Our 17th Anniversary Fundraiser

[Steve E.]

charles_cros_800.jpg

Pictured above: Charles Cros. Further down the page, Hazel Harwood

Dear Reader,

It is fundraising time at the Secret Society of Lathe Trolls. We need your help, in any brash or humble manner, to keep operating beyond our 17th year, into the 18th. (Our 17th anniversary was June 24, 2022. It snuck by us this year!)

As you know, this site is the grassroots worldwide chat forum devoted to all aspects of record cutting and pressing, professional and experimental. Your financial contribution will allow me, the admin of the site, to continue to serve you behind the scenes, and to pay the site's service expenses. Details of what your contribution supports are further down the page.

Please contribute now to keep the Lathe Trolls site running.

Clicking this golden PayPal "Contribute" link, or the golden button at the top of any page of www.lathetrolls.com, will allow you to enter any amount you'd like to give (one time, or monthly). Or, PayPal to lathetrolls@gmail.com. Please email or include a note to help me link/credit your username correctly on the "Our Sponsors" page. (The paypal page will read "Doc Wurly." That's me: I repair Wurlitzer Electric Pianos from my Brooklyn apartment, while I'm not rewiring the site.)

All contributions fund our hosting and domain expenses, and support my labor keeping the site operational.

A contribution of $20 USD will make a big difference. Smaller amounts ($16.66 or $7.80, for example) will add up, as long as everyone pulls their weight. If your business income or most meaningful hobby depends on the site, please consider more: $33.33 USD is a magic number. For donations of $45 or more, you can customize your link, and also have it connect to a webpage outside the Lathe Trolls site. Banner ads are available for $78 on up--email me for details, or read this link. A checkmark at the Paypal page gives you the option of making a monthly contribution, too, of as little as $4.50/month. (This is a great option if your cash flow is low and your allegiance is high). Your giving will keep this community, and this vital database of record-cutting knowledge, alive.

As you know, this one-of-a-kind site runs without major support. We don’t have fees: neither for membership, nor even, as of now, for the "Classifieds & Tip-offs" section listings. All we have are your friends and you: quirky brilliant individuals; proprietors of niche businesses; expert operators of mastering and pressing equipment; researchers; vinyl fanatics, and/or professional and home tinkerers and inventors. You are the Lathe Trolls. You make the site worth visiting. I, with your help, and with the generous volunteer efforts of our moderators, keep it functioning.

This administration is generally performed and/or refereed by this one guy writing you: a freelance musician, Wurlitzer Electric Piano repairman, and audio editor living in Brooklyn. Ironically, I am not a professional record-cutter. I started this site in June 2005 as a newbie, dissatisfied with the information available to me at the time. (To some degree, I have remained a newbie!) Running the site takes diplomacy, triage, care, some tech skill, and both empathy and a thick skin.


Honoring Charles Cros (1842–1888) and Hazel Yarwood (1923-2013)

The fundraising drive of the prior 12 months is belatedly named after Charles Cros (1842–1888). Visionary, absinthe-guzzling Frenchman who innovated dada-eque performance poetry, color photography .... and the concept of audio recordings that could be played back. In April 1877, he wrote up a description of a disc-based record etching system, the Paléophone ("Voices of the Past"), and submitted it to the French Academy of Sciences. This was mere weeks before Edison had a coincidental eureka moment and built a working cylinder-based system. Tragically, Cros lacked the funds and timing to manifest his vision, but Emile Berliner built on his ideas in the following decade.

The current fundraising drive honors Hazel Yarwood (1923-2013), a legendary cutting and mastering engineer for British EMI, at Abbey Road Studios from 1947 to 1985. She is credited for innovating the first diamond cutting stylus. (She is best known for her phenomenal classical mastering, but also cut rock'n'roll, including a sought-after pressing of the Beatles' Rubber Soul.).

https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Audio/Archive-Studio-Sound-IDX/IDX/80s/Studio-Sound-1985-05-OCR-Page-0052.pdf
https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Audio/Archive-Studio-Sound-IDX/IDX/80s/Studio-Sound-1985-05-OCR-Page-0053.pdf
https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Audio/Archive-Studio-Sound-IDX/IDX/80s/Studio-Sound-1985-05-OCR-Page-0054.pdf

hazel_yarwood_800.png

The recent duration in review

It's been an unusual couple of years for us all. The double-whammy of a worldwide pandemic, and the loss of Apollo Masters, has changed the landscape of the world of record cutting. We are all still adjusting.

For some, the struggles have led to unexpected blessings. Some of those blessings brought new challenges. Others needed to change career priorities, at least temporarily, to get through it all. Even some of those who work with record cutting as a hobby have had to change the nature of their projects. Beyond the specific subject of the site, it's been a period of loss and metamorphosis for most of us, in one way or another.

Throughout this time, it is my hope that the community at Lathe Trolls has been a source of strength, support and enjoyable distraction. The site intends to continue for the foreseeable future-- as long as its members can chip in and support its operating expenses.


Good stuff you already know:

You are using the site, or you have enjoyed it at any point in the past 17 years, as an enthusiastic sharer or lurker; as a giver or consumer of knowledge and equipment, related to the making of old-fashioned grooved records.

• LatheTrolls.com enables the passing on of record-creating knowledge and experience that had been on the verge of being lost.

• It encourages innovation, while aiding in the salvage and repair of irreplaceable older equipment.

• It showcases vinyl art.

• It singularly promotes businesses in this reviving industry, offers problem-solving data and schematics for everything from old home units, to Neumann VMS-80s, to the new exciting record cutting and pressing solutions.

• It helps sellers and buyers of equipment--both common and unobtanium-- find each other.

• It is a unique, invaluable, deep, massive, sprawling database of the world's living knowledge of record-cutting and record-pressing.

• Its users volunteer, daily, to solve the most maddening of technical problems.

• It connects record-making professionals, living engineering legends, and hobbyists on every continent on the planet. And...

• It's fun!

Your contribution will fund specifically:

• Domain and hosting related service expenses, including backup services, and advanced firewall services to block Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. These expenses have crept up in recent years. Two years ago, swarms of bots caused the site to go down several times, and I've had to employ a cybersecurity service since then to block them.

• My work on the site, which is time-consuming. It is a labor of love, but it still needs funding to happen. I manually approve every new user; over 1000 users over the past two years, totaling 4670 active memberships. I also deal with forgotten passwords, requests to edit posts or update image links, and the occasional offstage or onstage drama. Maintaining additional manual backups of the whole site.

• I must keep the site software up-to-date to function with the latest server requirements. Every couple of years, I have to reprogram the site more-or-less from scratch, and migrate the old data to a new shell, just to keep it looking and operating the same with evolving server software upgrades.

• You may have noticed some periods of site outages over the past year-- although far fewer than the year before. Every time you experience this on the front end, I am thrown into action on the back end, sometimes spending days on my computer and phone troubleshooting the latest hosting-provider glitch. All of this takes time, smart decision making, and a lot of effort.

Your contribution literally allows the site to continue to function.

I regret that since this is such a manual operation, I have not always followed through efficiently with the individual "Thank you" mail message that you deserve--even though, I am loudly thanking you over here when your contribution arrives. What I DO do, though, is eventually thank all sponsors and financial supporters of the site on the "Our Sponsors" page, accessible on a button at the top of the page. (Check it out!) At the time of new fundraisers, I archive older sponsorships, but they remain readable by links. Your support is memorialized permanently.

Note that I said "eventually." While I aim to do better, I had to do some catchup manually updating the sponsor page, and so some contributions from the prior fundraiser were only added a few weeks ago. I apologize for this. I will keep the Charles Cros contributions listed up with those from the current Hazel Yarwood drive.



Thanks for your ongoing support.

Yours in all peaceful revolutions,

Steve E.
Administrator
The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

PS. Please share this link on the social media of your choice. Spread the word!

https://www.lathetrolls.com/fundraiser

[Simon]

Well done Steve and everyone who makes this forum. Everyone, if you can make a donation how ever small please do. Contribution made.

[piaptk]

Always happy to pay The Troll Toll!

[discosdecorte]

Done!

Thanks for all your work, Steve!

BR,
Fer

[Steve E.]

Thanks very much for the contributions so far!! They will be posted shortly.

Not too late to take part in the fundraiser.

[Steve E.]

Current sponsors as of this morning are thanked on the updated "Sponsor" page. I have not adequately tested all the links, so there may be errors here and there.

Again, it's not too late to join the party!

[Steve E.]

I appreciate all who have contributed to the fundraiser so far. The "Our Sponsors" page has been updated to reflect all current contributors. (Let me know if I got anything wrong.) Thank you! It has made a big difference!

Again, it's not too late to have yourself added to the list. We are at 59 contributors to this drive, with another 51 who contributed over the prior 12 months. It appears that around 1150 members have logged in over the past year (and that doesn't include lurkers). That means about 5% of the known site users this year have participated in the current fundraiser, and 9.5% total have contributed over the past 12 months.

Can you help us get that number up to, say, the magic rpm number of 16 2/3%? Contributions of all sizes add up.

Thanks again!

-Steve

[PMST]

Will send some over later today from Pressure Mastering

[Steve E.]

I've updated it once again! Please check to make sure I got things right! It's all done manually and it wouldn't be hard to mess it up.

Thank all of you who have contributed so far.

[Steve E.]

Once again, sponsor page has been updated!

Once again, let me know if I got anything wrong.

Once again, thank you for all contributions for the fundraiser! I still need to follow up with some thank you emails.

It is not too late to take part. We are still quite short of the goal of 16 2/3% participation from active members.

[Steve E.]

I would consider this latest fundraising drive a success. We totaled 119 members contributing to it, with another distinct 49 within the prior 13 months. The "Our Sponsors" page has been updated to reflect all current contributors as of last night. If you contributed, please check the page and make sure I got your username (and any links) right.

We didn't hit 16 2/3% of members taking part, but the 14.86 % participation is (I think) an all-time record.

If you want to be one of the 20 members who would take us over the line to our goal, I'm all for it. The site can always use your help! (We already got one this hour!)

For all others, THANK YOU once again. The response was inspiring, and most importantly, it helps to offset the time and expense it takes to keep the site running.

[tragwag]

way to go trolls!

[mrd]

I would consider this latest fundraising drive a success. We totaled 119 members contributing to it, with another distinct 49 within the prior 13 months. The "Our Sponsors" page has been updated to reflect all current contributors as of last night. If you contributed, please check the page and make sure I got your username (and any links) right.

We didn't hit 16 2/3% of members taking part, but the 14.86 % participation is (I think) an all-time record.

If you want to be one of the 20 members who would take us over the line to our goal, I'm all for it. The site can always use your help! (We already got one this hour!)

For all others, THANK YOU once again. The response was inspiring, and most importantly, it helps to offset the time and expense it takes to keep the site running.

Done! Keep up the great work!

[Steve E.]

I sent a holiday-themed fundraising follow-up letter to most members who have logged on or registered over the past two years.

The responses have been VERY much appreciated, especially in light of the Covid I went through last month, which knocked me off course quite a bit. I'm recovered, but I wasn't able to bill much in my day job last month. Receiving support now, over the work I've done here throughout the prior year, is really helping.

Thank you. It may be next week before I can update the sponsor page, and send out responses.

And again, thanks to ALL who contributed to keeping the site running this year. Other than the contributions of the past week, the sponsor page is updated with all contributions listed.

Holiday cheer to all!

Steve

[Steve E.]

The sponsor list has again been brought up-to-date. Please make sure I listed you correctly, and let me know if I got it wrong. Remember, contributions of $45 or over to this fundraiser can personalize their listing to include links, and in those cases the listing does not need to be your username.

Thanks VERY much to everyone who has contributed to it! You've truly allowed the website to survive.

[PMST]

I'll send some over today, thanks!