jason from volo wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:04 am Why is 78 RPM hardly used any more on new records?

Probably the biggest reason is the lack of turntables that can play 78 RPM. The speed was out of fashion for too long.

WeStartToDrift wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 7:08 pm

benadrian wrote: Tue Jul 27, 2021 12:15 pm

WeStartToDrift wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 2:02 pm Why do people put Bigsbys on Jazzmasters?

I feel like this is more of a WTF statement than a question, but I'll attempt to answer.
I think it comes from the trend a while back to use tune-o-matic and stop tailpieces on offset style guitars. A certain type of player really liked that setup.
Now, once you have any guitar with a stop tailpiece, putting a Vibramate kit on it to add a Bigsby is pretty much a piece of cake.
Then Fender released a series of JMs with Bigsbys screwed in. And people bought them! I think a lot of offset fans want to collect a lot of variations.

When it comes to off brands, for a long time a generic Bigsby was easier to find than a generic Jag/Jazz vibrato. So when a cheapo company was trying to recreate the feel of an offset guitar, they just clamped on a no name bigsby vibrato because it was the cheapest vibrato option.

that's my $0.02

Fair enough, it just blew my mind that Fender made one.

Fun fact! I just picked one of these JMs up a few weeks ago - and it feels pretty rad. I've owned (and sold) a number of Jazzmasters over the years and this one's pretty different, but the JM body shape with the Bigsby is a pretty nice combo.

Pickups are waaaaaaay too bright/ice pick-y though, so I'll probably swap those out if this winds up being a "keeper."

four_oclocker_2.2 wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:26 am Pickups are waaaaaaay too bright/ice pick-y though, so I'll probably swap those out if this winds up being a "keeper."

You might try changing the pots. Standard JM wiring uses 1 Meg pots and I find them to be abnormally bright. Changing them out for 250k pots really helps to balance them out.

^ Yeah, I think that's half of the magic in the rhythm circuit on the traditional ones. Those roller knobs are just 250k pots as an alternative to the 1meg ones. I wonder if 500k would create a noticeable difference. After installing nicer pickups in mine I feel like it's way better, but I'm still tempted to roll back the tone knob a bit when I'm on the bridge pickup which is something I never do when I'm playing a humbucker guitar.

jason from volo wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:04 am Potentially dumb question that I couldn't easily find the answer to on Google:

Why is 78 RPM hardly used any more on new records? Is it only because it has fallen out of fashion due to the minimal amount of music that can fit on one side of a 12" record at that speed?

It would seem to (potentially) be able to provide a better reproduction of a recording vs. 33 1/3 or 45 RPM.

(Was just thinking about some of the 12" singles I have. Some of them are 33 1/3 RPM, let alone at 45 RPM. They probably could have been pressed at 78 RPM.)

78 RPM records used a larger stylus radius of 3 mils, as opposed to the 1 mil stylus that was standard for LP "microgroove" records (and in higher-quality cartridges is often .7 mil or less). This larger stylus size means that there is less groove density available (and less playing time), but also that the greater contact area of the larger stylus and deeper groove produces more noise.

Aside from that, if you were to press vinyl microgroove records to play at 78 RPM you might encounter issues with both noise and wear, due to the higher speed of the 1 mil stylus in the groove, which will produce a great deal more heat and thus wear faster. (I remember reading somewhere the the stylus contact points on an LP record will heat up to a few hundred degrees F or more at the point of contact with the groove).

There's also the issue of tracking a microgroove stylus at the higher speed. Since any stylus has a limited ability to track the groove velocity (amplitude, or back-and-forth sideways movement - perpendicular to the groove itself), versus the angular velocity (the RPM), and the groove velocity is higher because the groove wobbles back and forth (picture the length of a piece of yarn that is arranged as a sinusoid versus the length of a string that is pulled taut, and now think of the length of string that is made up of even bigger sinusoids and how much longer it is, and thus how much further the stylus needs to travel in the same amount of time without jumping out of the groove due to its own inertia), the amount of gain (amplitude) that can be achieved at higher tracking velocities is limited. So even though you might have more horizontal "resolution" because your angular velocity is 78 RPM instead of 33-1/3 RPM, the higher tracking velocity limits the amplitude of the groove and thus will result in poorer signal-to-noise performance.

jason from volo wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 12:17 pm

Geiginni wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 12:00 pm (really good insight on 78 RPM)

Awesome explanation. Thank you!

You're very welcome!

Let me know if you, or any other FMs, would be interested in a thread or two about classical music. I used to be the resident classical music nerd here and I love to explain, discuss, and make recommendations, if anyone is interested in the topic.

jason from volo wrote:

Geiginni wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 12:28 pm Let me know if you, or any other FMs, would be interested in a thread or two about classical music.

I'd be happy to tune into that thread

+1

Could we talk about 'Switched-On Bach'?
Been fascinated by Walter Carlos recently.
I know nothing about classical music.

^ Into this. I often think about how much deeper the era of stuff that I'm into probably goes: Debussy, Ravel, Satie etc.

Teacher's Pet wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 2:08 pm

jason from volo wrote:

Geiginni wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 12:28 pm Let me know if you, or any other FMs, would be interested in a thread or two about classical music.

I'd be happy to tune into that thread

+1

Could we talk about 'Switched-On Bach'?
Been fascinated by Walter Carlos recently.
I know nothing about classical music.

Yes!!! Revive it!

losthighway wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 11:48 am ^ Yeah, I think that's half of the magic in the rhythm circuit on the traditional ones. Those roller knobs are just 250k pots as an alternative to the 1meg ones. I wonder if 500k would create a noticeable difference. After installing nicer pickups in mine I feel like it's way better, but I'm still tempted to roll back the tone knob a bit when I'm on the bridge pickup which is something I never do when I'm playing a humbucker guitar.

I 'm coming here to second all of this. I always put 250k pots in Jazzmasters and MUCH prefer it.
The original rhythm circuit is weird. It has a 1M volume control, but a 50k tone control, so even at max position it's as if the tone is rolled down to maybe 3-5 on the traditional tone knob.
https://offset.guitars/the-goodies/schematics/

FYI, I have filtertron style pickups (with 500k pots) on my Jazzmaster right now, and it's pretty fantastic for me.