About the Name
Why Platform 78?
Simply put, the name was inspired by our love for music.
When looking for a name for my design Platform, music was the natural place to look.
78 revolutions per minute (RPM) was the original speed of record players. While earlier speeds of rotation varied widely, in 1910 most records were recorded between 78 AND 80 rpm. In 1925, 78.26 rpm was chosen as a standard for motorised phonographs thanks to the standard 3600-rpm motor and 46-tooth gear. Later, these records became known as 78s (or “seventy-eights”).
A personal journey through music.
Music has and continues to play such an important part of my life. In my early years, music provided me a refuge during years of civil war in Lebanon. At a time when electricity was only available for a couple of hours a day, if we were so lucky, battery operated radio cassette players were a favourite pastime tool. I listened to music just about all the time. I recorded and re-recorded songs directly from the radio -you can imagine the poor quality – and my sisters and I would sing along to the staticky recordings.
My first encounter with a music instrument was with an old fan operated organ. It was conveniently located in what was at that time a shelter. Come to think about it, I’m not sure why it was ever there, or to whom it had belonged originally. My guess is that it belonged to my late elder sister Fidaa. I remember playing it whenever we had power. Later, as things got better in Lebanon, I was introduced by a friend to a typical Arabic persuasion instrument on a school trip. I bought the instrument and started playing it around the house and at school trips.
It wasn’t until I was 14, and for no reason that I can remember, when I to start playing the oud. I recall purchasing my first oud on a trip to Damascus and later starting music lessons for the first time. Around the same time, I also started to DJ friends birthday parties, and high school events. It began with to tape decks and a mixer. Soon, and as the country finally emerged from the civil war, I moved onto turntables and proceeded to slowly build up my DJ gear and record collection.
When in 1996 I left Lebanon to study in the US, while I wasn’t after music education, I was keen to have music continue to be a large part of my life. Initially, I chose communication arts as a major hoping to do something in radio. However, a deeper desire to understand music and an interest in engineering (math and physics) led me to discovering acoustic engineering. Fast forward a few years, I graduated as a mechanical engineer specialising in acoustics and was handed my first job as an acoustic engineer in New York City.
The rest, as they say, is history…
