Acoustic recording

[John Wright]

The old days... acoustic recording.... in a 'laboratory'!

'Laboratory' suggests it's at Thomas Edison's premises. It's the NY Philharmonic.

[LeMartinPecheur]

It's the NY Philharmonic.

Wot no strings?? It may be the NY Philharmonic Band but it certainly ain't the orchestra!

Yes, before anyone rushes to correct, I do appreciate that in acoustic recording the strings got a pretty raw deal with their parts boosted, or often replaced, by wind and brass.

[John Wright]

Yes you may have answered your own question there, and depends what they were playing. Probably playing some ragtime military tune. Though I can see a string bass near the conductor.

I like the score sheets hanging from the ceiling! And the horn player sitting sideways to aim at the recording horn (which we can't see). Chap with his back to the conductor/horn is, I think, playing cymbals.

[Gordon]

Those were the days! No health and safety for that lot. It happened everywhere back then: here's Elgar at it at HMV, note the tape wrapped round the horn to damp resonances.



and a bunch of woodwind/brass players being taken by an array of horns into a group of cylinder [Edison] type recorders. Cylinders were hard to mass produce compared to flat Berliner discs and so several machines would be used to make masters. Someone could get a compete set of these and synthesise some stereo or even surround sound no doubt. An example of early multi-micing!




and Henry Wood

[handsomefortune]

great photos!

where there's a will there's a way!

[John Wright]

Re the first photo. It's the NY Philharmonic recording the Ginn Music Education records in the Gennett studios,

here's the Talking Machine Forum thread that started it all, with other photos,

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9023

[handsomefortune]

thanks for that john wright - the site you link to is an absolute cracker!

i might request some spats next birthday!

[pmartel]

Truly amazing how technology has changed into the 21st century.

Considering the photos and how we would consider things 'primitive' by those standards they pulled off remarkable achievements.

Compared to multi miked edited recordings of to-day's standards, these were true artists and pioneers.

One of my passions is being a record collector and having specialized in older recordings. Collected gramophones and had a cylinder player in my younger days AND and Edison disc gramophone.

Thankfully, I STILL have my Lenco L-75 turntable and have thought about having a preamp built for 78 equalisation.

A properly played 78 sounds STUNNING.

A few years back, I had a couple of friends over for an 'audio night'. Picture a tube integrated amp and the Lenco fitted with a GEVRII cartridge, mono split to stereo output. GORGEOUS lateral spread across the speakers.

My friends mouths dropped when I played recordings from the 20's and 30's..

A passion of mine are old recordings.

Thanks for this post.

[Gordon]

.........Thankfully, I STILL have my Lenco L-75 turntable and have thought about having a preamp built for 78 equalisation.

A properly played 78 sounds STUNNING.

That peamp for 78s may be a bit tricky to build. Equalisation in the 78 era was not standardised and the RIAA curves did not come in for LP until around 1954 and even then it was not uniformly adhered to. Acoustic 78 or cylinder recordings [pre 1925] would have no EQ at all except that applied "accidentally" because of the recording horn/stylus assembly resonances etc. These would not be reversed in playback, in fact you'd get more of the same.

Early electrical recording aspired to constant velocity recording in the cut groove but how this was achieved varied widely among the companies, each trying to get better sound as reproduced. It was thwarted by the non-flat response of microphones of the early era as well as the characteristics of the early cutters [mostly Western Electric or the later EMI Blumlein].

Reproducing pre 1954 78s [they were sold until the early 60s] using modern moving magnet pickups using "modern" RIAA EQ in the playback pre-amp will give a peculiar response so you are right to seek a "correct" playback EQ. But it may be hard to get right for all discs so your idea of a "properly played" 78may be hard to achieve with any degree of precision without accurate knowledge, both formal and informal, of the many "original" cuts. But if you enjoy the sound as you get it don't worry about it!!

Go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization

for a bit of background. Note in particular Peter Copeland's mammoth work [ref 1 in the wiki, downloadable pdf from the page] on the restoration problem. Peter is an acknowledged expert on this kind of problem and has conducted extensive research in the area.

[John Wright]

pmartel, I used an old L-75 Lenco for a couple of years when producing my dance bands podcasts, but the arm went a bit wobbly (common age problem apparently) so I'm now on very modern Numark or Stanton decks for 78 speed transfers.

As Gordon says, I don't worry about EQ technical details as long as I and my listeners enjoy the sound that I achieve with the deck, an amp and a de-noise software (Algorithmix).

Off-topic the 78rpm records I work with for podcasts are all post-1925 so electrical, no acoustic. If you have time download one of my podcasts for a trip through the years of the charleston, foxtrot, hot jazz, swing, bigband - all British bands!

http://www.r2ok.co.uk/dancebandshow.htm

http://www.r2ok.co.uk/playlists.htm

[pmartel]

Thank you to both John and Gordon.

John, I'll check out your podcasts.

I found that some American Columbia 78's after about 1941 sounded stunning. Les Brown, in particular, and his swing version of Blue Danube was a demo disc for my stereo.

I have gotten into 'restoration' of lp's on the computer and have come up with amazing results. Record at 192khz and take it from there.

Haven't tackled 78's yet.

It's fun spending an afternoon trying to get it right on my day off some times.

I stumbled into a site where someone had transferred 'orthophonic' 78's using an 'orthophonic' gramophone quite remarkable sound

[John Wright]

I think orthophonic refers to the American Victrola Orthophonic Credenza phonograph/gramophone, I've never seen/heard one, maybe not common in UK.

The 78's I restore are often not HMV nor Columbia nor Parlophone, I tend to work with records that have not had re-issue, often obscure labels so the restoration results can be variable, and each a week a few are 8" rather than standard 10" 78s , and although the 8" will have a narrower groove (still 3 minutes of music) the results from them can surpass an average HMV.

There was/is a classical CD company who record directly from a huge gramophone horn, can't recall the name right now, it'll come to me......

[PJPJ]

Nimbus

[hmvman]

I think orthophonic refers to the American Victrola Orthophonic Credenza phonograph/gramophone, I've never seen/heard one, maybe not common in UK.

The 'Orthophonic' machines were internal horn gramophones (Phonograph in the 'States) and the horn was of a complex design to give the long acoustic system needed for full reproduction of electrical recordings. In the UK the HMV equivalents to the Victor 'Orthophonics' appeared in 1927 and were called 'Re-entrant' gramophones after the way the acoustic system works. There were three models of 'Re-entrant' cabinet gramophones, ranging from the smallest, Model No.163 (the model that Elgar owned) up to the huge Model No.202/203. There was also a 'console' model, the Automatic 1A which was a massive beast that featured an automatic record changer and a remote control. There aren't many of those around today as I don't think many were sold - they cost an eye-watering £125 in 1929!

I think the Nimbus gramophone is an EMG Mark X.

[pmartel]

Yes, Nimbus used that technique, but never heard them, supposed to be quite amazing