Who Started this Place? History?

[JohnRoberts]

I've been here long enough to see a lot of good contributors move on (for different reasons, some RIP) and many new ones join us.

The political discussions here used to be a lot more like the rest of the WWW (nasty and personal), these days it is a model for internet discourse (IMO).

Thanks again to Ethan for keeping the lights on...

JR

 

[bluebird]

Jakob's 1176 and SSL dissections is what pulled me into Tech Talk way back when.  My first project was the 1176 with Lundahl output. I etched my own boards. There was no black market back then!

And whats really crazy is GroupDIY made it possible for me to transition from musician to studio tech and actually make a living ;D

 

[scott2000]

I've been here long enough to see a lot of good contributors move on (for different reasons, some RIP) and many new ones join us.

The political discussions here used to be a lot more like the rest of the WWW (nasty and personal), these days it is a model for internet discourse (IMO).

Thanks again to Ethan for keeping the lights on...

JR

I  appreciate your insights, knowledge and experience JR.....

I am a moth to the flame.......sometimes it's that dang yellow bulb though.......

Ok that sounds weird but you get the point......

This forum is Great......

Thanks!

 

[fum]

I was there, back in the day, and pretty strongly objected to what amounted to holding our content ransom.

The forum owner was being pretty unreasonable/unhinged.  I ended up writing some software to archive the content for fear of losing it.

I remember getting a message from CJ about the new forum, and the plug was pulled on the Tech Talk content, and GroupDIY was born.

The tone of this forum is largely the same as the old Tech Talk, so you can imagine how the forum owner would have had to behave to piss off this crowd.  It was pretty surreal.

$.02

 

[Phrazemaster]

I was there, back in the day, and pretty strongly objected to what amounted to holding our content ransom.

The forum owner was being pretty unreasonable/unhinged.  I ended up writing some software to archive the content for fear of losing it.

I remember getting a message from CJ about the new forum, and the plug was pulled on the Tech Talk content, and GroupDIY was born.

The tone of this forum is largely the same as the old Tech Talk, so you can imagine how the forum owner would have had to behave to piss off this crowd.  It was pretty surreal.

$.02

Wow! What a shame the previous owner felt he needed to basically steal everyone’s content. So glad we have this place!

 

[JohnRoberts]

Wow! What a shame the previous owner felt he needed to basically steal everyone’s content. So glad we have this place!

Some of those who left were because of such conflicts.

It seems a little silly to post stuff on the WWW and expect people to not copy it.  :

Even sillier to argue about copies of copies... Many clones are of products that copied even older designs.

JR

 

[fum]

Wow! What a shame the previous owner felt he needed to basically steal everyone’s content.

It wasn't steal per se, it was more like what recently happened with PhotoBucket( which has crushed most online forums, rendering many many threads no longer useful), only he ended up taking all of the forum threads/discussions off line, specific to Tech Talk.

As to people leaving the forum, some naturally grow out of participation ( once I started a company, I found I could no longer participate in the same way), some go down in flames over perceived or actual harm, some just decide they are too wrapped up in something, and need a break, or move on to other things.

I've certainly grown a bunch from participating in this forum, and appreciate all who have chosen to participate over the years.

I still do a lot of DIY audio, in addition to the design work and ribbon mic work that has grown through the years.  Interaction on this forum helped build a good foundation for future efforts.  Everybody starts somewhere. 

ju

 

[Mbira]

If I recall correctly-didn't he want to put everything behind a paywall or have us all pay money or something because of how much server space we were using? 

 

[CJ]

Consternation was growing on a daily basis at record .org. The originator was suffering from NPD.  Tech Talk was by far the best part of record.org . Big plans were being spewed forth by  the NPD guy, New rooms were being added on a daily basis, violation of the "if it ant't broke, don't fix it" rule was in full effect,

one day i came to work with a vicious hangover , and was not in the mood for any type of disturbance, be it online or otherwise. In a fit of anger, i remember posting something while still reeling from the effects of last nights libations, (i was still  kind of drunk) like "the train is leaving the station, and your not on it" on the record org forum, directed at the owner. little did he know that i had no clue as to where the train was going. i guess i had plans of starting a new forum somewhere which was totally beyond my capabilities at the time, then and now. as destiny would have it, at the exact same moment that i made that post, i got a private PM from Ethan saying that he had the chops to pull it off, so the insurrection was on.

Fum must have sensed the urgency of that meltdown coming to a head, and thus, started to download tech talk, lock stock and barrel, a few minutes later, i got a PM from PRR , something to the effect of "Don't go off half cocked" ie; it would be nice to have a new place to go before you get kicked out of the old place, which was highly logical and of course, the right way to handle things, but it was too late, and i was too drunk to care. the record org guy noticed his download light blinking furiously and proceeded  to lock down the whole TT forum, but the damage had been done. Ethan had a new place up and running in a manner of minutes, and we managed to stay in touch with some long time members via email that was obtained by contact at the forum.  then a chain reaction started in which as more and more people found out what was going down, they contacted friends who contacted friends and we got just about everybody back , there were a few people who took longer to find the place as they had no email contacts with other members, but after a while even they found the place with the help of a search engine.

if you want to see the order of defection,  simply click on the "Members" button, (top of page)and click on "Date Registered". You can see that many people made the jump on the wonderful June day in 2004 and we could not be more happy.

so the whole thing, from the hangover to the new forum, and the downloading of the old material, to the notification of members, all happened very fast. and it turned out that there were other members who had downloaded schematics and other goodies. Rafafredd is said to have downloaded the entire Tech Talk forum, and so maybe some old stuff will pop up someday.

as far as old members, many things happened over the years, dot com crisis, housing crisis, financial crisis, 911, some people took what they learned here and made it into a  private business, some people got old and probably lost interest in music,  some people changed their handle, Kev is still around, he is into boogie boarding in Australia, he got a little burned out on audio, as it was also what he was doing for a living, and he also changed jobs.

the record org guy found us and posted that we were sure to die a slow death, but we locked him out and the place has been thriving ever since.     

fyi-Keruffle: a disturbance or commotion typically caused by a dispute or conflict...

PM from Kev a while back, who we all miss so much:  :-[

"Hi,

back from many hours driving .... no lucky
the promised swell never happened or it is travelling up the coast and not turning in.
drove to many spots to find something but ... fail.

how am I ?
I'm ok I guess
fast track a bunch of info
Mum and Dad are still about and Dad turned 86 a month ago - that's all great
Work has been very light but I have had a couple of reliable sport events for Channel 7 but recently my connecting to them has been reducing as people get made redundant and leave the industry.  not so good
I have a good project right now ... good!!!
but it is in Sydney and away from home away from mum and dad ... dad is getting very frail .... not so good
bank account does go up ... good
7 days a week and around 55 hours so no surfing ... bad !!!
Surfing ... possibly my best comp results year as I am Australian A Grade Champ ... WOW ???

I should stress that surfing for me is Kneeboard Surfing and it is a very small community and it is just AGrade ... I'm really an Open Grade regular so let's not get too excited.
I do find it a little weird that there is a corner of my house that seems to be collecting trophies.  I just don't see myself as a good surfer and constantly get frustrated with not getting where I want to be on a wave.

The Job.
it's two full size double expander trailers as OB trucks for NEP Aust. Google them and you may see OB11 or 12 .... we are building 13 and 14. most of my time seems to be in 14.

back home to Melbourne next week for xmas and new year ... then I return here to Sydney.  possibly another 3 months.

coffee break ... back soon

Kev"

 

[PRR]

> at record .org

For the "record", record.org is a totally different thing (currently un-used?).

I gave the domain in my post page 1 and don't care to repeat it. Let bygones be bye-bye-gone and forgotten.

 

[Tubetec]

History is history ,its past ,we cant change it ,but if we forget it, what stops us from repeating it ?ditch past lessons learned it comes back and haunts us again

 

[benb]

Consternation was growing on a daily basis at record .org. The originator was suffering from NPD.
...
if you want to see the order of defection,  simply click on the "Members" button, (top of page)and click on "Date Registered". You can see that many people made the jump on the wonderful June day in 2004 and we could not be more happy.

I'm on the second page of signups. I recall the subforum going down but not how I heard about the new location (which as already mentioned would have been Prodigy Pro back then). Don't know why I never posted back then, but I vaguely remember lurking. My online interests were changing (mainly, I got involved with a big writers forum), so that's how I eventually drifted away.

 

[kvintus]

Yes, I was banned too...

I remember my first small baby steps at the old place with Kev and TK and Jakob helping me build my first preamps and compressors. I owe you all so much.

I also remember how devastated and empty I felt the few days/weeks between tech-talk disappearing and when I found my way to this new place.

Don't forget to support Ethan and the forum. During many periods of my life this has been lika a second home to me.

/Anders

 

[Kev]

GroupDIY was born as a side project out of the TechTalk forum

it was so much fun … and controversial.
the Sunday night newsletter was a chore at times and often did set the tone for the week.
there was a mission statement and for the most part things did remain on track and there were times some of the crew went their own way , so very entertaining.

There came a time that seemed right to let it fly on its own.
Ethan did the hard work and the Friends of GroupDIY followed.
Here it is , as solid as ever.

 

[scott2000]

woah... I thought the waybackmachine was the only way to get a glimpse of the legendary Kev...

 

[iomegaman]

Been here since the mid 2000's or so...started by finding Mnats1176 and a Green Pre, both of which I still have...

I initially got involved here to learn, my son-in-law had a band in San Diego so we opened a studio and it got kind of expensive to feed it with quality gear...I was up in the mountains near flagstaff so winter nights I would wander thru the prodigy-to-groupDIY forum and try to learn...

Ended up buying 2 of Mnats 1176 boards for a christmas project and Brandon and I made them together...he got hooked and started Mohog Audio and made the revision F is bread and butter...I think he did almost $100k out of his garage...I moved on to tubes and API's and Neves and its how I meditate now...all from reading this forum...Brandon got bored and frustrated because people had no idea how to actually use an 1176 and he got tired of babysitting his creation and stopped building gear...he makes Kitana's now...same devotion to the art and science its just swords instead of compressors.

I've never dipped to much into the controversy here since I kinda got cured of that from ProSoundWeb "The Basement" at Mixermans Forum and the Mixerman vs Mark Herman, vs GS vs Massenburg forum wars...I was DEEPLY involved in that mess and Erics secret forum where he ran everything from the shadows and ended up close to a lawsuit...

I still pop in at Tapeop for reference and Gearsluts mainly to argue with synth guys on which EQ is the best...and have been beta testing for a handful of plugin makers lately...digital is really close these days...but I still am drawn to resurrect those old tube/tape/transformer artifacts that seem to seek me out and thats why I need a place like this.
Invaluable history and resource mainly in the folks that remain...who have my utmost respect.

 

[iomegaman]

I will add this one thought about the history of this place...

I think it occupies a very rare but essential evolutionary niche...it is a harbor of information where academics and autodidacts can mingle and exchange discourse with equality and a somewhat "court-room" model of verification that allows for disagreement and personality to flourish without a lot of distracting drama...which is incredibly rare these days.

I say "evolutionary" because I think the future of our species requires that all empires get softened by the outliers...including academic and anarchist models alike.

I have made incredibly dumb posts here as I learned, and have been met with the appropriate "you missed the obvious" responses but there was always an element of humility behind the answer that allowed me to learn without shame...

I don't find this atmosphere very common in the digital multiverse...but I think it is essential.

Hopefully younger more adept minds will find a home here, it'd be a shame to become obsolete because "disposable" mindsets prevailed.

 

[Michael Tibes]

I guess it can't be imagined from todays perspective how different the world was when techtalk started to grow. Schematics were incredibly hard to get by, pcbs were often self etched, DIY parts didn't exist, in Germany one had to have a registered business to be supplied by better parts vendors, even trafos were hard to buy - hence the daisy chaining of power transformers in the gyraf tube projects, which were the first serious DIY studio equipment I can remember. Endless trials and discussions about the possible repurpusing of input transformers for the output of the 1176 projects - noone made that part back then. Now several industries evolved from this, offering DIY parts and also clones af all kind of gear. And schematics of pretty much everything are available on the net. There were only very few people with real technical knowledge back then and they were spread all over the world - then people started to put together the bits and pieces over the net and made it public knowledge. What a development! The internet has democratized the studio world.

 

[pucho812]

I don’t know when it exactly started but I found it shortly after. Back then I was a solder monkey and recording engineer. I could make a record and hold the iron so I wouldn’t burn myself. It grew as did I. It evolved as did I. I have seen the changes. Some were good, some not so good but at the end of the day it’s how we got to what is current. It’s our thing. What you choose to do with it is what makes or breaks it.

I remember the days when diy was truely diy. You couldn’t buy kits or boards. You really had to do leg work to make a project happen. All that has changed. I wouldn’t say I miss those days but it did a good job of keeping the riffraff to a minimum and it kept companies from clones. I don’t miss the old days but I do miss aspects of it. I remember aes dinners with members where we ventured into places that were locals only. I remember the spirit of exploration. A lot of that has gone away in favor of the paint by numbers crowd. A lot of companies turned our original diy projects into their business model.
I never thought I would see so many companies who would do such things.
The pro audio market place is nothing more than riddled with clones and companies recycling their ip.
It’s a strange time to be around.

 

[fallout]

The camaraderie back in the day was really cool.

Crazy to think how young I was too! haha