, it's

15:39

just compressed time wise, because you're moving

15:42

that glass plate faster than one meter a

15:44

second, so it comes out sounding like Alvin and

15:46

the Chipmunks. If you move it too slow,

15:48

less than one meter a second, it's that same

15:50

amount of information, but it takes up a longer

15:52

amount of time and you come out sounding like

15:55

us on you know, half speed or something

15:58

like that, which people like to do when they marijuana

16:00

cigarettes. I here, although to

16:03

be clear, he was not using revolutions

16:05

because it wasn't spinning yet know

16:07

what as RPMs,

16:09

But it has to do with adjusting like a set

16:12

frequency. It's extraordinarily important

16:14

that the playback and the recording are done

16:16

at the same frequency. And Scott figured that out

16:18

out of the gate. That's right, so put a pin in that.

16:21

Uh. Edison comes along and um

16:24

wasn't really working from Scott's work,

16:27

but was arrival

16:30

of Alexander Graham Bell and

16:32

was working on telephone

16:35

products and decided to try and

16:37

record phone calls. And

16:40

he had a big breakthrough when he attached the stylust

16:42

to a diaphragm, a lot like Scott

16:45

did. And I keep wanting to call him Martinville.

16:48

I know Scott from Martinville. Sure,

16:51

um, And then the you know, exactly

16:53

in the same way the vibrations of the diaphragm

16:56

were etched in this case onto a sheet

16:59

of paraffin wax with a needle. And

17:03

he was basically like, wait a minute, we can record.

17:05

It doesn't just have to be phone calls. We can record all

17:07

kinds of things, like one day there shall be rock

17:10

and roll. And he figured

17:12

that out. He was like, yeah, no, forget the phone.

17:14

I'm doing something else with this. So he

17:17

moved from that paraffin wax sheet to metal

17:19

cylinders wrapped in aluminum floor right. Yeah.

17:22

And it's it's almost like the I

17:25

mean sort of in a way, it's almost like the inverse

17:27

of how a music box works.

17:30

Like it's a metal cylinder, but with a music

17:32

box they're little nubs that uh

17:35

prick metal combs of different pitches.

17:37

In this case, you're you're cutting a

17:40

groove. Uh. And you know, if you had

17:42

a sheet of tinfoil at home and got a toothpick,

17:44

you know you can drag it along and make

17:46

an impression. That's essentially what he was doing,

17:49

right, So the fact that he moved

17:51

over to cylinders was pretty progressive.

17:54

That actually was um, the

17:56

way that music was captured

17:59

and played back for a while, UM

18:01

was on these cylinders. And Alexander

18:04

Graham Bell was the one who

18:06

took these cylinders and changed them

18:08

from aluminum foil into wax.

18:12

Yeah, so wax cylinders were really

18:14

popular. That was how you listen to music

18:17

back then, how you recorded music and listened to

18:19

it. And UM, I have a little anecdote

18:21

from you me. Actually she

18:23

found out that when she's she

18:27

I'm gonna tell it on her behalf, but I'll

18:29

put on a wig and try to tell him a higher

18:31

pitch before. So,

18:34

Um, she found out that this some guy

18:36

who had like the best record collection

18:38

in the country, possibly the world, lived

18:41

like thirty minutes away from her. So

18:43

she and some friends went and visited. This guy's

18:45

name is Joe Bussard, and he's still

18:47

around and he still has this fantastic

18:49

record collection, um, and most

18:52

of it is pre nineteen fifties stuff, but

18:54

he has original whax cylinders,

18:57

like from the nineteenth century that he played for

18:59

them, and she said they were like African

19:02

American spiritual. She's like, it was clearly

19:04

people sitting on a porch singing this stuff.

19:07

And it was like, did they these people

19:09

had sung this in one take

19:12

on a porch in like the eighteen nineties

19:14

or something like that. And there she wasn't you

19:16

know, two thousand whatever listening to it

19:18

played back, which is pretty sweet, and she

19:21

said, this is lame. I

19:24

want to hear some rock indoor rule. Uh,

19:26

that's an awesome story we had. It made

19:28

me think, or remember rather that we had

19:30

a a hand crank

19:33

phonograph growing up

19:35

in my house. My I guess my

19:37

dad got it at some point and

19:39

it was cool. You know, we had old records and

19:42

we didn't sit around and listen to him, but my brother

19:44

and I would put on one of those old records and crank

19:46

it up every now and then, and uh,

19:49

you know, it's cool. It sounds

19:51

kind of like a horror movie, but it's like it's

19:54

just it's a neat experience to see sort of

19:56

the early technology at work. There is

19:58

something really unsettling about

20:01

a nineteen twenties record being played.

20:03

There's just something about it. It's

20:05

like, for some reason, it always seems

20:07

like the singer wants to harm you, but it's

20:09

pretending they don't, I

20:12

know, even especially because they're they're always

20:14

singing about times

20:16

a little like warble and you're like, no, no no, no, you got a

20:18

knife in your hand exactly,

20:21

slick back hair and some crazy huge

20:23

smile. Um. Alright, so

20:26

Edison uh and Bell are both

20:28

working on this stuff. Bell has

20:30

got his wax cylinder going. Um.

20:33

He played it back on something called a graphophone.

20:37

This was an eight seven. You

20:39

crank that handle, it rotates that wax

20:41

cylinder and it plays it back

20:44

through an acoustic trumpet um

20:46

which I think we had one on

20:48

ours. That was just for show, but there

20:50

was an actual kind of rudimentary speaker underneath,

20:54

and that's what amplified the sound. And

20:56

then of course later on the hand crank was replaced

20:58

with a motor. And just to explain

21:01

the hand crank too, you don't have to keep cranking

21:03

it. You would crank it a bunch and

21:05

then kind of hit go and then it would

21:07

store up that mechanical energy and

21:09

rotate the player. Right, But

21:12

that was still cylinder, right, That

21:14

was still the wax cylinder. Not obviously

21:17

at my house, we didn't have those but yeah, but still

21:19

we're working not even necessarily just wax,

21:21

but we're working with cylinder. That was how you

21:23

played back or recorded sound. And

21:26

it was like that until a guy came along, I think

21:28

in the eight nineties named Emil Berliner.

21:31

He was German American and he came

21:33

up with the gramma phone, which probably

21:35

sounds familiar because Berlinard's invention,

21:38

which was shellac records, he was the

21:40

first one to say, forget these cylinders, let's

21:43

put let's put the stuff on disks and

21:45

come up with rotations per minute and just he

21:48

made all these innovations. Um,

21:50

his invention was the standard

21:53

from the nineties to nineteen

21:55

fifty. That was how you listen to music. Was

21:57

this guy's invention, the gramaphone,

22:00

Yeah, which you know. The main reason why is because

22:02

you could actually reproduce these on

22:04

mass You could create like thousands of copies

22:07

of disc records, which

22:09

was not something you could really do with the wax cylinders.

22:11

It was very expensive, it took a lot of time

22:13

to reproduce them. Uh. He

22:16

figured out how to make these molds

22:18

of a master recording and press

22:21

them into records. Which is it really

22:23

set the stage. I mean things have changed a little bit, but

22:25

it really set the stage for how we still do

22:27

it today. Yeah, I mean it's it's

22:29

virtually the same. It's just you know, a little

22:31

more advanced today. But the principles are were

22:34

certainly the same. The big difference

22:36

though, is this was not vinyl

22:38

that this guy was making. Like I said, it's shelack,

22:40

and shelac is a natural substance. That

22:42

was basically, uh, it's a natural

22:45

polymer. It's like natural plastic. Basically

22:47

it comes out of the lack bug, which I think

22:49

is native to Southeast Asia, if I'm

22:51

not mistaken. So it was expensive

22:54

to produce to shelack enough shellack

22:56

to make a record, because again, the stuff's coming out

22:58

of a bug, not gen on that

23:01

it was from the female lack. Is that why it's

23:03

called she lack? Maybe?

23:06

I think it is. That's pretty great. If

23:09

it is, that's wonderful. That's a great

23:11

old timey play on words. Well I'm

23:13

gonna say that's fact. Okay,

23:15

that's all you have to do these days, right, just say something.

23:18

Yeah. Anybody who could contradict that as long

23:20

dead anyway, So it's all good.

23:22

Well, I think you know, we put a pin in this

23:24

whole revolutions per minute? Should we go ahead

23:26

and explain that, yes,

23:29

because Scott was the one who figured that out,

23:31

and uh it just became

23:34

a it's it's essential to reproducing

23:36

or recording sound, right like you

23:38

have to have it um

23:40

recorded at a set frequency because

23:43

the frequency effects is that the pitch

23:45

where it goes really high or really low? Is that

23:47

pitch? Sure? Okay,

23:50

all right, I forgot yourself

23:52

taught. Yeah, okay,

23:54

So it affects somehow because again,

23:57

the like a sound wave makes

23:59

a way, even if you compress it,

24:01

it's still the same amount of information,

24:04

it's just over a shorter amount of time, and that makes

24:06

it again sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks.

24:09

That's right. Uh So what the

24:11

old records from

24:13

kind of up into the nineteen

24:15

fifties I think, or

24:17

maybe it was later than that. When did they changed, you

24:19

know, from seventy eight to thirty three and the third

24:22

uh well, the first one came out in like nineteen

24:25

so okay, I'm sure they were still selling

24:28

those shellac seventy eight into the fifties.

24:30

All right, So seventy eight RPMs was the standard

24:32

for a while, and if you're wondering how

24:35

they came up with this RPMs, It's very

24:37

easy. It's because the motors

24:39

that they used at

24:41

the time ran at thirty six hundred revolutions

24:44

per minute. If you tried

24:46

to think about either manufacturing

24:49

a record or playing

24:51

a record at thirty six d revolutions

24:53

per minute, that's pretty

24:55

funny to think about. It's impossible, basically.

24:58

So that's where gears, your old and gears come

25:00

in because the purpose of a gear is

25:02

to step down the speed

25:04

of a motor. Uh and in this case,

25:07

they had a gear with So

25:10

when you divide those revolutions,

25:13

you step it down with a gear,

25:15

and you eventually get down to uh

25:19

eight technically seventy eight point to six

25:21

rpm. S. Yeah, I still

25:23

don't understand all that, but I accepted as

25:25

as real. Well, I mean, yeah,

25:27

it's it's what we should do something. No,

25:30

never mind, I don't want to do how gears work because it's

25:33

way more complicated than it seems on the surface.

25:35

Okay, well that sounds like right up our alley.

25:38

We can we can confuse everyone further with

25:41

that one. But at any rate, it

25:43

steps down that motor via

25:45

a gear, and we just do

25:47

simple division and that's how you got the seventy

25:49

eight. So seventy eight is pretty

25:52

fast. I mean it's more than twice as fast

25:54

as a normal like uh LP

25:56

album today spins and

25:59

it's shell which is pretty

26:01

hard and brittle. So you can imagine if

26:03

that thing flew off, it could take great

26:06

Aunt Edgar's head clean off

26:08

in the in the conservatory.

26:11

Sure like the recording artist intended,

26:14

right, that was an abandoned clue, uh

26:16

murder weapon. Yeah,

26:19

he did it. He did it with a record, right,

26:23

So the RPM is really important, Chuck

26:25

um for a couple of reasons. One, Um,

26:28

it was really fast in it, so it was dangerous at

26:30

least in my opinion. But more importantly,

26:33

because they were spending so fast, you had less

26:35

time to get the information across.

26:37

So that meant that you had you know, maybe

26:40

I think a twelve inch record

26:42

could hold four to five minutes of

26:44

music or of sound on each

26:46

side. Right, it's only like nine

26:48

songs back then, right,

26:51

So, um, there were a lot of problems

26:54

with these shellack seventy eight

26:56

but um, they were a huge

26:58

advance, hugely forward. But when vinyl

27:00

came along, it changed everything and Chuck we

27:02

are almost thirty minutes into this episode.

27:05

I say, we take our first commercial break. Wow

27:07

wa wow, let's do it, okays

27:20

skul

27:28

Alright, So we are moving into the

27:30

twentieth century and finally vinyl

27:33

comes along. Um. It is called

27:36

polyvinyl chloride or PBC.

27:39

So those white PBC pipes

27:41

you see in the big box, uh

27:43

hardware store, it's the same same

27:45

thing. It's a type of plastic. And

27:48

in the nineteen thirties is when record companies

27:50

started to kind of experiment with this because

27:52

I'll the aforementioned problems with

27:54

shellac being very breakable

27:56

and being very brittle. And

27:58

I believe Victor,

28:01

which was a division of our c A, was the first

28:04

producer of vinyl records in nineteen

28:07

thirty. But it did not go well

28:09

because it took a little

28:11

while before they had they had all the playback

28:13

equipment sort of SYNCD up working

28:16

well together. So in this case, uh,

28:18

the pickups used to amplify to

28:21

send the signal to the amplifier. It's

28:23

sort of like a guitar pickup. They were too

28:25

heavy and it cut through the vinyl because

28:28

it was uh not shelack. It

28:30

was used as shelack, so they had to sort

28:32

of rejigger everything, and it wasn't until after

28:35

World War Two that they really

28:37

put in like a kind of all their

28:39

efforts stored making vinyl work. Yeah,

28:41

because there was a shelak shortage during

28:43

World War two, so everybody's like, Okay, we need

28:45

to figure out this vinyl stuff for a bunch

28:48

of different reasons. But one of those

28:50

things that came out of it was the vinyl record.

28:52

And most people credit a guy at CBS

28:55

named Peter Goldmark for

28:57

inventing the vinyl record

28:59

that we know and love today. That's

29:02

right. Uh, He basically

29:04

said, he figured out how to make it stronger.

29:07

Uh, he figured out how to etch the grooves smaller

29:09

so you could fit more stuff. So

29:11

he got it down to point zero zero

29:14

three inches. I think she

29:16

lax maxed out at point o one inches,

29:19

so a lot more music basically

29:21

per record. Yeah, because in addition

29:24

to more grooves, which means more information,

29:26

which means more length of time of recorded

29:29

sound on one side, it also

29:31

played at a slower RPM, so

29:33

it had more time to play all

29:36

that information too, So you could just

29:38

pack I think twenty two and a half minutes

29:40

per side on a on a thirty

29:42

three and a third RPM

29:45

UM LP, which is what they're called

29:47

long play albums, the

29:50

basically the vinyl record that gold Mark

29:52

invented. That's right. And here's

29:54

a fun little tidbit that Day found. I

29:56

never realized, but UM album

29:59

actually pre dates the invention of

30:01

the vinyl LP because when

30:03

people only had the seventy eights,

30:06

they stored them in sleeves

30:08

called albums, and I

30:11

think when the LPs finally came out, it

30:13

held about the same amount as an album

30:16

worth of seventy eight, so they called them albums.

30:18

Yeah, like one record, one vinyl record could

30:20

hold probably five or six UM

30:22

shellac records worth. Yeah,

30:25

so that's kind of a boast.

30:27

I guess this this one records an album,

30:29

you sucker. But

30:31

now we get to UM. You

30:33

know, basically what Dave called the War of speeds.

30:36

Uh. You mentioned the UM seventy

30:39

eights finally came down to thirty three and the third.

30:42

Uh So Columbia Records reduces the

30:44

first LP and UM

30:47

and our Cia is who released the forty

30:50

five, which you know people collect

30:52

forty five two. They're the smaller ones that only

30:54

have a song on each side. It's like thick

30:56

a single. Yeah, that's just exactly

30:58

what it is. So our c a victor in Columbia,

31:01

had that that war of the speeds that you

31:03

mentioned to try to say, you know, the

31:05

thirty three LP is um our p

31:07

MLP is better. No, the forty five RPM

31:10

single is better, and the

31:12

public just said peace everyone piece,

31:15

Well, let's let's have them all. Yeah.

31:17

I mean all you needed to do was have a machine

31:20

that can vary its playback speed, and

31:23

you can't have both. There didn't need to be one of the other.

31:25

And they they did realize that there

31:27

are some people who who just want the

31:29

single version. Like I

31:32

guess since there's been music, there have been people

31:34

that like singles. I remember

31:37

my first forty five? Do you remember what yours was?

31:40

I didn't collect forty five, so

31:43

I actually got into forty five.

31:45

I was never a big time into them, but I got

31:47

into him because I just wanted one single

31:49

song. Uh. It

31:52

was Sweet Georgia Brown because

31:54

my family had gone to a Globetrotters

31:56

game and I was like, I really like that song.

31:59

So my parents took me to

32:01

Peaches Records and I got Sweet George

32:03

Brown, and I must have driven my family

32:05

crazy without realizing it played Sweet Georgia

32:07

Brown over and over. That's adorable.

32:10

And then do you remember what your first LP was?

32:13

Absolutely Billy Joel's Glasshouses.

32:16

Oh that's a good one. How old were

32:18

you? Well, it was whenever

32:20

that came out. I feel like I was tennish,

32:24

but I'd have to look at the date. My brother and I

32:26

adorably split the cost, so

32:29

it was like five bucks and each threw

32:31

into fifty and got glass houses. That's awesome.

32:34

Um My first LP was seven

32:36

in The Ragged Tiger, the Duran Duran right,

32:40

good record. Um, I think I got it

32:42

around second grade. I

32:44

was always I think I mentioned this too. I was always a late

32:46

adopter, so I was

32:48

buying records long into the cassette

32:50

run. I was always like no, I

32:52

didn't want to believe it. It was like taking

32:55

over. And then I was buying cassettes far

32:57

into c d s, and I was

32:59

buying CDs. I mean I have CDs

33:01

that are four or five years old. Wow,

33:05

from now, I didn't even know you could get those

33:07

anymore. Yeah. Well the problem

33:09

was to have a probably

33:12

older than that, because my pickup truck that

33:14

I will never sell is now just sort of

33:16

our work in camping truck. It has a

33:18

CD player in it, So yeah,

33:21

I was buying CDs for that. Yeah, I can

33:23

see like not giving up the ghost because

33:25

number one, you're very loyal person, so I could

33:27

see you being loyal to records. And then

33:29

also at the time, you didn't know you

33:31

were ever going to have a choice again, so you were fighting

33:34

against the death of the LP vinyl

33:36

record because that's what it seemed

33:38

like when cassettes and then CDs came out.

33:41

Yeah, I have no cassettes and in fact

33:43

made my switch to CD s because someone

33:46

stole my one cassette

33:49

carrier out of my friends

33:51

trunk of my car and little five points when I went

33:53

to a show at the Variety Playhouse

33:56

where you and I performed, yeah and sold

33:58

out. If I'm not mistaken, that's right. So they

34:00

stole that and I was like, all right, I guess I

34:02

gotta buy CDs now. So

34:05

yeah, that's it for me, everybody, I'm

34:07

done with his sense. So one other

34:09

thing that kind of came out of vinyl records too,

34:11

is because you could put more information

34:14

into one, they figured out how

34:16

to actually create stereo records

34:18

starting in ninety and

34:21

I can't imagine what this

34:23

must have seemed like to the people back

34:26

in ninety eight, because up to

34:28

that point everything was mono. It was one channel,

34:30

so all of the sound came through one channel,

34:33

and you could have two speakers, five speakers, ten speakers,

34:35

it wouldn't matter because they were all playing the

34:37

exact same information, and

34:40

it didn't it just what You could just sit

34:42

in front of one speaker and get the same experience.

34:45

With stereo, you have two

34:47

different channels coming out, usually right and

34:49

left, and rights going to

34:51

the right speaker, less going to the left speaker,

34:53

and when you sit between them,

34:56

you don't get the sensation that the sound

34:58

is coming out of either speaker. It seems to be coming

35:00

out of the space between the speaker in

35:03

front of you and gives you this much more

35:05

immersive, rich experience. And they figured

35:07

out how to do that on a vinyl record, which,

35:09

if you're talking about black magic to begin

35:11

with, just just for creating a record,

35:14

creating a stereo record is even more impressive

35:17

if you ask me, Yeah, they did

35:19

it. They figured out how to etch the walls of

35:21

the groove. One side

35:23

of the wall, the outside wall was the right channel,

35:25

the inside wall was the left and

35:28

when you play it back, that needle reads both sides

35:30

at once. The Beatles

35:32

were one of the first Uh well,

35:36

yeah, I could safely say one of the first bands

35:38

to really experiment with stereo recording.

35:40

And all of a sudden you had like

35:43

Paul in one ear, John and the other singing

35:45

harmonies. Um, and

35:48

you know when headphones became more and more the norm.

35:51

This is when this really paid dividends. Yeah,

35:54

like Mitch Kramer listening to music

35:56

in his room at the end of the night

35:58

and dazed and confused that guy

36:00

Wiley Wiggins works in podcasts some Oh

36:03

yeah, hey, Wiley Wiggins, how are you doing?

36:06

I know. I was listening to the Great Great podcast

36:08

you must remember this from Karina Longworth the

36:10

movie podcast and at the end of

36:13

one of the episodes, actually sat through the credits and

36:15

it said additional research and

36:17

transcription by Wiley Wiggins. That's

36:20

awesome, man, that's super cool. I don't know if he's

36:22

still doing that, but hello to

36:25

both of you. It's so um. I watched

36:28

yeah for real, I watched. Um

36:30

have you ever seen Waking Life? Yeah?

36:33

Yeah, he started now that was he did

36:36

creating that, but also just in Days and Confused, He's

36:38

always going to be much Cramer to me. But I watched

36:40

Days and Confused the other day I

36:42

was like, this movie still holds up. And

36:44

then I was like, there was no reason

36:47

for Matthew McConaughey to do any other

36:49

character ever, because everything

36:52

he does is Waterson. Is Waterson

36:54

in space for Interstellar, it's Waterson,

36:57

like as a lawyer and the Lincoln lawyer. Like

36:59

it just Waterson all the time.

37:02

And like you, if you go back and watch Stays and Confused,

37:04

you're like, yeah, he and Waterson are one

37:06

and the same person. Basically, it's Waterson

37:09

selling Cadillacs or whatever that is, which

37:12

one doesn't

37:14

he Is it Cadillacs or is it Lincoln that he does the commercials

37:16

for. Oh yeah, yeah, Lincoln

37:18

where he just drives around and waxes philosophical

37:22

exactly. Totally. I forgot

37:24

about the ag campaign. That was all right, it

37:26

was alright, alright, alright, alright,

37:29

well let's take our final break and we're gonna come back

37:32

and no doubt stumble

37:34

through how records are actually

37:36

made. Right after this that's

37:47

watched, sk

37:53

should know.

37:57

Okay, record store guys, this is the

38:00

point where you can just leave us and we'll

38:02

say thank you for listening up to

38:04

this point. Yeah, I

38:06

mean this is gonna be a little clumsy because it's

38:08

a little black magic e and it's um.

38:11

They're also made different ways depending

38:13

on who's producing the record. It's generally

38:15

the same process, but uh,

38:18

you know every cook has their own recipe. Yeah,

38:20

so the essential process,

38:24

I guess is you

38:26

you it's ridiculously similar

38:29

to what Scott and Edison and

38:31

Alexander Graham Bell were doing, which is you

38:34

basically put sound or

38:36

music into some sort of amplifying

38:38

device, no longer an

38:41

acoustic trumpet instead some

38:43

again amplifier that

38:46

that makes a little needle

38:48

wiggle. And as that needle

38:50

wiggles, it's etching that

38:53

transcription of that sound wave

38:55

into a mechanical record of it.

38:57

That's why records are called records. It's a record

38:59

of that sound ound. And they

39:02

do this with basically a turntable

39:04

called the cutting lathe. And that now

39:07

I understand why they call it cutting a record. I

39:09

had no idea until I guess yesterday,

39:11

Um, why they call it that. Yes,

39:14

Impressing makes sense too, and it will in a second.

39:16

But it's just like this turntable, but it

39:18

looks like a turntable and like an industrial,

39:21

an industrial turntable, and that's exactly

39:23

what it is. Yeah, it's just

39:26

a a large machine. Uh.

39:28

The one that the video I saw was the

39:30

one in Nashville. I

39:33

don't know if they're different chisels,

39:35

but they use an actual ruby gemstone

39:38

chisel at their factory.

39:40

Uh, and that vibrating ruby

39:43

chisel cuts that groove and a uh.

39:45

They still use lacquer, at least at this place, and use

39:47

a lacquer disc and this is called

39:50

the mother disc. Um.

39:52

It's kind of cool. In the end you end up with

39:55

or you can end up with as much as feet

39:59

of groove lines, which

40:01

is seven football fields. I don't know how many big

40:03

max. But if you took

40:05

like the lines of an LP, uh

40:08

and I don't I don't know if that's both sides or one

40:10

side, is that just one

40:12

side, that would be seven football

40:14

fields long, which is pretty amazing. Okay,

40:16

So so no, for some reason, on the Shellac

40:19

record, the mother record, they fit way

40:21

more information. And from what I saw, I

40:23

saw that an LP, the average LP

40:26

like twenty two minutes is like um

40:28

about one and a half football fields

40:30

long. Really, that's what I

40:32

saw. But I saw what you were talking about in that

40:34

video, and I'm like, where's the distinction here? And I couldn't

40:37

figure it out. So anywhere between one

40:39

and a half to seven football fields that one

40:41

groove. And by the way, if you look

40:43

at a record those grooves, that's one long,

40:46

concentric groove that

40:48

you could stretch out as a single line. Had

40:51

never occurred to me. Did you realize that

40:53

before? Yeah? Sure,

40:55

because where would it end? It's

40:57

a spiral. I don't know. I hadn't really

40:59

thought it through. But that's a great trivia

41:02

question. Then you could get a lot of people on how many

41:04

grooves are on the average LP record

41:06

and the answers to one for each side.

41:09

Yeah, although what about the little space?

41:12

I didn't really look up how they did that, the little space

41:14

between the songs. It's still

41:17

yes, but it must have just a blank. There

41:20

must not be any etchings in that groove. It's

41:22

still tell all the musicians like, shut up,

41:25

Yeah, what's

41:27

it called room tone? Yeah? Room

41:29

tone? And by the way, this is this is how

41:32

records are mass produced. Like if you go to Third

41:34

Man Records in Nashville, and sit in the little

41:36

booth like it literally cuts

41:39

the sound you make directly onto a record that

41:41

you take home. Yeah yeah, I think that guy

41:43

that you me visited head is on like you could if

41:45

you have dollars to spend

41:47

to mess around with, like you can get yourself

41:49

a cutting life. But so you've got that mother

41:52

record that's made from shellac, you said, right,

41:55

right, And then they take that and they coat it

41:57

with some sort of metal. I don't know if it's

42:00

platinum. I think they said Nickel was involved,

42:02

but they use electrolysis and

42:04

they make a negative of that record,

42:06

so they get the metal in all of the grooves.

42:09

And when they pop the metal off of that mother

42:11

shellac record they

42:13

have they have the mirror

42:15

no, yeah, a mirror opposite image of it.

42:17

Rather than grooves and and etchings

42:20

and valleys, it's bumps and ridges

42:22

and mountains. And that's what they

42:24

use to press records from.

42:27

Right. Yeah, that's called the master stamp.

42:30

Uh. And that master stamp can make about a hundred

42:32

thousand records. I

42:35

think it is Nickel or at least what

42:37

they use it. This one company that I saw,

42:39

the largest one, uh, and

42:41

that will harden up into silver, and you peel

42:43

it away and then you kind of cut

42:45

it and trim it up so it's actually round. And

42:47

then when you go to press the actual vinyl, they

42:50

dump and we'll get to why they're black in a second,

42:52

because that's super interesting. But you get these

42:54

black polyvinyl pellets, you melt

42:56

them down, uh in a hopper

42:59

basically, and what plops

43:01

out is a little puck shaped like

43:03

a little biscuit basically of vinyl.

43:07

Uh. You put the label on it because that helps

43:09

center things apparently, and then you

43:11

have, you know, the one side of the record

43:13

on top and the other side on the bottom these silver

43:15

stamps and you

43:18

apply about sixty tons of pressure and

43:20

it just squishes it out and presses

43:22

it into thin vinyl. Uh. If

43:24

you think it might be a little messy around the edges, you were

43:27

absolutely right. Um. They trim

43:29

that off with a machine so

43:31

it's perfectly round, and that excess stuff

43:33

is called flash, and they actually

43:35

just throw that back to use later on it's recentled

43:38

They re melt it right, which

43:40

is awesome. Totally. There are

43:42

I saw I saw people

43:45

online who say that records

43:47

made from that reused

43:49

flashing do not sound as good as

43:51

other records. I'm like, dude, really, yes

43:55

on man, you need another a

43:58

second hobby. It doesn't just w

44:00

record collection. And they didn't use the word

44:02

actually at all, right, no, not at

44:04

all. They were just daring

44:06

you to say something. So um,

44:09

so that's it, like that's what, that's how one record

44:11

is made. And you said you can use one of those

44:13

um uh master uh

44:16

negatives for a hundred thousand records.

44:18

So I guess they make a few of those and they

44:20

have a run and that's that you have your

44:22

your whole run of records created. Um.

44:25

And you mentioned something about records

44:27

being black, like they don't have to

44:30

be black. I think I have at least one or two

44:32

that are colored um

44:34

like red. Yeah,

44:36

yeah, it is cool. It's definitely different.

44:39

But um black is the color

44:41

of choice for a couple of reasons. One

44:44

PVC uh is some

44:46

is like a natural insulator, so

44:49

static electricity can build up in it,

44:51

which is nay good because static electricity

44:53

attracts dust, and dust messes

44:56

up your records. It can cause them to skip and do all

44:58

sorts of terrible stuff. It can clug up

45:00

your needle. Um. And then so they

45:02

add this stuff called carbon black. I

45:04

think half of a percent of your records

45:06

material is carbon black, and that actually

45:09

makes it a little better of a conductor, so it repels

45:11

dust a little better. Yeah, so

45:14

that'll that'll help him. And apparently and I never thought

45:16

of this either, but you just you

45:18

see dust better on a black record. Uh,

45:21

so you're you know, you're more apt to keep your records

45:23

cleaner probably, uh And I

45:25

never really noticed that. But yeah, on my clear

45:27

records, I can't see any dust. I

45:29

have to say. Um, some of the records that I have,

45:32

I I got from our buddy. Van Nostrin

45:35

has always been very in sending

45:38

records that most people would not want to

45:40

hear. Um, Engelbert

45:42

Humperdink I have thanks to him.

45:44

Um, I've got a one

45:46

about Jimmy Carter, a

45:48

comedy record, Um the disco

45:52

duck. But get this, there's

45:54

no disco duck anywhere, and it's

45:56

just like a kind of a jazzy

45:58

upbeat um covers

46:01

of disco songs without the duck. I don't

46:03

know where Van Nostrom found this, but it's

46:05

pretty astounding. Where the records

46:07

that he comes up with in sinse So thanks.

46:10

I used to listen to comedy records going up to as

46:13

a kid, I would get George Carlin's

46:15

class Clown or how I and

46:18

I'm still not good at impressions, but how I got

46:20

interested was the rich little

46:22

records The First Family Rides again, and

46:25

you know, it was a big thing, like comedy albums,

46:28

And some comedians today are are getting

46:30

vinyl pressed of their specials and stuff, which is

46:32

kind of cool. It is cool because

46:34

those comedians are flushed with Netflix money,

46:36

so all of them can afford a fifty dollar

46:38

cuttingly. So we kind

46:41

of explained, I think, in our own way,

46:43

how they're made. But then there's

46:45

the black magic of actually hearing

46:47

these things. Uh, you

46:49

sit around and look at those grooves all day, but you

46:51

wanted what you want to do, get up and dance right pretty

46:55

much, and that's that, and that's records,

46:57

um chuck. If you could also afford

46:59

not to to cutting lathe but an electron

47:01

microscope, um, you could

47:04

do worse than putting a record underneath

47:06

it, because you would see some freaky

47:08

stuff going on in those grooves. That

47:10

groove itself holds

47:13

a bunch of different little etchings

47:16

and each sound has its own etching. In

47:18

this groove. And again these grooves are sometimes

47:20

like an eighth of a millimeter UM

47:23

thick, like they've gotten way thinner than

47:25

when Peter Goldmark first invented vinyl records,

47:28

and they hold so much information that you

47:30

can actually physically see just like

47:32

Um Edward ley On Scott

47:35

of Martinville Um saw himself

47:37

on that class plate. If you look really

47:39

really closely through an electron microscope,

47:42

you can see the same thing, and you are literally looking

47:44

at a physical encoding

47:47

of sound. The sound wave

47:49

has been transferred mechanically through that

47:51

that ruby, um what

47:54

do you call it, the carving thing chisel

47:58

onto a record. And now if you put your

48:00

record on your turntable, play

48:02

it back at the appropriate rotations

48:04

per minute, very important, and

48:06

you put the arm down. What you're doing

48:08

is you're putting down a needle or a stylus

48:11

that is a very sensitive usually

48:13

industrial gemstone like sapphire maybe

48:16

ruby I saw a diamond most most

48:18

frequently, and that that actually

48:20

reads every single one of those

48:22

little tiny squiggles in that in

48:24

those grooves from start to finish,

48:27

and it retranslates that mechanical

48:30

encoding through to the cartridge,

48:32

which translates that into electricity,

48:35

which creates an audible

48:37

sound that has to be amplified and run through

48:39

speakers. And when you do all that, you're listening

48:41

to a record. That's right, And I

48:44

kind of compared it to a guitar pick up if uh,

48:47

which one do we explain that? And was that in the les Paul,

48:50

Yeah, it had to be. But it's just sort

48:52

of the same idea as a guitar

48:54

pickup. It's it uses copper wire and

48:56

magnets um to

48:59

create this, you know, electric current,

49:02

and in this case it's induced at the same

49:04

frequency as that little needle

49:06

wiggling through the grooves. And

49:09

then you have to obviously that you still don't

49:11

hear anything unless you feed that through an amplifier and

49:13

then eventually speakers. If you listen

49:15

really closely, you can hear the faintest bit

49:18

of it, but it's nothing to dance to your right,

49:20

um. Dave, Dave helped us with us,

49:23

right, this was a Dave jam. It was

49:25

Dave. So Dave kind of drove

49:27

something home for me when he talked about how

49:29

the middle c on a piano

49:32

is um vibrates at

49:34

an amplitude of two hundred and sixty

49:37

one point six three hurts, which

49:39

means that that it vibrates to

49:41

create that sound that middle cyano piano. It

49:44

vibrates a two hundred and sixty one point six

49:46

three vibrations per second. That's

49:48

just one note on a piano, and

49:51

that is encoded in a record. When you play

49:53

a middle C on a piano and you capture

49:55

it on a record. Um, you, that's

49:58

just one thing. Now consider all

50:00

of the different notes, all the different sounds, all

50:02

the different instruments that are

50:04

are encoded onto a record,

50:06

and it's there. Each one is physically

50:09

encoded in the right proper time,

50:11

the right spot on that groove in that

50:13

record, playback on that particular

50:16

RPM. And when you start

50:18

to put all this together and realize how complicated

50:20

it is, it really gives you an

50:23

appreciation for what's going on with

50:25

vinyl and why people love it so much.

50:28

Yeah, I mean, it's it's sort of easy to wrap

50:30

your head around someone plucking a

50:33

piano string or

50:35

loot rather hammering a piano string

50:38

that would be a harpsichord if it was plucked in

50:40

a middle C like ding ding ding ding,

50:42

and how that might be translated. But when you think

50:44

about a groove being cut that represents

50:48

like guitar feedback from Jimmy

50:50

Hendrix, which is a sound,

50:52

but it's not like a U. It's

50:54

not like you think of a familiar note being plucked

50:57

or something, or the sound of distorted

50:59

guitar. It's just it's amazing. It

51:01

is black magic. I'm with you. So.

51:04

Um A lot of people chuck say vinyl

51:07

is the only way to go, and other people say

51:09

take your vinyl and shove it because

51:12

digital music is the only way to go. And

51:14

there's apparently a pretty big argument

51:16

about all this. Yeah, I mean,

51:18

you know, your vinyl enthusiasts will say it has

51:20

a warmer sound. Uh, they'll

51:22

say that's as close to the

51:24

original way form as you can get because

51:27

it's directly from a master recording and

51:30

it's not digitized and compressed.

51:33

Um I and Day points

51:35

out, and I fully agree that part of this. You know, I'm

51:38

sure there are audio files who have an ear that

51:40

can really differentiate, differentiate

51:43

um sounds on

51:45

a really minute level. I'm not one

51:47

of them. Um So for

51:49

me, part of it is the the ritual

51:52

of the record album. Aren't

51:54

liner notes? Holding an album and

51:56

looking at it while you're playing it, Like

51:58

all the stuff that was Law Austwin records shrunk

52:02

to cassettes and you could still sort of do it then,

52:04

and you can kind of do it with CD cases

52:06

and liner notes. But the record

52:09

was really like it was. It was a part of

52:11

the whole experience large format art. But

52:14

there are people who say that, you know,

52:16

like you said that digital gets

52:19

rid of those pops and clicks that a

52:21

lot of people like from records. Um

52:24

it has a wider frequency range than

52:26

vinyl does, so it can

52:28

hit the highs and the lows more accurately. UM

52:31

I mean, I like it all. I don't think you have to choose.

52:35

I don't think you have to choose either. But um I

52:37

I saw a really good description of the difference

52:39

between digital recordings

52:41

and analog recordings, which is what is

52:44

meant to be captured on a record. There

52:46

was a guy, a recording engineer named Michael

52:48

Connolly who um said, Let's

52:50

say that you want to measure your height,

52:53

and you stand next to a door jam,

52:55

and you put a pencil along the top of your

52:57

head and you mark the door jam. What

52:59

you've just done is created an analog

53:02

of your height that mark stands

53:04

in for your height. Right. Another

53:07

way you could do it is stand still and hold

53:09

the measuring tape and then see

53:11

what your height actually is. And then you

53:13

take that measurement and you transcribe it to another

53:15

medium, like you write it down in a notebook.

53:18

And the thing is is your analog

53:20

is truer, it's more faithful because

53:23

it's an actual representation of your

53:25

actual height. But um,

53:28

the measurement can be reproduced

53:30

much more easily. You can go from notebook

53:33

to notebook and just write down that same measurement

53:35

every time without any loss of information.

53:37

And that's not true from that door jam

53:40

pencil mark, because let's say you move, you want

53:42

to take a door jam with you to remember

53:44

how tall you were, and you install it

53:46

at your next house, it might not be quite

53:48

the same, you know, height off the floor

53:51

as it was before. So those are those pops

53:53

and clicks that get added into it when

53:55

you reproduce a sound, an analog

53:58

sound, whereas with digital, yes, it's

54:00

not the entire waveform of the whole

54:02

thing, it's measurements of it. But it's such

54:04

a mind boggling number of measurements

54:07

with a mind boggling amount of information

54:09

that most people say, not only can

54:11

you not tell what's lost in a digital

54:14

recording, some people say digital recordings

54:16

are actually better, right,

54:18

But to be clear, we are talking about a digital

54:20

recording as in a c D, which

54:23

has about for a little

54:25

more than four kill a bits

54:27

per second UH worth

54:30

of information, which is super high. UM.

54:33

If you're talking, you know, streaming

54:35

something from a streaming service, there

54:38

is a difference, and you don't have to be an audio file

54:40

to tell UH it is a thinner sound.

54:42

It's ten ear UH. It is compressed

54:44

down from the CD size, which is a

54:46

little over fourteen hundred two between

54:49

ninety and a hundred and sixty

54:51

uh kill a bits per second. So that's

54:54

a lot of compression going on. And Dave

54:57

points out that you um

54:59

like you're probably playing that through like in a

55:01

bluetooth speaker maybe or earbuds,

55:05

not very good quality. If you if

55:07

you do think the records sound better, it's probably because

55:09

you're at your audio file friend's house who

55:12

collects records and who also places it through

55:15

a really high quality amplifier

55:17

instead of speakers. So you know

55:19

the sound between the difference between that and

55:22

UH streaming something through a bluetooth speaker earbuds

55:25

is just nine and day. Yeah, because so that the

55:27

the stamp, the bit rate is just the number

55:30

of measurements taken, right, and measurements are

55:32

not exact. It's the kind of a snapshot of the

55:34

thing. It's not the whole thing, like

55:36

a record is the whole sound wave.

55:38

But I ran across something, Chuck that just kind of puts

55:40

the whole argument to bed. And I noticed

55:43

it in that video you said about

55:45

how records are made at that record Um

55:47

manufacturer in Nashville. Did you notice

55:50

that they started out with a digital

55:52

file. Well, yeah,

55:55

I mean yeah, it was a pro

55:57

tools file. It was so they transferred

55:59

a digital file onto a

56:01

record. So the whole difference

56:04

for anything that's ever been put to a

56:06

record from a digital file is out the window.

56:08

Your arguments just totally moot because you

56:10

started out with a digital file. Yeah,

56:12

but it's a huge digital file,

56:15

but it's still digital, which means it's

56:17

not in precise representation

56:20

of the exact same, same thing. But other

56:22

people say, well a records not neither. There's just too

56:24

many, too much room for air, it can't possibly

56:26

be precise. But I think you said it you don't have to

56:28

choose. Yeah, I agreed you

56:31

got anything else about Vinyl records because I could

56:33

keep going. Man, this is fun. Uh

56:36

A little fun tidbit about my mom. When

56:38

she was little living in Memphis, Tennessee. She

56:41

my granddad took her into I think it

56:43

was called the Memphis Recording Studio

56:46

that's pretty on the nose and recorded

56:48

her playing um, the

56:50

clarinet or something and left

56:53

with a record and that later became Sun Records.

56:56

So technically my mom recorded

56:59

where a wasp pressly recorded. That is pretty

57:01

amazing, man, I think that's true. That's

57:04

a story I got. I'm sticking to it. I

57:06

think there's a very charming story to end on Charles.

57:08

So let's go instead to listener

57:10

mail. How about that? Ah?

57:14

Yeah, this is a quickie about de farting a lot

57:16

after colonoscopies, which

57:18

we talked about the vine. Hey,

57:20

guys, I am Chuck the

57:22

gastro and grology technician,

57:26

huge fan of the show and

57:28

I don't think I missed a single episode. I was regarding

57:31

your different experiences after colonoscopies

57:33

because I was super farty and you don't remember

57:35

being super party, right, I was super high. That's

57:38

right. Uh. Air

57:41

is injected during the procedure to purposefully

57:43

distend the colon for a better view of

57:46

all the walls and easier passages to the

57:48

holy land. And it makes your hands

57:50

puff up like a cabbage patch kid, which everybody

57:53

likes to see. Some facilities

57:55

use air, which will result

57:57

in the fart party. Some facilities

57:59

use the more expensive carbon

58:01

dioxide, which is absorbed by your colon

58:04

breathe out your lungs and results in a more comfortable

58:06

experience. This is a possible

58:08

cause for the difference between your

58:10

experiences. You may still

58:13

get a little gassy after CEO two, um,

58:15

but I can assure you that recovery rooms

58:17

in the CEO two facility are not

58:19

full of farts and is a more pleasant

58:21

experience for the patient in general. Did

58:24

you go to Bargain Bargain Barn Hospital

58:26

for yours when cold to colon

58:29

ascopes? Are us spatulous

58:32

city or the colon Barn? I

58:35

guess so it was pretty fun. I enjoyed the fart

58:37

barn Um. And this is

58:39

from Chuck and he says, ps g

58:41

I is the best department butts in guts

58:44

for the wind. Nice nice work.

58:46

Chuck. Nice work you two, Chuck. Uh.

58:49

Thanks man. If you want to be like Chuck,

58:52

either one well, no really, the one that just

58:54

wrote in. You can write into us too and

58:56

send us an email to Stuff Podcasts

58:59

and i art radio dot com.

59:04

Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio.

59:07

For more podcasts My heart Radio, visit

59:09

the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

59:11

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H