For the next quarter century, despite the appearance of many turntables that boasted advances in one area or another, Technics were the industry standard. They could also handle a new concept that had entered turntable culture – scratching - creatively utilizing the noise made when a record was swiftly moved back and forth at speed. They were an improvement on the original 1200s, built to absorb more bounce, with a faster start-up speed and a pitch control fader. DJs from Paradise Garage proto-house original Larry Levan to hip hop’s Bronx inventor, Kool Herc, initially stuck with expensive, high-end Thorens equipment but in 1979 Technics 1200MK2s arrived, advertised as “tough enough to take the disco beat - and accurate enough to keep it,” and specifically geared towards clubland. Technics decks were tough, powerfully-motored and had accurate timing gauges. Technics SL-1100 and SL-1200 turntables, from 19, respectively, were designed for home use but the latter gained purchase in the blossoming US disco scene, and later in the hip hop community (alongside the 12” single). In the north of England mobile “disc jockeys” such as Bertrand Thorpe, Ron Diggins and Jimmy Savile (yes, that one, unfortunately) premiered the idea of public dances with no band but music instead provided by cutting between two turntables on an amplified sound system. The result of his labours, the 33.3 RPM 12” album on a plastic compound called vinylite (or ‘vinyl’) rather than shellac, debuted in 1948, while rival company RCA Victor jumped in with the alternative 45 RPM 7” disc the following year.īoth became standard speeds and sizes, for albums and singles, respectively, but three speed record-players (including the 78 RPM option) remained popular for a couple more decades, as did mechanized systems that changed records automatically on long central stacking spindles. Alongside this he introduced the lightweight tone arm and sapphire needle to turntables. Peter Goldmark, head of research at CBS-Columbia in the US, worked on 33.3 RPM 12” records with microgrooves that offered much better sound quality. The Royal Navy had invented wider frequency recording to track submarines, and 16” 33 RPM ‘V-Discs’ were a step closer to records. Technological innovations during World War II led to a leap forward.
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