- Joined
- Oct 11, 2018
- Messages
- 3,740
- Likes
- 6,454
Audiophiles are said to be of two types: 1) those who use music to listen to their gear, and 2) those who use their gear to listen to music. But what about a third type: those who use their gear to make music? Below are three examples that came to my mind. There must be others, but these are the ones that came to me:
What would happen if a piano fell in love with an open reel tape recorder and mated? The resulting offspring would be... the Mellotron. Anyone familiar with '70s 'progressive' rock knows about this bizarre creation. The amazing thing about the Mellotron is not the amazing sounds it makes, but that anyone would ever think of this wild idea in the first place. Below is a YT of a woman who restores Mellotrons. She takes her audience through the inside of the machine. You can easily see why Mellotrons had a reputation for unreliability.
What do you get when you cross an organ with a tube amp, a two-way horn loaded hi-fi loudspeaker cabinet, and a variable speed belt drive turntable? Few would ever have the presence of mind to even ask this question, but Donald Leslie did, and because of it we now have his famous Hammond B3 speaker box. For his part, Laurens Hammond thought the creation was on the borderline of crazy and goofy, which it was. But that's exactly what the staid B3 needed to, in the words of that Spinal Tap guitar player, 'give it that extra push over the cliff'. As an added feature, the Leslie had the amazing effect of creating sea-sickness symptoms in certain folks, but nothing that a few Dramamine tabs didn't cure.
Most analog-oriented audiophiles treat their records better than they might treat their girlfriends (if they had a life and had a girlfriend). They interact with their record players as if they were manipulating a delicate lab instrument. Their worst feeling is when they drop the tonearm, and it flies over the record, making that distinct and dreaded scratching nose. After this unexpectedly happened to audiophile Theodore Livingston--when his mom burst into his room to yell at him for something, and he accidentally knocked his turntable--, after hearing the resulting sound he thought to himself, "What's up with 'dat?" Miraculously, the Grand Wizzard was born, and the turntable became an instrument.
What would happen if a piano fell in love with an open reel tape recorder and mated? The resulting offspring would be... the Mellotron. Anyone familiar with '70s 'progressive' rock knows about this bizarre creation. The amazing thing about the Mellotron is not the amazing sounds it makes, but that anyone would ever think of this wild idea in the first place. Below is a YT of a woman who restores Mellotrons. She takes her audience through the inside of the machine. You can easily see why Mellotrons had a reputation for unreliability.
What do you get when you cross an organ with a tube amp, a two-way horn loaded hi-fi loudspeaker cabinet, and a variable speed belt drive turntable? Few would ever have the presence of mind to even ask this question, but Donald Leslie did, and because of it we now have his famous Hammond B3 speaker box. For his part, Laurens Hammond thought the creation was on the borderline of crazy and goofy, which it was. But that's exactly what the staid B3 needed to, in the words of that Spinal Tap guitar player, 'give it that extra push over the cliff'. As an added feature, the Leslie had the amazing effect of creating sea-sickness symptoms in certain folks, but nothing that a few Dramamine tabs didn't cure.
Most analog-oriented audiophiles treat their records better than they might treat their girlfriends (if they had a life and had a girlfriend). They interact with their record players as if they were manipulating a delicate lab instrument. Their worst feeling is when they drop the tonearm, and it flies over the record, making that distinct and dreaded scratching nose. After this unexpectedly happened to audiophile Theodore Livingston--when his mom burst into his room to yell at him for something, and he accidentally knocked his turntable--, after hearing the resulting sound he thought to himself, "What's up with 'dat?" Miraculously, the Grand Wizzard was born, and the turntable became an instrument.