Members Mandolin Picker Posted April 15, 2017 Members Share Posted April 15, 2017 Over at Ars Technica they have a pretty good article on the "Soundsheet" or "Flexi Discs" that were somewhat popular from the 1960s through the early 1990s. They were a cheap way to get you music 'out there' and were used for a variety of promotional campaigns (including Nixon's run for the White House). I had completely forgotten about these until I saw the article, but I remember playing them as a kid growing up. Read the full article at https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/04/forgotten-audio-formats-flexi-disc/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted April 16, 2017 CMS Author Share Posted April 16, 2017 Yes, I have several from Sing Out! magazine that they were shipping with the magazine with about half a dozen songs from the issue. I even have the one that came along with Mr. Anderson's book Electronic Projects for Musicians, a demo of the Kurzweil 150. and a demo of Yamaha TX802 and TX81Z voices for their G10 MIDI guitar controller. But no "get your music out there" sound sheets. It wasn't but a few years ago that Evatone, the company that made the sound sheets, folded up their tent - just too soon to cash in on the vinyl craze. Fun fact: In the 1950s through the 1960s, in the Soviet Union, due to a shortage of vinyl, pirate records were made by cutting disks with home-made cutters using discarded x-ray film as the medium. The quality was terrible, but it was a way of smuggling music from other countries into the USSR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff Leites Posted April 16, 2017 Members Share Posted April 16, 2017 Showing my age again, I remember when they put them on the back of Wheaties cereal boxes. [video=youtube;i77_2MDIi10] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 144dB Posted April 16, 2017 Members Share Posted April 16, 2017 Keyboard magazine used to have their Soundpages in the 80's. I loved them. I remember when I first heard the Korg M1 demo, my jaw was on the floor. I also remember a great one from Patrick Leonard and one from Chick Corea playing Herbie Hancock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 16, 2017 Members Share Posted April 16, 2017 I had a couple of Archie's and Jackson 5 singles from the back of cereal boxes. I'm guessing they probably got tossed at some point. But knowing my mom, they might very well be a box at her house somewhere still Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Beck Posted April 17, 2017 Members Share Posted April 17, 2017 Oh yeah, I used to get them in old music related periodicals. Many I never played and are still intact in the old mags I still have. Probably the first music mag I bought was as early as 1978 or 79 and then had subscriptions to several through the 80s and 90s. Keyboard Magazine was one. I still have a lot of those with the Soundsheet intact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mats Nermark Posted April 17, 2017 Members Share Posted April 17, 2017 Keyboard magazine used to have their Soundpages I also remember a great one from Patrick Leonard. I think I still have this one somewhere. He's playing a Moog Bass on a track that I remember being very good. Cheers, Mats N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 Keyboard magazine used to have their Soundpages in the 80's. I loved them. I remember when I first heard the Korg M1 demo' date=' my jaw was on the floor. I also remember a great one from Patrick Leonard and one from Chick Corea playing Herbie Hancock.[/quote'] The best one I think was the one with Jim Cox playing Shenandoah - all synths, but you'd swear it was a country band doing it. Really good pedal steel and harmonica emulation... on a Prophet V. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 Fun fact: In the 1950s through the 1960s, in the Soviet Union, due to a shortage of vinyl, pirate records were made by cutting disks with home-made cutters using discarded x-ray film as the medium. The quality was terrible, but it was a way of smuggling music from other countries into the USSR. I had never heard about that until just the other day when I saw a TV show that discussed / dramatized it. I thought it was pretty clever! Apparently those X-ray bootlegs are now worth quite a bit to collectors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted April 17, 2017 Members Share Posted April 17, 2017 I remember the Evatone soundsheets well...they were in several of my books, and I did some for the magazines. People still remember the one from "Home Recording for Musicians" where I said "doubling a vocal line can make a voice seem stronger" and of course, it doubled what I was singing . Every now and then someone comes up and sings that line to me. I guess the catchiest hook I ever came up with is destined for total obscurity Remember how they recommended placing coin on the inside of the disc to keep it from slipping as it played? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 Remember how they recommended placing coin on the inside of the disc to keep it from slipping as it played? Yes - the extra mass seemed to actually really help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Zooey Posted May 4, 2017 Members Share Posted May 4, 2017 I first heard guitarists like Albert Lee and Paul Gilbert on those sheets in the 80s. I think it was guitar player magazine that included them. We had a hi- fi system in the living room I could play them on, but 99% of my music listening at the time was cassette. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AlamoJoe Posted May 6, 2017 Members Share Posted May 6, 2017 I remember those...Can't immediately recall any but one sticking out in my memory and that was one that was a demo of the ARP guitar synthesizer. I believe the band demoing it was "Riff Raff". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nice keetee Posted May 7, 2017 Members Share Posted May 7, 2017 No lie, the 1st floppy I heard was mourning doves segue into an ad for Fred Arbogast? fishing stuff; lol circa 1965 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bucksstudent Posted May 7, 2017 Members Share Posted May 7, 2017 I know Guitar World gave Flexi Disks away with select issues many years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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