The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi Shane
I ended up with 17 Elvis records and the majority are near mint, they will even play with a fibre needle all the way through. We did come back with some other titles, I got some more Ruth Wallis and Lucyna got Prado Perez, Andrews Sisters and many more. We had to keep the record hunting down to a minimum as they weigh so much.
Regards Marcel

The interesting thing about these late 78 pressings is if you compare them to the same titles released on 45rpm's of the period. The sound you get from the 78's (IMO) is much better in terms of frequency response. I guess its the faster record speed made the 78's capable of capturing more frequencies?

But anyway if you compare a period 45rmp disk with the same title on 78 then I think the 78 always sounds "fresher" - if you can ignore the 78 charateristic hiss. Or is this just me?

Anyway - nice find Marcel.

RJ

Richard, I think the "better" sound of 78s of this period compared with 45s may be just a result of your perceptions. During this period of coexistence of 78s with 45s and 33s in the 1950s, the 78s tended to be cut pretty "hot", that is, LOUD. This was an attempt to get over the surface noise of the shellac to make them more competitive with the 45s (although this high level continued into the use of vinyl on 78s). 45s particularly (as well as 33s) were cut at levels about 10dB lower than was typical in the 1970s. This was partly because of the standards that RCA set up for 45s and also because of the poor tracking ability of the crystal cartridges that were designed for early microgroove records. The typical 78rpm crystal cartridge was still tracking at about 35 grams (so-called "featherweight" or "merely" 1 ounce), while the microgroove records were meant to be tracked at no more than 10 to 12 grams. These cartridge were still required to produce a pretty high output voltage, so they were made low compliance which did not allow them to track high recorded levels. Some of you may remember that playing modern 45s on the old RCA record changers with the early crystal cartridges resulted in dirty, distorted sound with occasional groove skipping. This is due to the early cartridge not being able to track the louder 45s.

Other than the recorded level, I don't think there was any reason why the 78 should have sounded better than the 45 of the same title. Depending on the mastering studio, the same or different cutters may have been used to master both 78s and 45s. By this time, all mastering was done by dubbing from analog magnetic tape, so that source would have been common to all record speed versions of the release. Of course, if you compare a USA pressing to a UK pressing, all bets are off as to how the cutting conditions may have compared. And you can't compare the sound of the single to the sound of an "Extended Play" or EP which were especially popular as 45s in europe. To extend the playing time of an EP, the recording level is lowered by several dB, but especially the bass is rolled off to conserve "real estate" usage on the record side and allow two songs to occupy the space normally used up by only one song in the single version.

I've always been told by record dealers that only Elvis 78's on Sun are worth anything and when I've seen the dealers selling Elvis on RCA for as little as £5 each, i've got no reason to question it

I personally never understood the mystique of Presley. I was always a Holly fan but I suppose the visual allure of Presley was more appealing to the female audience. I think had Holly lived, he would have been as large as say Phil Spector because he had the innate knack of arranging. When you listen to the "apartment tapes," you hear pure Holly and his Gibson. Norman Petty took those tapes and arranged them to what HE thought they should sound like and I doubt that Holly would have gone in the same direction. I'll post some of the NY tapes raw and Petty's versions and let you decide.

Amberola, you took the words right out of my mouth.

Had Holly lived, he would have been a huge star. He had more talent in his little finger than Elvis had in his entire body. Elvis could sing, but that was about it. Holly wrote his own songs, played a number of instruments, produced, arranged and recorded his own work. He was a decade ahead of his time and was a MAJOR influence on the Beatles (named after Buddy's band The Crickets) and The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan and countless others.

Compare that to say the UK artists who copied Presley.....Cliff Richard.....uugghhh, I rest my case!

Rave on!

and if Buddy Holly lived I would be sketptical that the British Invasion, i.e.e the beatles and the rolling stones, would have had the impact that it had at least here in America.

Rick

Steve wrote: I have all the dubbed recordings (Hansen and Petty versions) so I'm looking forward to hearing a decent copy of the undubbed "Apartment Tapes".

Rave on!

Steve, you said things I deigned not to say because of Presley's stature here. You're spot on about Holley's ability to write and arrange songs. After all, he proved to the big execs that 4 guys (with Nicki Sullivan) could sound as good as a whole orchestra! Back in the day (1970s) I belonged to the Buddy Holly Memorial Society when Bill Griggs ran it out of his Weathersfield, CT home and had the good fortune to meet J.I. Allison, Joe Mauldin, and Maria Eleana, Buddy's wife at the time of his death. I've posted over in the music section Buddy's original recording of "Learning The Game" done on his wire recorder. I also have the the five other songs he recorded during the session. All were eventually released with Norman Petty's arrangement.
Enjoy as only a Holley addict could!!!

Steve wrote: Anyway, I'm still awaiting the "Down The Line" CD release over here.
Rave on!

I also have an undubbed unreleased version of "Down the Line" recorded in '54 if you are interested.

Every day is a Holley-day!

Amberola

Thanks for the files!

I have actually got on my hard-drive all 17 songs from the Apartment in MP3 format which I downloaded from a website created by a fan who took some time to track all the songs down! I thought that was quite generous of him too. The DTL CD does not contain everything from any period of Holly's recording but there are bootleg or questionably "legal" releases on other labels that do.

There is a company called Rollercoaster Records which produced the "Ohh Annie" CD which contains EVERY known 1956 recording including the famed "Garage Tapes" (all undubbed). Also a Spanish company (El Toro?) have produced a CD called "Gotta Roll: the Early Years" that contains every Buddy & Bob recording (undubbed) apart from the 4 Nesman demos. They are both available on Amazon.

So alongside the DTL CD, the above two CD's allow a collector to have every previously dubbed record now on CD, undubbed!

My comparison with Elvis might have seemed inappropriately harsh and I didn't intend it to be so but I was just trying to emphasise (clumsily) that Holly had something which not everyone recognised at the time.