"Let It Rain.." First Victor dance band recorded with a microphone, 1925, featuring Billy Murray

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Steve Hoffman, Oct 22, 2018.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. BDC

    BDC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tacoma
    Interesting write up Steve H......
    Enjoyed the read, it kind of amazes me that the music sounds so good recorded with such an early mic. I suppose mics had probably been around for a bit in 25, but maybe thought to be too high class for use with a dance band? Yeah those guys jam, but I could find simpler things to struggle with on guitar.
     
  2. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

  3. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    The thing is, this YouTuber does everything RIAA with full freq., no filtering. So, it needs to be off RIAA and fixed a bit.

    Also (and this is something that Victor was constantly working on), the level of the music is low. Much lower than the 1927-32 recordings. So, more noticeable surface noise. In later recordings they tried to get the volume as high as they could without breaking the groove.

    Doesn't bother me but try -5@10k/6...
     
  4. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host Thread Starter

    Ha, great, enjoy. As you see, even all these years after I got mine the thing really has not much value to collectors. Now if it had been on the Scroll Victor label it would be a hundred bucks in V-. My collecting buddy Brad Kay probably has a room full of Electric Victor Batwing's from 1925-early '26. I'm sure they are all wonderful.
     
    Chris C likes this.
  5. onlyacanvasky

    onlyacanvasky Your guess is as good as mine.

    Great side, that minor chord in the progression works well!
     
  6. onlyacanvasky

    onlyacanvasky Your guess is as good as mine.

    Four weeks earlier, Columbia brought Art Gillham, an experienced radio man into their studios to play his piano and sing naturally.
    The fruits of that session were among Columbia's first electric releases, including this disc, Hesitation Blues.



    Dubbed "The Whispering Pianist", he was of course doing nothing of the sort, just singing naturally, but that was a novelty in those days.
    It's an interesting listen, the engineers are still feeling their way, Gillham's obviously singing straight into the microphone and the piano's coming through in the background, occasionally getting lost.
    Everyone's technique would improve as time went on, but for the first session to yield releases, it's not that bad, really.

    Also, look at the mother and stamper numbers in the dead wax - F-37! There's a record that sold well! You'd think with sales like that I'd be able to find a clean copy...nope. I'll keep looking.

    Over at ART GILLHAM The Whispering Pianist of Radio and Records there's a picture that claims to be of Gillham recording some time c. 1925.
    I don't know any more about it than that but it would explain the piano sounding a little weak.
    [​IMG]
     
  7. onlyacanvasky

    onlyacanvasky Your guess is as good as mine.

    Heh. I've got about three copies of this on Batwing Victor, one scroll and one Aussie HMV which unfortunately does •not• eat the Victors for breakfast, it's a contemporary pressing from the 1920s, before the EMI merger and laminated HMVs.
    And nobody would ever mistake it for an acoustic disc.
     
  8. onlyacanvasky

    onlyacanvasky Your guess is as good as mine.

    Meanwhile over at Columbia, the first dance band record was Egyptian Echoes b/w Hungaria by Sam Lanin's band on March 3.
    And as soon as I find it I'll let you all know!
     
  9. Joy-of-radio

    Joy-of-radio Forum Resident

    Location:
    Central ME
    Yep, the earliest electrically recorded discs were quite quiet, and the reason is because the vast majority of playback machines available at the time were entirely acoustic. Acoustic playback machines do not play electrically recorded disks well at all! What's interesting about this recording, and recordings that were made for several years after, is that a tuba was used as the bass. They could have used a standup bass in this recording, but the majority of the playback machines of the time were acoustic, and would not have reproduced that sound well at all and would likely have created much distortion bucking the needle right out of the groove! The technology was ahead of its time.
     
  10. Chris C

    Chris C Music was my first love and it will be my last!

    Location:
    Ohio
    My copy of the 78 rpm that Steve posted in post #1 showed up today and it looks pretty damn good. I will play it soon and report back on it's sound.

    I also just ordered this cool new 2-CD set of music from the '20's, that is being reissued by Rivermont Records in early November, that you may find interesting? Looks like a lovely set, reproduced with love and care ....

     
    Joy-of-radio likes this.
  11. violarules

    violarules Senior Member

    Location:
    Baltimore, MD
    Agreed. Back when I had some 78's and transferred them, I always tried to massage that EQ to get a decent sound. The right stylus helped, too. It drives me bonkers to hear all that high frequency swish when there is no music up there.
     
  12. violarules

    violarules Senior Member

    Location:
    Baltimore, MD
    Wow. I've never heard anything from that era sound that good (minus the surface noise....)

    Are there any extant big band transcriptions that sound that alive and good? The standard 78 pressings don't have the same quality.
     
  13. Walter H

    Walter H Santa's Helper

    Location:
    New Hampshire, USA
    Yes, but I don't know what they are or where to find them. When I was a kid I had a sampler cassette of big band numbers taken from transcriptions, in great sound. World's vertical-cut discs are indeed about as good as it gets from that era.
     
  14. onlyacanvasky

    onlyacanvasky Your guess is as good as mine.

    Oh good! I've got the Retrieval set, which is ok, but it'll be nice to have the Norks done using modern techniques. I've never had a Rivermont disc I was unhappy with!

    Yep, the vinyl Vertical cut transcriptions of that era were excellent in comparison to regular commercial 78s. They didn't have to compromise their sound for the lowest common denominator listening to crackly records on a windup gramophone (sound familiar?) This is a vertical cut, brown vinyl 33 1/3 RPM 12" ARPS disc, recorded on March 26, 1935. It's got frequency response and dynamics that aren't typical of this era, easily reproduced on the vinyl disc, and has much better sound than Robison's Master session from a couple of years later. Perhaps I'll upload a track from that from a vinyl pressing one day ;).
    It doesn't have full 20 Hz - 20 KHz frequency response, shining brass or a singing voice to really show you how much comparitive top it has, but it does have dynamics, and far less bumps in frequency response than a normal commercial release of 1935. Enjoy! It's nice when the disc makes the job so easy.
     
    Walter H and Chris C like this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine