Time to get your next years diary.

[Allan Black]

Just received my 2025 Letts of London Diary. Size A6 day to a page, 105 x 148mm. $A44.95. Available through Amazon.

Since 1812, and 2025 is the first Letts with an appointments app for your phone.

I started using Letts diaries at Black Inc. recording studios when I needed details of client meetings, ‘He said I said’ etc. Much better and less invasive and intimidating than a phone or microphone in their face, and a diary doesn’t need a battery. I used my Letts Diary at clients offices where I could slip a carbon paper under the diary page and give him a signed copy, before I got back to the office to print up and fax or email the quote or confirmation. Extremely impressive with first time clients.

So if you’re reading this in your first time management position, consider a good diary. But there’s an important feature and it’s this ... on the last page write a dated Index with the key words of each subject, so you can quickly look back to find your notes … maybe months or years later.

I’ve got 36 of them, here’s 4. Each year I notice how Letts is keeping costs in check, one is by using thinner paper, years ago it was a nice gloss. But for 2025 I looked to see if I could see through it :) But it’s a great diary. Cheers.

[Andrew Smith]

If the paper gets any thinner it will be biblical? :-)

Andrew

[Boyd Ostroff]

Looks like they replaced the Union Jack with a QR code for 2025. Sign of the times? :-D

I never kept a "diary" but got in the habit of carrying around a little notebook as my job got more demanding over the years. I still scribble written notes for myself while working on projects, but am almost 100% paperless for all record-keeping now. I keep notes in simple text files and put them in the same folders as related project files. Also have plenty of databases and spreadsheets.

Thing is, that way I know I'll be able to find them in the future and (more important) be able to actually read them. My handwriting gets worse and worse as I age and it's much easier to type. The other day I had to write and sign a check by hand for my property tax along with addressing the envelope. That is one of the few things that I don't pay online these days and it seemed like a bit of a strain to do a neat, legible job!

[Allan Black]

Hi Boyd, I lived and worked in the analogue era. They were valve or tube days when we left our $3000 Neumann U67 valve mics permanently powered on, (see below) because off/on ‘thermal shock’ caused its EF86 valve to slowly degrade in performance. Because it was gradual this was difficult to detect, and those valves were expensive.

In Sydney when the digital era arrived at Black Inc. Recorders, I worked with my diary to preserve quick studio notes, there was no time to use a computer.

Part of my time problem was dealing with recording studio salesmen and their new products. There was such a frantic race to get their new digital signal processing products into pro studios, it became a joke.

I remember one new item was the Ursa Major Space Station, a digital reverb unit. The salesman left this new product with us for testing and I couldn’t believe it, it sounded like smashing plate glass to bits, no pun.

When the salesman returned I said “Thanks but no thanks, just take it with you.” But he said, “ If it’s ok with you, I’ll leave it here no charge” just so he could say Black Inc. studios had one. So I hid it and the salesman never asked for it back, the first of the new digital era was that crazy.

And below, look how studio signal processing has progressed today, and at a fraction of the price. Cheers.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Cool stuff. I was born in 1949, so no stranger to the analog era!

[Allan Black]

Hi Boyd.
I’m 4yrs older. Yep that era was great, the addictive aroma of warm valve/tubes heating up in the morning with a strong cup of black coffee and I was right for the day.

The Neumann valve/tube U67 mic. was a case of ‘first up best dressed’ it was a great mic, we had 3 plus other mics. It’s still famous and a properly cared for original would have cost you thousands of dollars, that is until 1992 when Neumann did a special run of 500 of the original.

Then in 2018 the Neumann microphone company completely re-issued the U67 to the enthusiasm of engineers, producers, and audiophiles alike. By that time I’d sold my studio building and retired.

When founder Georg Neumann died in 1976, the local airport was jam packed with private jets owned by world famous rock groups. They’d flown in to pay their respects at his funeral service.

About 1995 I remember the Sydney rep. for Neumann gear, came into my office and asked me, “Is this the silhouette of a Neumann U67?” I looked at it and said, “Yes it is.” But it wasn’t, it was one of a number of copies, and the rep. asked me would I sign a petition together with many others, so Neumann in Germany could mount a court case against companies who were blatantly stealing their design.

I did and today on the Internet, there’s stories about what happened with their case. And today you can buy much cheaper U67 clones, exact circuit designs, mic. suspensions and presentation boxes as well. Cheers.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Speaking of vacuum tubes (or valves, as you call them), my career was in theatrical design/technology and I did my gradulate work at Carnegie-Mellon University (called "Carnegie Tech" in the old days). At that time, they had one of the few remaining thyrat6on dimming systems in the theatre. These were the forerunner of solid state SCR (silicon controlled rectifier) dimmers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyratron

The equipment racks were located in a special air-conditioned room because of the amount of heat they emitted. This was the "brain child" of George Izenour, an innovator in theatrical technology that had used Carnegie-Mellon as a testing grounds for some projects. He became somewhat controversial... definitely an innovator who advanced the state of the art, but his clients often ended up spending a lot of money on his ideas that didn't work out.

That system was on its last legs and not very reliable or user-friendly, the students hated it. You had to turn the system on couple hours before a rehearsal or performance to let the tubes warm up fully. They finally had to replace it because the tubes were no longer available.

[Allan Black]

Hi Boyd. Thanks I read your link, theatre lighting its history and development is another specialist ballgame. Last Sept, we were in New York and saw the stage play ‘Hamilton’ at the 1924 theatre on Broadway. They do stuff on Broadway that’s way above the average and the production and stage lighting was superb. Together with the great sound it was a wonderful night at the theatre.

What’s the future for good sound? Purists belief warm analogue valve audio is best, but as time goes by the next generation is finding it too time consuming, difficult and just too expensive to become involved with. Recently I heard an example what I believe is the future of ‘good sound’ for the next generation, small DACs (digital audio converter) a good DAC is very impressive. But like anything new, the high end is very expensive but time and competition will bring the prices down.

But me, I still recall the aroma of valves/tubes warming up in the morning and will remember that in my 2025 diary :) Cheers.