T is for turntables

 

Phonograph, gramophone, record player, turntable.

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Sometimes it’s the older ideas that last. Take the phonograph for example. Developed in the 1870s, it has undergone many reinventions until it became the turntable favoured by DJs today.

Recorded music was first heard on records by the UK public as far back as the late 1800s. It may have been through a wind up machine then, but it’s a master amplified stereo system now.

It was Edison…again

Thomas Alva Edison announced his invention, the phonograph, on 21 November, 1877 and demonstrated it later that year with the man himself reciting ‘Mary had a little lamb’. Patented on 19 February 1878 (US Patent 200,251) – the invention at this time was a recording on a tinfoil sheet for a phonograph cylinder. The foil was wrapped around the cylinder and the sound was captured in its indentations.

The cylinder and the stylus was Edison’s invention, although notes from him did show that he had considered that sound could be captured on a spiral on a flat disc.  In 1888, however, Emile Berliner invented the disk record (patented 1896) that replayed sound from the movement of a stylus tracing a spiral on a zinc treated disc coated with a beeswax compound, benzene – called lateral recording.

Berliner also invented Matrix records from which the duplication process was possible. Duplication meant that a manufacturer could make unlimited pressings to play on a spring-driven motor record player.

Get the groove on

As turntables improved, so did the quality of pressing reproduction and high-fidelity amplification and speaker systems. A standardisation of the disc speed between Berliner/ Edison, studios and the radio stations, as well as the studios and the public market, saw the speed of records travel from 78 to 33.3 to 45 repetitions per minute (RPM).

Stereophonic reproductions did not arrive until the ability to reproduce two channels of sound was developed. The first stereo recording available commercially was produced in 1957.

Records still had their problems, however: a well maintained record would have very little surface noise but the possibility of records scratching and making popping noises were a disappointing and frequent occurrence. Also, another problem was ‘groove lock’ – where a record would skip then replay a same section repeatedly followed by a popping noise. “You sound like a broken record,” was a phrase coined to describe a person mimicking the annoying trait.

However, despite its irritations, vinyl discs became a form which some people count as superior to digital releases today, and record covers became collectable as they became prints held in a similar regard to book covers or graphic novels.

Although MP3 and similar technology is becoming the leading format, the vinyl player (although having larger manufacturing costs than the others) can still be a part of the home audio system. But it is on the stage – used almost like a musical instrument by DJs and hip hop artists – that it is unsurpassed.

Drive vs belt

Enter the Technics SL-1200 – a standard for DJs since the 1970s. Mixing records is the flavour of today, albeit mostly in hip hop and dance circles.

Technics has became one of the most widely used brands in the world. The turntables function via a direct drive mechanism that spins the wheel with a torque – a rotary force – that can pick up speed. This technology was perfected over the years resulting in the SL1200 MK2.

In order to work a direct drive mechanism, a system of gears and magnets are designed to provide the right amount of torque to spin the wheel, play a record instantly and at a constant speed. It is the adaptable torque that gives the DJ the opportunity to control and manipulate records on the decks.

On the other hand, a belt driven system is a two-part mechanism – a motor and a pulley. The motor is not directly under the wheel – like the direct drive system – but is off to the side while a rubber belt turns a pulley that is under the platter instead.

Less torque is used in a belt drive turntable as the motor isn’t under the wheel – also, this system isn’t as durable as Technics, because when the belt-drive system ages, the belt slackens resulting in a poor playback performance. The more torque the better for DJs.

DJs often check the pitch of a record through the ‘pitch control.’ The control is a slider out to the side of the turntable next to the platter.

On the decks, the operator will want to match pitches (and beat) from one turntable to another turntable playing a different track next to it. Depending on the turntable, the DJ would use the slider, pushing it ‘+’ or ‘-‘. When the slider is pushed to the +, the motor has been given a little bit more power and will spin the record a bit faster, thus making the speed go up. And alternatively, when the deejay has chosen -, more power is given to the gears (or pulley) and the record will spin slightly slower. The aim of the game is to match the speeds with the record you are trying to mix.

Click here for more explanation: http://www.the-dj-equipment-guide.com/how-technics-turntables-work.html

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