From j. miskiewicz Sent Thu, Sep 17th 1998, 00:53
From j. miskiewicz Sent Thu, Sep 17th 1998, 00:53
i just got RRR-500: 500 lockgrooves by 500 artists today and spent some time fiddling. i obviously can't do any sort of standard review of it, but i'll do my best to give a general idea... firstly: it's 250 tracks on each side. the sides aren't labeled other than RRR500-A and -B etched into the runout groove. the tracks are on standard colored vinyl, with NO markings in between them (there does seem to be one division on each side - but it's rather small, hard to see, and i'm not sure if it's 125 grooves into the record or not, so it's impossible to tell.) anyway, there is NO way to tell what artist you're listening to. don't bother. i really wish they put divisions between every 10 grooves or something. there's certainly enough room in the runout groove so as to space the tracks up a bit throughout. it's frustrating. but that's ok; i didn't buy it for one groove from any particular artist; i actually haven't even read through the whole list. it's pretty impressive. 500 artists is more than you think it is... other than not being able to tell who is who, the sheer number of grooves is astounding. if you look at it in a noise sense it is very interesting... and with 500 snips to listen to there's bound to be a few things you find really cool. it'll be almost impossible to find them again, but that's part of the fun: in looking for that one you'll probably hear for the first time the one before it or the one after it, and chances are you haven't heard them yet. the grooves are so close together it's easy to miss one or two or three if you're not very careful when moving the needle. all in all? i like it. i realize there are a lot of other lockgroove records out there, and some of them may be better, but hey, i'm happy. i've bought full albums for one song; finding a few grooves i enjoy, and the potential to find many more, makes the price ($10, including shipping) very reasonable. unrelated: i don't suppose anyone has any hints as to how to disable the auto-return on my pioneer PL-4 turntable...? it bothers me sometimes. i figure there must be some switch it's hitting when it gets to the center that i should be able to rig, but i haven't cracked it open yet. i figured i'd ask here, first... j.