Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Oh, God. If UO is the standard for hipness, we are a trite culture. Personally, I never saw so much kitsch-masquerading-as-trendy **** in my life, and it gets worse all the time.

But vinyl is where the interest is among audiophiles these days.

Actually, I don't think many believe UO to be hip. Their stock is down 25% in the past month or two.

But if someone's trying to sell related vinyl items to the younger masses, that's not a bad thing is it?

I suppose not, at least on paper...it has the potential to show them that an iPod and earbuds are not the end-all in fidelity!

However, the reason that UO is selling turntables (which? new or old?) has nothing to do with love of music or promotion of better fidelity. It has everything to do with hipdom and profits.

The most probable result we can expect is ****** turntables playing scratchy records through mediocre systems, and once the hipness wears off, a return to earbuds with a negative overall effect on the efficacy of viny amid the claims made for it.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but attention spans among "Y"ers are not particularly long, in general...

Right now that's UOs problem. They're trying to be hip but it's not working on a scale large enough to keep them from slashing prices and profits.

Just as Xers, and later Yers, emerged with attention spans that are shorter, LPs faded and CDs took over, CDs having considerably more running time, often significantly longer songs and more of them.

No one can listen to one in its entirety in one sitting anymore, which may have been another of the LP's strengths.

CDs also being watered down with what used to be known as B sides.

Turntables at UO may bomb, with no more 20-somethings knowing what vinyl is than in years past.

I think Restoration Hardware was selling them first and you're right. They're cheap systems. Perhaps that's because they're being sold as a novelty.

The three minute song is genius. You'd think someone trying to sell music would bring it back.

Amazon.com has a lot of different ones including new Thorens, some other nice ones also. The last good Vinyl I bought was Chuck Berry, The Chess Box. It has 6 LP's in it and every song is great! I got it cheap too, at Amazon.com from one of their sellers. It was second hand but is like new, I don't think it was ever played, 30 bucks. I'm looking for the Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf Chess Boxes but they've been expensive, especially the Muddy Waters set.

There's a great, six LP boxed set of Buddy Holly as well. I'm not sure if it's in print anymore but you can get it on ebay.

wow I just played my Metallica "Kill Em All" LP and I must say I'm loving vinyl more and more...it just doesn't compare to the CD...the LP is so warm and nice sounding...and you can really hear Cliff's 4001 on the LP...his tone is rictastic! almost like Geddy's tone on The Necromancer I. Into The Darkness. I find you need to listen harder to hear Cliff on CD and it doesn't sound like a ric as much. Vinyl rules so hard! I'm gonna have to buy my CD collection on vinyl.

Cliff's Rick had a Jazz pickup in the bridge and a mudbucker in the neck for the recording and subsequent tours, Matthew. Just an interesting fact.

your preaching to the choir john...I'm a total Cliff nut...I knew about the mods he did to his ric...aperently the stock pickups were getting alot of interference and noise so the producer John Zazula put some pickups he had laying around in (as well as fixed some of the rest of the band's gear). Cliff liked the new pickups so he kept them.

If you ask me, that's what's been wrong with rock records the past 35 years. No interference. No mistakes. Producers modding axes to eliminate noise. No human element. Everything machine-like perfect.

And now, at live shows, processed reverb on drums making even live bands sound like the lame, overly polished albums, as if audiences will accept nothing less.

Who'd have though rock would get so conservative or that Rickenbacker basses would need 3rd party electronics? Ugh.

I totaly agree glenn...todays music is way too polished and perfect sounding that's why I tend to stick to older bands. I hate the fact that everyone is using pro tools and the like to record...it's so lifeless. And any mistakes can be fixed instantly with the pitch correcter...it's so lame. FYI about the pickups in cliff's ric...I'm pretty sure they got changed because there was something wrong with them...would have been extremly cool if he didn't have to change them and would have recorded with a stock ric.

I wonder where that 4001 is now. I hope somebody got it who has the decency to put it back to normal.

when Cliff died the band gained posession of the bass and his effects...John Zazula still has the stock pickups apperently. Apparantly the band still has the bass but nobody's playing it if they still have it.

I have a copy of Metallica's Garage Days on vinyl. There's a picture of Jason playing one of Cliff's Aria basses on the back of the cover. Too bad it wasn't his 4001.

As I was saying, about buying vinyl on ebay. I bought a "very good" plus rated disc a month back.

The seller only had 97 percent feedback, which I mistakenly didn't check.

First he sent me the wrong record, a total piece of **** I would have thrown in the trash can (bad sign.) Then he sent me the one I bought, another scratched up junker with split seamed cover.

I wrote to him yesterday about it. No reply yet. He insisted on money order payments only. I have a feeling all I'm going to get out of this is bad feedback all around.