Old School Gates CB-77 Turntable Question

oldiesfan6479 said:

Same memory I have when comparing Gates vs QRK--while an LP didn't have to be back-cued that much on a CB77, trying to get a tite Q on a 45 with the Gates was impossible (unless you WANTED a wow). You could always tite Q a 45 on a QRK.

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...And slip-cuing wore out the felt. Slip-cuing a 45 was almost impossible on a CB77, so I made up a couple of slip-cue adapters, which were old promo copy LPs, a piece of thin felt over one side, and a 45rpm adapter permanently glued to the center. You put the adapter record down first, then the 45 on top, and slip-cued the whole contraption. It did work, just a pain to have the adapter disk floating around the studio. In the end, jocks just got used to the required dead-roll, and memorized where in advance of the end of a jingle to dead-roll the CB77. But you'd often hear the scratch of the cue-mark under the tail of the jingle. Some records cue-marked very quickly, others not so much, and the tone arm and cartridge made a huge difference. The typical Gray Research arm bought with a CB77 was huge and massive, used that GE cartridge with the flip-around stylus, viscous damping fluid that crawled out of the pivot, with a tracking force measured in pounds. Cue-marked records almost immediately. Yeah, "Broadcast Quality" often meant it stood up to jock abuse at the expense of performance.

Reel-to-reels had varying dead-roll times too depending on the machine and reel size. That was when running a tight board was a real skill!

And of that is what moved us to music on carts!