TRACY BROWN (By: Brian Hotchkies – Australia) Tracy is a Square Dance Caller who, during the late 1980’s had the forethought to purchase record companies which had been producing professional instrumental and vocal recordings for use by: Square Dance Callers, Round Dance Cuers, Contra Prompters, Clogging Cuers & Record Clubs. Many of these producers had been operating for many decades, but were now winding-down their operations and appeared as though some could fade from existence and be lost forever. Over the following years, Tracy continued rescuing additional record labels. This was a very volatile time, as technology was progressing through the stages of music being played from: Vinyl Records, Compact Discs, Mini Discs, through to the Mp3 files which most Callers, Cuers & Prompters now use from their laptops, and even mobile phones. I can recall when I first started calling, we were using 10” 78 r.p.m. bakelite discs. If you accidentally dropped one of these, it would usually break into several pieces. In addition to being fragile, they were also rather heavy, so a box of 20, or 30 10” discs was very weighty..!! NOW, I’ve discovered that it doesn’t matter how many Mp3 files you load onto your laptop, it doesn’t get any heavier :- ) How times have changed. Several of the well known labels which Tracy purchased had their audio masters on 10” reel-to-reel magnetic tape, which meant that he then had the laborious task of carefully creating digital files from these analogue tapes. The files would usually be created in “wav” format first (which are higher quality), then into Mp3s. Because of Tracy Brown’s forward thinking and his hard work in converting the analogue tape recordings to digital format, much of the wonderful music which was recorded in the past has been preserved and remains available now for both new and experienced Callers to purchase and use for their Dancers to enjoy. Thanks Tracy

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