—Compiled from Dad's "Table Talks" on Micros!DFO122511/6/82

—by Joseph Reader

1. I NEARLY DIED LAST WEEKEND & I THOUGHT, "NOW WHAT WOULD I BE MOST SORRY FOR THAT I DIDN'T FINISH?" And it was this micro music project, because I & only I can do it because I have it stored in my computer & my memory, which numbers I like & which numbers I wanted, & only I could have selected them, & some of them I wasn't even sure about the titles. But after I started hearing the numbers then I remembered that was the number, but I never even knew the title. ("My Old Favorites!")—Micros coming soon! GO MICRO!

2. SO NOBODY COULD'VE DONE THIS BUT ME. I mean, somebody else can edit the Letters & somebody else can proofread'm—maybe not exactly like I would but they're there. But this I had to do myself & nobody else could've done it because I'm the guy that lived back then—the rest of you are all too young to know these things.

3. IT JUST SEEMED TO ME IT WAS SAD TO SEE THIS BEAUTIFUL MUSIC LOST & YOUR GENERATION NEVER HEAR IT, to show you how pretty music used to be when I was young. The lyrics were beautiful & sweet & romantic & loving & kind & beautiful & often talked about God & His creation & there was still faith, you know. Bing Crosby sang a lot of Godly numbers & so did Andy Williams & so did Perry Como. They were all good Catholics & strongly religious men & always sang a bunch of Christmas Carols & very spiritual songs.

4. THE WOMEN WERE TORCH SINGERS & THAT WAS A COMMON EXPRESSION, that "I carry a torch for you!" In other words, they were on fire for some man or something. The men were called crooners. Bing Crosby was a crooner. (Dora: What's crooner mean?) I don't know where that came from. The only thing I know of is that a crooner is a male singer that sings like Bing Crosby, Ha!—A croon!

5. THE MUSIC OF ABOUT THE '50s & '60s IS ABOUT THE LAST MUSIC I LISTENED TO BECAUSE FROM THEN ON IT GOT SO HORRIBLE THAT I WOULDN'T EVEN WASTE MY TIME LISTENING. It's just a racket, it's demonic. There was still some sweet music & sweet singers & groups up into the '50s & '60s after WWII. It seems really that the music didn't get horrible‚ demonic‚ satanic until about the time of the Vietnamese War. There were still some sweet numbers even after the Korean War.

6. WELL, I FIGURED IT'LL NOT ONLY TEACH THE FAMILY TO APPRECIATE A LITTLE BETTER MUSIC‚ people who have to be listening to music all the time—& most of this generation seems to need music all the time—but they can also use this kind of music with their fish. It's mild & not quite so religious‚ though I put in little thoughts in between songs.

7. I'M TRYING TO GIVE YOU A LITTLE SAMPLE OF ALL THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF MUSIC. I presume somebody will like it. Some of these old—timers they took off of records because that's all there was then, some of the early ones. I was quite young when some songs were first popular, 50 years ago. Actually that kind of quaver doesn't bother me as much as it might you folks because we were used to that then, because that's the way all the records sounded. That's the way it sounds & a lot of this is not because of our machinery or even our speed, but that's from an old record & that's the way it sounded.

8. I FIGURE THAT EVEN IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE MUSIC SOME OF YOUR FISH & FRIENDS & OLD-TIMERS WILL JUST LOVE IT‚ because they'll remember these songs from when they were young‚ & you can't even find them anymore now. You never hear them on the radio or anywhere. It'd be real nostalgic, have'm cryin' & fallin' into the FFer's arms.

9. SO I THINK WE'RE DOING SOMETHING THAT IS GOING TO LAST & BE USEFUL FOR A WHILE, because pretty soon you're not going to be able to be carrying these big tape recorders & big tapes & collections of tapes around with you & you'll be thankful you've got a micro & a few tapes in your pocket, & that's all you're gonna have—us, too! So were preparing for it right now. We always pioneer. We're getting rid of all our big tape recorders & as soon as we've gotten rid of all our big tapes we can get rid of all our big recorders & we'll go completely micro. When you can play music this way on micro & record it this well on micro‚ whey fiddle around with all this bulky equipment? It's sure made for us & anybody that has to move around a lot.

10. WHAT I'M TRYING TO PROVE TO THE FAMILY IS THAT YOU CAN DO IT. People don't like revolutions, they don't like change. They like the old way & they're stuck in a rut, & change means hard work, trouble, different equipment & all kinds of other things, & it costs money to change! At first it costs more than it saves. But I insist that it can be done & we're going to do it! "Well", they said, "we can't do all this & re-record all these tapes we've already sent the Family onto micro & send it out again." I said‚ "Of course we can't. They're going to have to do it for themselves. They're going to have to do it just we do, in their spare time, & just keep their old tape recorder & their new micro running with a patch cord & do their own micronisation!"

11. PEOPLE DON'T LIKE TO CHANGE! It takes some guy like me to whip'm & force'm & insist they change, insist they pioneer, insist they do something different. People don't like to do it any different, they like to stay in their rut. They tell me, "It can't be done, it's impossible, they don't have'm & blah blah blah!"

12. THAT'S WHAT THEY SAID TO EVERY PIONEER, EVERY INVENTOR,—"It's impossible. It can't be done. There's no such thing", blah blah! Well, then we'll make it! I used to build radios; if I had the tools & equipment I bet I could build one! I prayed & the Lord had AIWA make a standard-to–micro recorder. Now we've got to pray they'll make a high–speed duper so we can get'm out to the Family!

13. YOU SAY, "THE FAMILY CAN'T GO MICRO, THEY CAN'T AFFORD TO GO MICRO." I mean they can't afford not to go micro! "What are we going to do with all these tapes we've already got?" We're going to micronise them! The Family can just simply micronise, the way we're doing it. They can just take their old big tape recorder & dupe them on to their micro. They can do it. If they want to keep their big-tape music they can do it. Just leave'm there running all day‚ keep duping. (We're micronizing 700 this way!)

14. MUSIC IS THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO RECORD AT FAST SPEED & THE VOICE IS JUST FINE AT SLOW SPEED. You can't even tell the different between the speeds if you've done a good job & you've taped it right & the heads were clean! I know because I did it & you've heard it! there's nothing wrong with recording talk tapes at slow speed. Weighing the advantages against the disadvantages, the advantages are so much greater that we can forget about the quality as long as it's understandable.

15. OF COURSE IF THE ORIGINAL WAS A POOR TAPE, THEN YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET ANYTHING OUT OF IT FAST OR SLOW‚ ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. I mean if the original was bad‚ one of those old Wild Wind tapes where you've got to clean the head after every tape & the tape gets duller & dimmer as it goes along playing, you've got to watch out for that. On one of those bad tapes you've got to clean the heads after every single tape you run through. In fact, after each half of the tape you should probably squirt the heads. Remember, never put a tape on immediately after doing that. (New!: Spray cleaners!)

16. BE SURE WHEN YOU CLEAN THOSE HEADS, DON'T DO WHAT I DID. I think I'm the guy that actually pushed the head out of line on my Pearlcorder because I pressed too had & they're very delicately adjusted. You can get'm out of line by maybe one–thousandth of an inch & they'll be off. So don't push on the heads at all! Just rub your finger lightly over it & don't push it the least bit, don't apply any pressure on those heads or you're going to get'm out of line. (The latest sprays clean'm w/o touching & dry instantly!)

17. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO USE METAL TAPES FOR DUPING. Have you noticed what good recordings you get off the radio on ordinary tape?—I can't tell the difference! The only difference I noticed on replaying a metal tape as opposed to an ordinary tape is you've got more volume. But I doubt if any one of us is technically perfect enough & has an ear enough for it to notice the difference in the fidelity.

18. WE'RE IN THE EXPERIMENTAL STAGE. We're leading the way, researching & trying to find out what works‚ what doesn't work, what you can do, what you can't do, what's good what's not, etc. So we have to strike a happy medium & balance between economy, space & weight-saving & the micronisation & quality.

19. WE'RE NOT LOOKING FOR PERFECTION. Our Family doesn't have to have musical perfection. We're not measuring the decibels & the fidelity with a meter like they do at the radio stations. They used to take Fred's tapes & stick them on its big machine that had all these gadgets & dials & everything & they knew exactly what the fidelity was by the meters. "Well, this goes up so many units in the treble & down to so many in the base." Now this is what they call fidelity, if it gets the full range. But you couldn't tell the difference with your ear!

20. WE'RE MISSIONARIES & WE'RE ON THE RUN & IF WE GET'M AT ALL WE CAN BE THANKFUL. If we have the music to listen to at all we can be thankful. We're not finicky & don't have huge big tons of equipment to measure fidelity & make sure the stereo's blah blah blah! I wouldn't care if it was mono myself, I wouldn't make a damn bit of difference to me! But as long as we've got the stereo, why we use it.

21. BUT IT'S BEING PENNY-WISE & POUND-FOOLISH REUSING OLD TAPES! If they're tapes that have been used a lot, on ordinary tapes that little film of iron oxide is so thin that it's probably worn thinner & therefore it's not going to record as well as a new tape that's got a good layer of iron oxide. Every time you run it through a tape recorder it take off a little bit more. So of course, if you're recording on poor old worn-out used tapes you're not going to get good recordings & that just is not worth it! It's not worth it going to all this trouble & work in duping all these tapes & all this wear & tear on the equipment but economizing on penny-ante business, on cheap tapes.

22. WELL ANYHOW, I'D HATE TO SEE THAT MUSIC DISAPPEAR IN THE MILLENNIUM, BUT THE FAMILY WILL HAVE A CHANGE TO AT LEAST HEAR WHAT IT SOUNDED LIKE. Some of them might even like it! I'm telling you‚ the whole thing is a mess but at least it's done. I figured it was better done poorly than not at all. I don't have time for perfecting it. If the hour is late we don't have time to make things perfect, we just get'm out. If it was some teaching on God's Word, then it's gotta be perfect.

23. SO WE'VE GOT TO PRAY THAT THE LORD'LL MAKE THOSE COMPANIES INVENT WHAT WE NEED! You know, we prayed about several of these things & they came to pass & they built them & they made them so that we can use them. Isn't that wonderful? We were praying & asking the Lord, "Lord, we've got to somehow have something to get all of our big tape music on our little tapes", & out comes this standard-to-micro duper! Isn't that something! Of course it would make your job a lot simpler if it were high-speed, then you could do it in a hurry. (Please pray they'll invent hi-speed micro dupers!—Tks! GBY!)

24. WE TRAVEL TOO MUCH & THE WHOLE FAMILY TRAVELS TOO MUCH TO BE CUMBERED DOWN WITH ALL THESE WEIGHTS & things that do so easily beset us! We've got to lay aside every weight & all these big tapes that do so easily beset us & go to micro! Run the race! Hallelujah? GBYA! (Prays:) Lord bless & help the Family, help us to finish this recording & help us to finish this micronising so that we can go completely micronised & very mobile, Lord, & don't have to lug around so much big heavy equipment.

25. GIVE THE FAMILY WISDOM ON THIS MICRONISATION, LORD, & HELP US TO GET RID OF ALL THESE BIG TAPES & BIG PLAYERS & go completely micro ourselves to set the example to all the World, Lord, & do help somebody to start building & marketing micro high-speed dupers so we won't have such a problem trying to figure out how to get them to the Family.

26. THIS IS THY WORK, THY BUSINESS, LORD. WE'RE NOT ONLY DOING IT FOR OUR OWN BENEFIT & our children but for the benefit of the whole Family, to teach them how to do it. So give us wisdom, Lord. We're pioneering a whole new field, a whole new ministry, the micro ministry of tapes, & we need to learn all about it we can & even our mistakes will teach us things so that the Family won't make the same mistakes & we can recommend to them what to do. Give us patience & lots of faith & love & wisdom & strength for the task & keep us & the equipment all safely in Jesus' name. Amen! PTL!

27. P.S.—WE JUST MADE ONE BIG DISCOVERY!—We already found that to dupe from big tape clear down to micro at 1.2 cps speed sometimes causes wows & tremolos on high notes. But we just accidentally discovered that after duping a big music tape on micro at 2.4 speed you not only get a perfect micro music recording but then you can re-dupe the 2.4 micro on another micro at half speed (1.2) & get a perfect dupe of music even at the slow speed that plays beautifully & only takes half the space.

28. IN OTHER WORDS, THE TWO-STEP DUPING FROM BIG TO MICRO 2.4 & THEN FROM MICRO 2.4 TO MICRO 1.2 PRODUCES EXCELLENT DUPES OF MUSIC! This means you can get 3 bigs on one tiny 90–minute micro at half speed!—Or 3 hours of music on a 90-min. micro at 1.2 speed!—And you can get 8 such micros in the same space as one big one-hour big tape!—That means 8 x 3 hours of music = 24 hours in the same space as a one-hour big tape!—A 1/24 reduction in space & weight!—Wow!

29. WHAT A WEIGHT & SPACE REDUCTION!—1/24!—It's almost incredible!—Especially if you've been lugging around 700 big tapes & several big tape recorders like we have!—The weight & burden alone have nearly broken our backs, & the customs men look at us with astonishment!—"You're tourists?!"—Ha! Now we can carry all 700 micros in one small attaché case‚ & our micro players & earphones in our pockets!—& nobody even notices! How much better security!—Plus the terrific weight/space saving!

30. A FEW MORE MOVES & WE'LL SAVE ENUF ON EXCESS BAGGAGE ALONE TO HELP A LOT ON GOING MICRO!—Besides the easier handling carrying‚ stowing, using portability, security & all–around convenience!—U can't beat'm! Changes & revolutions in men‚ methods & materials cost at first‚ but in the long run they save a lot more!—Like we did you!—It wasn't easy to break o/o the church rut & start the Jesus Revolution, but we did it & we finally made it—& you're saved & here serving Jesus & saving souls as a result!—Immortal millions of souls saved forever!—Was it worth it?

31. WAS IT WORTH IT WHEN WE DUMPED THE HUGE BURDEN SOME UNWIELDY DEAD OLD IMMOVABLE INEFFECTIVE UNCHANGEABLE CHURCHES FOR YOU!—The Jesus Revolution, the Children of God, the Family of Love that's young, vibrant, alive, beautiful, mobile, powerful‚ effective, versatile, changeable, adaptable, fruitful, irresistible, productive, unstoppable & victorious!—The glorious young sexy Bride of Christ that'll survive & out live'm all!—& thrill to His vigorous love-making to bring forth millions of Children into His everlasting Kingdom of Love! HALLELUJAH!—Was it worth the change, the Revolution?—Then GO MICRO & keep moving! Amen? GBY!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family