OldMusicOnVinyl1

"Back with anotha one of those block rockin' BEATS!"

Just in from the latest Discogs order... The Chemical Brothers' Dig Your Own Hole, 20th anniversary silver edition from 2017 played once by the original owner.

I am absolutely, utterly infatuated with this album. As someone said "you know who the Chems are, until you actually KNOW who they are..." This duo's music has surrounded me all my life, whether it's filling the nightclub in a personal favourite movie of mine (The Good Thief, 2002) or an occasional tune on the radio. And now that I've more recently stumbled upon this MASTERPIECE — never had I had my prefrontal cortex so tickled in a long, long time. I mean, it's RARE. 60 minutes of bliss, shifting from wild, punchy breakbeats and chaos to a whole psychedelic Beatles-inspired, Twin Peaks-esque section on Side Four that feels as if you're tripping on 'shrooms — but then you wake up to notice you've been completely sober the whole time.

Their contemporaries Daft Punk, the gods of French House, serve as the first time many people hear a whiff of electronic music, but it's The Chems that encouraged me to dive deep into the genre as a whole. I never *got* into it despite having hoarded a small collection of house and jungle 12" singles. And now I find myself reconsidering it all.

This is not the last you'll hear from me of The Chems. While they matured musically since this album and moved from the 'Big Beat' subgenre into the spiritually-rich house music that defined the rest of their career, Dig Your Own Hole holds a special place in my heart. It is ALSO a real test of your stereo system and your turntable. The thing's damn hard to track! Some loud, wild, aggressive and ornate grooves like any of those beautifully cut old 12" singles. I gave this a first listen tonight and will be unpacking the rest of my stereo components from storage...hopefully something from this album will come your way real soon.

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5 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 4

OldMusicOnVinyl1

AT-LP60 arm now counterweighted down to 3.3 grams at the innermost point and 3.0 grams at the outer edge. Back within factory spec and possibly even a little lighter.

Taped four Canadian pennies to the back of the arm (atop the counterbalance spring) and that was enough to bring it down by a gram. Prayers this thing will play without skipping, since it certainly didn’t skip at the heavier VTF…I’ll be bringing some wax from storage tomorrow to test it out.

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 4

OldMusicOnVinyl1

I never used Spotify.

1 month ago | [YT] | 2

OldMusicOnVinyl1

The Riverstone Audio scale is here. A barely used 12-year-old AT-LP60 fell into my lap for free before that and I had to check it—after all I don't blindly trust Hanpin counterbalance springs.

Holy crap, whaddya know. 4.27 grams, and that's at the correct LP height. I would get an inaccurate reading at a higher angle off the record due to the decreased spring tension (higher tracking force). But this IS an accurate reading; it's at the correct height.

Thing is, the AT-LP60 is supposed to track at 3.0 to 3.5 grams at factory spec. Across three different wear tests by three different users, two LP60s didn't damage records and they both had one thing in common: they were within the factory set tracking force range. The one that was out of spec did cause egregious wear. It tracked above 4.2 grams like mine.

I put the included 5 gram calibration weight at the back of the tonearm. It got the VTF down to 3.8 grams, which is better but still not within factory spec.

So grateful to have this tool. People, if you have an LP60 or LP60X, be careful and use this scale with the arm to verify the tracking force first. Now I know I need to weigh down the arm before using it on any records I care about!

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7 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 5

OldMusicOnVinyl1

🚨 ALERT: You may have noticed my rips of the Western Canadian band Jenson Interceptor's sole album vanish. There's a reason for this.

Good news...the album has been officially reissued for streaming including on YouTube. Bad news...the reissuing label is deleting all 3rd-party rips from the internet, including mine. After I contacted them directly, they maintained that I remove my uploads, so I respected their wishes and complied with their request. Doing so avoided a GUARANTEED YouTube copyright strike and a very real risk of my channel going down.

Thanks to all who have shared in the nostalgia and my heart goes out to all artists involved!

7 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 3

OldMusicOnVinyl1

Riverstone Audio digital tracking force scale ordered and on its way. Can't wait to measure the true tracking force of my TTs after many years.

8 months ago | [YT] | 1

OldMusicOnVinyl1

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! ⛄

10 months ago | [YT] | 2

OldMusicOnVinyl1

Finger oil, fingerprints, grease, bacon fat, cigarette ashes, dust mites and bad bacteria. Think about those seven things as you listen to the same advice my parents gave me on vinyl care.

Or if you're Grandmaster Flash or idolize him...you don't need to think about those things. The records and their noise profile become you.

1 year ago | [YT] | 2

OldMusicOnVinyl1

Nothing to see here, just being helpful and unpretentious on r/turntables as always... 🙂

Rules #1 and #6 in this subreddit. People answering questions there don't follow 'em enough. Or should I say, basic human common sense.

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1 year ago | [YT] | 1

OldMusicOnVinyl1

Besides being an insane vinyl enthusiast, if you've known me long enough you probably know I'm handy with computers and tech. I've edited my own videos, composed original music on OpenMPT, helped people install & run 1990s PC games on modern devices, and now get paid to help people like you build & maintain their websites and landing pages, ready for advertising and lead generation.

In short, I have an intuitive eye for the technical aspect of web design that most people don't have the patience to touch.

What you don't know is the story that catalyzed my professional life today. This event alone advanced my computer skills so much, I don't know if I'd be in this industry had it not happened!


Let me tell it to you for the first time ever:

This is me in 2012 with dad and a brand new desktop PC with an Intel Core processor, ready to rock & roll...and ready to install both Windows and MacOS Lion on. Best birthday gift a 13-year-old could ever have.

"Windows and Mac, you say!?"

Great question. Here's a new word for your vocabulary, the word that changed my life forever a year earlier.

Hackintosh.

In 2011, Mom wants a Mac for her creative work. I want a Mac because of my interest in old computer languages and running old Mac-only apps.

Here's the one challenge. We couldn't afford a Mac, let alone two! 😬

Then Dad comes along and shows us this website about how to make ... a "Hackintosh". Hmm... 🤔

You see, because all Macs were Intel-based back then, if you're careful enough and followed certain steps, you could have MacOS running on your Windows PC.

Our eyes lit up!

It was the only option for us. The current version of MacOS at the time, you couldn’t order on DVD, and no one (even eBayers) would ship it to Canada. Apparently, it was prohibited.

Dad handed me all the instructions, all the forum threads, everything he found.

And I took an Asus netbook. I followed it all, step by step, to create an installer DVD for MacOS Snow Leopard.

Mind you, it wasn't without a little ass-whooping from Dad.

But I did it – we had an Asus netbook running Mac.

Next, I practiced on Mommy's surprise birthday gift, a pro enterprise HP laptop with a fingerprint scanner -- recommended by said website because you could boot into MacOS out of the box and it worked almost without any adjustments.

That too was a success.

March 2012 came, and my parents surprised me with my 13th birthday gift, a custom-built desktop.

Months in the making, selected just for the Hackintosh project.

I took my newfound skills and split the hard drive into 2 partitions: Windows and Mac. And I could boot into whichever one I wanted!

All I needed to do was insert a USB booting stick, follow the prompts, select Windows or Mac and BOOM!

Finally, a full-blown “Mac” in the household, with the latest and greatest Intel Core processor, HD graphics, tons of memory and USB 3.0 all over.

That whole period I learned tons about navigating filesystems, sideloading apps, partitioning hard drives and USB sticks, creating bootloaders, and changing settings & modifying files on the OS that NO ONE outside of us weirdos would dare touch.

Before then, I was a computer enthusiast. Now I’m an all-out nerd.

So next time, if you're asking me a tech, computer, app or website-related question and you're dazzled by the answer, you can thank my dad.

'Cause without his intervention, these 3 Hackintoshes wouldn't have happened, and I wouldn't have acquired these DANGEROUS skills. Skills that make it a nightmare for any of your competitors, or your previous/existing web guy or agnecy.

I won't look for you. I won't pursue you. But if you ever doubt the advice I give you...

I will find you.

And I will Hackintosh you. 😈

1 year ago | [YT] | 2