Christmas 1974

[ruffrecords]

As you probably know, I am convalescing after nasty bout of covid induced pneumonia so I have been reading more groupDIY threads than I usually do. One thread was discussing PSRR where it was noted that the Neve single ended output stage has a very poor PSRR. I noted that David Rees (a designer at Neve at the time), had later criticised the design and offered an improved version with much better PSRR. I rate David as a designer so I thought I would do some research on him. Unfortunately there seems to be very little out there. However, one link led to the Christmas 1974 edition of Studio Sound:

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/A...ive-Studio-Sound/70s/Studio-Sound-1974-12.pdf

This was interesting to me because it was 6 months after I started at Neve and about 18 months after I got married. I spent a pleasant couple of hours browsing through all the ads and then I came across a main article about The Who's new Ramport Studios complete with pics of the famous Helios desk. Little did I know at the time that a year later I would meet Pete Townsend and then design the Neve replacement for the Helios.

So what were you doing at Christmas 1974 and what kind of future did it lead to?

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

As you probably know, I am convalescing after nasty bout of covid induced pneumonia so I have been reading more groupDIY threads than I usually do.

Get better faster.... Be well.

So what were you doing at Christmas 1974 and what kind of future did it lead to?

Cheers

Ian

By 1974 I was already out of the army (drafted) for a few years and working at CRDG (Cambridge Research and Development Group) in Westport, CT. as their chief electronic technician. I was working on the VSC (Variable Speech Control) project. VSC was a pitch shifter technique based on clocking BBD analog shift registers with a ramped clock. The pitch shifter allowed blind people to speed up talking book tape recordings and listen to them faster, but with the pitch restored back down to normal for good intelligibility. Shortly after that I did some consulting (designed a consumer hifi audio delay for Bozak), and started my kit business (Phoenix Systems). My first audio kit a BBD analog delay in 1976 was the cover article for Popular Electronics.

JR

PS: The only Who member I ever met personally was John Entwistle, while he was taking a cigarette break outside the Peavey Headquarters building, sometime in the late 1990s while he was touring as a single act (?), and using some Peavey bass gear. I did see the Who perform live as the opening act for the Doors in the 1960s.

 

[fazer]

I’m glad your doing better Ian.

I had changed majors from chemistry to electrical and electronics in the spring of 74. And was busy with 18 hour quarters and started drinking coffee for the first time to get through the program. I remember seeing a Return to Forever concert , (Chick Corey’s band) in a small banquet room at a shopping center and was completely blown away with talent of these fusion musicians. Didn’t have much time for anything but classes during those days and graduated in December of 1975. It was a very dedicated couple of years. I didn’t start reading Studio sound until 76 when I got a job as chief maintenance engineer at a studio with a Neve 8036 and studer tape machines and thought I hit the big time.

 

[pucho812]

Christmas 1974, I wasn’t even in my dad’s testicals as a swimmer yet.
It would take some 3 years before that happened as I was released from vaginal prison at the top of 1978.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

IIRC, Christmas of '74 was a good one. I got a basic HO scale model train set that year. 3rd grade was ok.

 

[living sounds]

As you probably know, I am convalescing after nasty bout of covid induced pneumonia so I have been reading more groupDIY threads than I usually do.

Hope you get better soon!

BTW, I would encourage everyone to look into the benefits of supplementing Taurine. It costs next to nothing in bulk and improves almost every measure affected by aging and illness, with no known side effects. Long-term human trials will take decades, but in all shorter term human trials as well as long-term animal trials it made things better (healthier, live longer, less inflammation, less fluid retention, fat loss, muscle and bone retention etc.).

 

[JohnRoberts]

Hope you get better soon!

BTW, I would encourage everyone to look into the benefits of supplementing Taurine. It costs next to nothing in bulk and improves almost every measure affected by aging and illness, with no known side effects. Long-term human trials will take decades, but in all shorter term human trials as well as long-term animal trials it made things better (healthier, live longer, less inflammation, less fluid retention, fat loss, muscle and bone retention etc.).

“Vegans and vegetarians consume a much lower quantity of taurine when compared to people who eat meat,” Zumpano notes, “so they do tend to have lower taurine levels.” But she’s quick to remind that that’s really only a problem if somebody is critically ill and needs extra immune support.
===
Zumpano explains that taurine works as a cytochrome P-450 enzyme inhibitor.

“That means that taurine interferes with medications that rely on this enzyme to metabolize drugs,” she clarifies. And the medications in question are pretty darned important — we’re talking about antidepressants, antiseizure drugs, blood thinners (anticoagulants) and statins.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/taurine

Our bodies make taurine as needed, but it is a useful amino acid commonly used in energy drinks.

JR

 

[fallout]

I was only a couple of months old during Christmas '74. Can't say I remember much about It but I've seen pics!

 

[Rob Flinn]

I'm liking the ad bottom right on page 21 of that Studio Sound. It reminds me of when my Basset Hound "Maurice" was mixing a film soundtrack on a Neve DFC a few years back.

 

[living sounds]

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/taurine

Our bodies make taurine as needed, but it is a useful amino acid commonly used in energy drinks.

JR

It makes it progressively less the more we age. Do a little more googling if you want to find out.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It makes it progressively less the more we age. Do a little more googling if you want to find out.

I don't use google but I did search Taurine elsewhere, before I posted. Our body makes less of many things the older we get. In addition to that, we absorb less vitamins and nutrients from our diet.

As I said Taurine is an Amino acid our body generally makes as needed. There have been several studies about excessive Taurine intake related to energy drink abuse, but those were not conclusive as those energy drinks had more than just Taurine in them.

I get a full blood panel (test) run every year with my annual physical to confirm healthy liver and kidney function. Years ago we discovered low thyroid output so I have been supplementing with synthetic thyroid hormone for years.

My blood tests do not even check for taurine. My diet seems sufficiently rich in multiple sources of Taurine. Is low Taurine why I feel old? I thought it was because I am old.

JR

 

[living sounds]

This is just the one study that made headlines last year:

https://www.columbiadoctors.org/news/taurine-may-be-key-longer-and-healthier-life

But if you look for more you find that in smaller scale human and animal studies it caused a wide range of positive changes, from improved ability of skin to deal with UV radiation to reduction of hyptertension and atherosclerosis. Ignore it at your own peril.

It has helped me to loose body fat / maintain weight, you're simply not as hungry if you supplement it.

 

[JohnRoberts]

This is just the one study that made headlines last year:

https://www.columbiadoctors.org/news/taurine-may-be-key-longer-and-healthier-life

But if you look for more you find that in smaller scale human and animal studies it caused a wide range of positive changes, from improved ability of skin to deal with UV radiation to reduction of hyptertension and atherosclerosis. Ignore it at your own peril.

It has helped me to loose body fat / maintain weight, you're simply not as hungry if you supplement it.

Thank you, I will ASSume your advice is well intentioned.

Back while working at Peavey last century I wrote a Health/Diet advice column**** for an internal Peavey employee newsletter. I typically discussed the current diet/health news (fads?) du jour, which alternately included reports like coffee is good for us, followed by coffee is bad for us.

Regarding Amino acids, I described them as the bricks and mortar building blocks that our body is made from. Then I talked about the difference between essential amino acids and non-essential. Of the 21 amino acids there are 9 that our bodies can not synthesize from scratch so they must be supplied by our diet (valine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, threonine, histidine, and lysine.) Note that Taurine is not on that list of essential amino acids.

The diet industry is rampant with unsubstantiated weight loss claims. Perhaps amusing I have an old coffee table book called "the Dictionary of misinformation"(C 1986). I am rereading it (while on the porcelain throne in the morning). A couple weeks ago I saw their statement that there is no such thing as an effective weight loss drug/supplement. Of course this book was published before the GLP-1 antagonists were developed.

Nutrition matters and I eat several regular meals that contain Taurine.

JR

****I got into a little debate with the company nurse when she complained about my column that shared some obscure positive aspects of consuming alcohol (like increasing HDL, good cholesterol). I didn't overtly promote drinking but offered some perspective on the blanket prohibition/criticisms.

 

[living sounds]

Thank you, I will ASSume your advice is well intentioned.

Back while working at Peavey last century I wrote a Health/Diet advice column**** for an internal Peavey employee newsletter. I typically discussed the current diet/health news (fads?) du jour, which alternately included reports like coffee is good for us, followed by coffee is bad for us.

Regarding Amino acids, I described them as the bricks and mortar building blocks that our body is made from. Then I talked about the difference between essential amino acids and non-essential. Of the 21 amino acids there are 9 that our bodies can not synthesize from scratch so they must be supplied by our diet (valine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, threonine, histidine, and lysine.) Note that Taurine is not on that list of essential amino acids.

The diet industry is rampant with unsubstantiated weight loss claims. Perhaps amusing I have an old coffee table book called "the Dictionary of misinformation"(C 1986). I am rereading it (while on the porcelain throne in the morning). A couple weeks ago I saw their statement that there is no such thing as an effective weight loss drug/supplement. Of course this book was published before the GLP-1 antagonists were developed.

Nutrition matters and I eat several regular meals that contain Taurine.

JR

****I got into a little debate with the company nurse when she complained about my column that shared some obscure positive aspects of consuming alcohol (like increasing HDL, good cholesterol). I didn't overtly promote drinking but offered some perspective on the blanket prohibition/criticisms.

I don't think the diet industry has really caught on to it yet. Most intake suggestions also aim too low. It seems pretty clear from the studies that there is a dose-response correlation. This also means you won't get the amounts necessary to have the studied results from nutritional intake only, since the amounts of taurine in our food source is way too low for it. As you wrote, it's a non-essential amino acid, so the body can make it by itself (probably for this reason from an evolutionary perspective), but it makes it in smaller and smaller quantities the less we excercise and the older we get. Simply supplying more to an aging and/or sedentary body seems to make it behave more like a younger/active one.

BTW, coffee is very much in the "good for you" camp now. Not caffeeine, but other substances.

Alcohol seems to be unequivocally bad, the favourable outcomes in studies from low alcohol vs. no alcohol stemmed from dry alcoholics and other people who couldn't drink for health reasons. There might be a little advantage to drinking because of the stress release and socializing, but the substance itself unfortunately is not recommended at any dose. There are alternatives in the making, quite similar to the Star Trek synthehol drink, based on benzodiazepines I think. No hangover. Let's wait and see.

In the meantime, I would suggest looking into taurine studies. This is not medical advice, BTW.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Meanwhile...Christmas 1974 (not Taurine) was the subject of this thread.

 

[boji]

Christmas '74? Twas a twinkle in St. Nick's eye, I was.