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Nagra Stories Sound-men won’t ever tell


JBond

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Just stumbled into this forum, and wanted to share some photos of Nagras.  We serviced lots of them at Audio Services C.  I washed out a nice III that had been dunged by an elephant in Africa, and I got to wear the rig that James Camery used for 60 Minutes.  I could barely hold it up for 60 seconds, though.  Karen Roulo is working at the bench, as well as a couple of great Joes.  At a trade show, I caught Manfred, Danny, and Andy Cooper in the Nagra booth.

AHI10044.jpg

AHI10057.jpg

AHI10053.jpg

_Joe1.jpg

ManfredDanNagraBooth.jpg

AndyCooper1.jpg

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Welcome to Jwsound, glad you found us.  Great pictures, are these all older pictures or are some current pictures? I can't tell.  I would say the one with the older Cadillac is and the Nagra booth is.  But are the pictures with the repairs current? If so thats great you're still servicing Nagras.  Its scary though seeing that Nagra III about to take a shower. I wonder whatever happened to all those Nagra posters? Post more pictures if you have them.

Thanks for posting

 

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Those are all old (wonderful) pictures from the Audio Services days. I don't think any of our usual places are servicing Nagras anymore and there probably is very little call for that sort of service. I imagine any of our favorite service facilities could do Nagra service if it is needed.

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I see now I should have thought a little more before writing. I took (we serviced) but read as (we service). I guess at first glance the two pictures in the middle could look like today (people wise). I thought wow,  they have a booming Nagra service factory there,  even the girl is into it. 

But now,  after a little slap of reality from Jeff, I think I’m back to normal.  Yes of course, how can there be that many old Nagras being serviced at once in 2016? Most of them being  III’s, even an old DH speaker next to the Nagra III in the back. I guess I just wanted to believe people are still working on Nagras.
Thanks Jeff for the slap side the head, I needed it.  Now I’m back in 2017, not the 70's
 
Reminds me of this Seinfeld episode when this guy says (they're all chickens)  (Those are all old pictures). 
 
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Thanks for the replies !   All those are old photos for sure - taken with my little 110 Kodak Instamatic pocket camera or maybe my Nikormat 35mm that I finally acquired.  The caddy was the boss's - Dick Topham, best boss I ever had - in the parking lot behind the Audio Services building on Lankershim.  Another old nagra that I often serviced was the SN, the tiny little pocket-sized spy recorder.  I transferred many an SN tape to 1/4" for Beverly Johnson (Mike Hoover), and I listened to many hours of her material in the process.  The most memorable (unforgettable and comical in my mind) was an interview of an old-timer up in Alaska (documentary for Armond Hammer I believe) where they were talking about the dangers of the river currents during the melting season.  Quote from the old-timer Alaskan (probably a gold-miner guy) "There's a lot of dangerous currency in that river".   I've always thought about heading up there looking for some loose twenties.   Or Fifties... or Hundreds !

DickwithShotgun.jpg

MikeDenecke1.jpg

TennenbaumBisentz1.jpg

PaulStP_Mike1.jpg

On 1/7/2017 at 5:08 PM, Rachel Cameron said:

Great looking photos ahicomputer. Holy cow on the James Camery rig! 

Edit: And welcome!

Here is me and Jim Camery.  He was a great guy.  A couple other friends to mention:  Darrel Linkow and Frank Murphy come to mind today...

Alan_JamesCamery1.jpg

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Nostalgic in a way.  This is the place where I would hang out trying to be invisible (or appear to be very intently concentrating on something) while straining to evesdrop on conversations like the one pictured (I believe the gent in yellow is Jim Tanenbaum).  Long before the web and JWSound this sort of fly on the wall act @ ASC was a major aspect of my location sound education.  Eventually Ed Somers took pity on me and would answer my questions directly (and eventually sponsor me for membership in the CAS).  As forbiddingly intelligent as Mr Tanenbaum is, he would answer the questions of a newb if they weren't too stupid or too numerous.  Thanks dudes!

tanen.jpg

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Yes, Jim Tanenbaum on the left and Bruce Bisenz on the right. We all used to hang out at Audio Services, not always to buy anything but often just to chat with others, look at and play with the latest new toys that might have arrived. Philip is absolutely right that Audio Services, Coffey Sound and all the other usual suspects provided for us all some very valuable experiences, face to face, interactions that are sadly missing in today's world of the Internet. It's not so much that these things don't happen anymore, it's just that those sorts of interactions are less important --- most everybody would rather just punch something into Google and get volumes of results rather than seeking out a person and having a great face to face conversation.

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6 hours ago, Jeff Wexler said:

 It's not so much that these things don't happen anymore, it's just that those sorts of interactions are less important --- most everybody would rather just punch something into Google and get volumes of results rather than seeking out a person and having a great face to face conversation.

At least now with Jwsound everyone can still be in touch. Not face to face but still have the conversation. Not the same, but in many ways even better. Clearly ahicomputer's pictures brought some good memories back for you and Philip. It would've all been a distant memory or not even remembered at all If you didn't make this convenient place to connect, discuss and remember.

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Thank you, JBond, and you are so right that JWSOUND and many of the other social media sites have provided a kind of interaction never before possible, and that's a good thing! I would never have been able to look at all the amazing images of hundreds of vintage Nagras and be part of all the "Nagra Stories Sound-men won’t ever tell" if it were not for the Internet.

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By the way... present in those photos above is Dick Topham with the "shotgun" mic...   (my boss at Audio Services),   as well as Mike Riner and Paul St. Peter, all are top-notch guys I was privileged to work with at ASC, and then in the booth with the time code slates is Mike Denecke and (I'm not sure who was with him)... if anyone can jog the memories with his name it is greatly appreciated !

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  • 3 weeks later...

I was tired of trying to find a certain post or topic of mine.  I would have to click on a half dozen pages and scroll up and down to find the post I was looking for.  So for myself, I made a directory of where everything was that I posted.  I had the list on my computer's homepage now for awhile. 

Today, I thought it would be better to incorporate the list into my signature in case anyone else wanted to find something.  I hope it works.  It works for me.

 

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It's just a picture of a list.  The list shows what page number the post is on.  I use it as a quick way to find something. You have to do it manually. 

Say I want to see  "A Special gift" - it's on page 14, post 333.  You have to close out the index, go to the top or bottom of this thread, click on page 14 and scroll down to post 333.  Otherwise I would have no idea where it is.  I would just guess where it is and go page by page, post by post until I find it.  Now it narrows it down, I have something to go by. 

Since page 17 is the earliest page at the top of this thread, you have to click on page 17 then page 14,  then scroll down to post 333.

That would be great if I could have each story a clickable link to the page.  But I'm pretty sure that can't be done from a picture.  

I guess I can include the url in the index to copy and paste into the browser. That would bring you right to the page but impossible to bring you to the correct post number.  I was just happy to be able to figure out how to get it into my signature as a clickable link named JBond Post Index

 

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J.Bond- I guess I can include the url in the index to copy and paste into the browser. That would bring you right to the page but impossible to bring you to the correct post number.  I was just happy to be able to figure out how to get it into my signature as a clickable link named JBond Post Index

You know, if you go to your own profile (click on your avatar), you'll find a list of your recent posts in the order submitted.

On that profile page, on the right side of the banner at the top, there is a button labeled "see my activity." If you click on that, you will be taken to all of your posts listed in order of submission. With many posts this can stretch into several pages but navigating is quick if you have some sense of when you made the post you seek.

Apologies if you already know this and it didn't suit your needs. I find that I can find my own posts (not that I often have need to search for them) pretty rapidly this way.

David

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Thanks David,  I didn't know about that feature. 

You're right all my posts are right there where you said they would be.  The problem is my posts are usually only in my thread.  As you can see by this sample below, It would be much harder for me to go thru 8 pages worth of posts without any pictures to go by, all posts below have the same title and I would have to start reading each one to find what its about. 

Now if I posted in many different threads as most of you do, It would be definitely easier searching the way you just said because you would look for the title of the thread. But in my sample below they all have the same title almost all 8 pages- Nagra Stories -  so I have to read past the title on each one.

For remembering when I posted about a certain recorder, forget that, its all a blur to me,  If you knew how many times I searched up and down the pages of my thread looking for something. It's just like looking for a tool or something around the house. You think you just saw it but can't find it anywhere.  You think you just posted it but it ends up not being where you thought it was. That is why I made the list. 

Try searching for this without looking at my list

The Fake Nagra SN post, (not my post) lets take a look at that SN copy again. That was not that long ago, what page should you click on to see the pictures again? Use my list its very simple you get what you want right away. You know its on Nagra stories but guessing and choosing a page and scrolling thru all the posts takes a lot of time. Try it, you'll see what I mean. 

 

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There is a way to create clickable links to posts. 

Right click on the post number. There will be an option to "copy link address" or similar. 

Write the text that you want the link to have in a post. 

Select the text and click the link icon in the toolbar.

Voila, a clickable link to a post, eg:

There's only One, Nagra I

The Vienna collection

 

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Thank you James Bull, for taking the time to give my Post Index idea some thought and for you to come up with some workable ideas. With your suggestions today in a earlier pvt message I was able to set up my Quick Post Index on page one of this thread.

Thanks to you, now, at any time, from any page, whether signed in or not, I can click the back arrow and access the clickable index on page one.  
 
The back arrow looks like this <<       
It's in the page number section at the top and bottom of every page and looks like this <<    PREV    17    18    19    20   
Hit the back arrow and it brings you to the index. From there, one click in the index brings you right to the post you wanted to see again. 
Example: Where are the pictures to the Nagra SN copy?  Click the Back arrow, Click The Nagra SN (Copy) in the index. 
It works well on a laptop or desktop, but for a cell phone It gets a little condensed and jumbled because I don’t have it in a single list or column,  but it still works. 
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  • 2 weeks later...

There're too many pictures of Nagras in this video not to have this on Nagra Stories.

I'll bet there is a good story behind everyone of these scenes.  I'd like to know what Goldie Hawn was smiling about? 

At some point I bookmarked this and came across the bookmark last night.  I'm not sure where I got this from. But its a pretty interesting site.

http://jwsound.weebly.com/cas-slideshow.html

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  • 2 weeks later...
On January 9, 2017 at 8:08 AM, ahicomputer said:

Thanks for the replies !   All those are old photos for sure - taken with my little 110 Kodak Instamatic pocket camera or maybe my Nikormat 35mm that I finally acquired.  The caddy was the boss's - Dick Topham, best boss I ever had - in the parking lot behind the Audio Services building on Lankershim.  Another old nagra that I often serviced was the SN, the tiny little pocket-sized spy recorder.  I transferred many an SN tape to 1/4" for Beverly Johnson (Mike Hoover), and I listened to many hours of her material in the process.  The most memorable (unforgettable and comical in my mind) was an interview of an old-timer up in Alaska (documentary for Armond Hammer I believe) where they were talking about the dangers of the river currents during the melting season.  Quote from the old-timer Alaskan (probably a gold-miner guy) "There's a lot of dangerous currency in that river".   I've always thought about heading up there looking for some loose twenties.   Or Fifties... or Hundreds !

DickwithShotgun.jpg

MikeDenecke1.jpg

TennenbaumBisentz1.jpg

PaulStP_Mike1.jpg

Here is me and Jim Camery.  He was a great guy.  A couple other friends to mention:  Darrel Linkow and Frank Murphy come to mind today...

Alan_JamesCamery1.jpg

 

Just now, traut said:

Great shot of Jim and Bruce!

 

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  • 1 month later...

The Phone Booth

Note:  I am showing these vintage tape recorders as part of my collection only.  They are out of service and no longer used in the manner they were designed, but remain a part of audio recording history.  It should not be considered in any way as endorsing or promoting any activity contrary to applicable laws and regulations.  

 

I finally bought a phone for my phone booth. My wife and I were at an outside antique show about six years ago. I saw just this booth with no phone in it and bought it. I regretted buying it initially but restored it and had it up in the room with my recorders and other stuff ever since. I could never bring myself to buy a phone for it because of its cost. The old phones for sale at the time were mainly all beat up or half-ass restored or going for much more than I wanted to spend.
Last month, I finally bought a phone that was restored and restored to work as it did back in the day with the coins. All old pay phones take the money, which drops into the coin return. This Phone from the late sixties was restored to mimic how it worked back in the day. You step into the booth and pick up the Phone. There is no dial tone. You put the first nickel in, and the coin drops and stops; put the second nickel in, and you hear the money fall and the bell ring; now you have a dial tone.  You make the call, and if someone answers, the money drops into the locked coin box when you hang up. If no one answers, you hang up, and the nickels fall to the coin return but only after a short delay, just like the payphone worked initially. I contribute that short delay to funding our candy-buying habits as kids.
When we were kids, there was a small town rural Drive-In luncheonette/store a couple of houses from us, and out by the road was this same type of Phone and booth.
And I wanted this type of phone booth. As kids, we always walked by this Phone and checked the coin return. More often than not, there would be money in return. It was hit or miss, but what a feeling it was to find some nickels or dimes in the return.
If there was money in it, the next place was inside the tiny Drive-In to buy candy from the gumball machine or the candy machine, depending on how much change we would get. We also used to wait for the school bus in this phone booth. 
 
Would you believe one late night when we were sleeping out with the neighbor kids? I found this man in the phone booth; I snapped a picture with my father's Flashcube camera just before we were chased away by this big, burly-looking guy sitting in a car. 
I didn't think so, But the first part of the story is genuine. 

 

djWWIpl.jpg

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So noir. Jealous that you have a phone booth. I've wanted one for years. At my film school, some kid dragged one to the sculpture area for some art project. After the critique, it stayed there for a year or two, sort of in the way..but too heavy to just move. It was a bit beat up,  and needed a little work, but I could have had that thing just for asking. Lost opportunities.

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Hi Rachel - don’t feel you loss something.  If it was all beat up you were probably better off.  I was pretty disappointed at first with my phone booth.  When I saw it out in the field of antiques for sale it looked great. Brimfield - anybody hear of it?  It happens 3 times a year in Brimfield Mass.  I noticed the booth right away from a distance.  Close up it looked pretty good too. 

Once I brought the phone booth home and in the garage, I started cleaning it up. It’s an all glass booth. Under the dirt and grime I noticed that all of the aluminum rails were all scratched up vertically where apparently the antique dealer would slide it in and out of his truck laying down from show to show.  Researching the booth, I found it’s a 1964 Bell systems booth and it came in other custom colors other than the anodized bare aluminum that I was used too. Once scratched, you cannot just re anodize the bare aluminum to make it look like new.  If it was scratched and marked from ordinary use I would have left it alone but once cleaned it was all heavily scratched at close inspection. I should have inspected it more closely. 

My desire to have the phone booth I knew as a kid got the better of me.   So I took it all apart and had it powder coated in dark bronze.  It came out beautiful inside and out,  a hard tough low luster professional finish.  It goes together and comes apart like an erector set - everything just slides together and a few screws hold the four sides together. It has a built in cooling fan which was an option back in the day.

Putting all the now like-new individually wrapped pieces from the painter together, the old glass looked terrible, all vertically scratched like the rails were and every little mark stuck out like a sore thumb. This type of full length vertical scratches would never happen in normal use.  So I had all the glass panels remade except for the door apparently he would slide it on and off his truck on all the other sides without a care.  Ouch, being so pissed off I spent so much on getting the booth ready to be put inside my house, I didn’t want to spend anymore money to get the phone for it . The booth was now like new but without a phone.  So it sat without the phone for 6 years.  So maybe it wasn’t a missed opportunity for you, instead it could have been a godsend you didn’t bring it home.

I always planned to get a dummy mannequin to set up in the booth and take pictures using the different covert recorders I have. My wife said I’m the dummy and said I can step into the booth and she’d take a picture for free. 

So there you have it, the story of my 2k Phone booth, before the phone!!!

 

Here is a video I found on Youtube that sums up the type of Antique show it is times a year. I don’t know this guy.

https://youtu.be/8GYYNj0UxOw

 

To my surprise another Brimfield video also shows a phone booth like the one I bought at 5:25 

https://youtu.be/kNG6jSraYnc?t=5m25s

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Hey there - I just wanted to chime in and say thanks for this thread, I just bought a Nagra 4.2 for some field recording and this thread has been amazing. All your information, no matter how small is really important and opens doors for a newbie like me. Respect. Richie.

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