[Jukebox-list] RE: Classical Records on a Juke ???

[David Breneman]

--- Steve Wahl <steve at pro-ns.net> wrote:

> I know RCA tried hard, but I don't think the short playing time of
> 45's works too well for this particular genre.

RCA studied the length of classical selections in the
"Music That America Loves Best" section of RCA Victor's
catalog.  This was "evergreen" classical material that
had remained in the catalog for a long time do to its
popularity.  They found that 70% of this classical material
was less than 5 minutes long, the capacity of one side of
a 12" 78.  Their conclusion was "...that undue weight may,
at times, have been given to the importance of long playing
time" (a conclusion obviously not shared by Columbia). The
cycle time of RCA Victor's 45 changer was one revolution
of the turntable, or less than 1-1/2 second.  They felt that
the record could be changed within the pause between two
movements of a longer classical selection without being
intrusive to the flow of the music.

> I'm guessing that past RCA's initial push of 45s that
> started sometime around 1949, not much classical was pressed on 45.
> If that's true, it seems likely to me the sides would be lined up
> that way, aimed at RCA's record changer.

Actually, RCA Victor made a big push with classical music
with the introduction of the 45.  The reason was the increase
in the fidelity, which even surpassed all but the outer
grooves of Columbia's 12" LP (due to a whole lot of 
groove dynamics research RCA had done on record rotational
velocity versus groove width and travel).  Just as with
the introduction of the CD, the introduction of both
the 45 and the LP brought along with it a renewed interest
in classical music.

> As found in "linear" AMIs (non-200 select G's and earlier), and I
> believe many/most Seeburgs, A mech that picks up the A sides while
> moving from left to right and picks up B sides while moving from
> right
> to left works for this if you select only one set at a time. 

Drop changer sets will work properly at the ends of a "linear"
AMI record rack, so you're limited to two.  One nice feature
of the Seeburg M100-A, which did not make it to the B and
beyond, was that it played all records in sequence.
Unfortunately, it played the side to the right first, so
you had to arrange your title strips with "side one" on
the bottom and "side two" on the top.


David Breneman         david_breneman at yahoo.com


 
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