SH Spotlight Do you want to hear two amazing RCA-Victor 78s from 1932? Ted Weems, Isham Jones..

That cdbpdx channel is very deep!

'35 Bluebird with the George Hall Orchestra featuring Dolly Dawn > Weather Man.

 

Fascinating. So really, how hard would've had been for a guy to solder a volume pot somewhere in the chain! Fun stuff.

dan c

 

And the end of the recording cuts off several seconds before the music does....truly a classic study in how not to transfer audio from a 78.

 

What's also weird is, I have a Ray Miller Brunswick (3046) from early 1926, and the B side, recorded two or three days after the A side, is much worse in terms of distortion. The A side is decently low in distortion, yet both sides are recorded at overall the same level.

 

I'm sure it may have been thought of, but the reality might have been more complicated. All that stuff with impedances, values and jazz.

Maybe there's something to do with thw proximity of the musicians to the thing that functioned as the 'microphone.' I recall a diagram of the Light Ray setup that seemed to show a single vacuum tube in the vicinity of the crystal mirror, photoelectric cell, etc.

Here's a perfectly serviceable, fun, Light Ray. My Sunday Gal, by Ben Selvin, recorded February 1927...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NGg9ZQafwA&feature=related



It's occurred to me that not all Light Ray records (even the later ones) advertise the fact on the labels.. Something I hadn't taken note of before.

 

Other companies tried to get their own non-WE electrical systems going in 1925 -1926 . None of them seem to sound all that good. I think Brunswick's Light Ray, at it's best, succeeded better for that time period compared to any electrical non-WE.

This (1925) Bell 78 (probably from a master cut by Emerson or somebody) is electrical and don't sound that hot either.

Yes Sir, That's My Baby by The Hollywood Ramblers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpHUv_4cmBw

 

Another interesting and related thread from the archives > http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=83838

 

Here's Birmingham Bertha by B.A. Rolfe Lucky Strike Dance Orchestra, vocal by Vaughn De Leath...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laQGcrE6too

The transfer (and low YouTube rez) isn't the best, but one may glean some nice late Edison electric sound from it. Lateral or 'Needle Cut' Edison records were on the market for just a matter of months in 1929, and the only laterals in the Edison line. All other Edison discs being the vertical cut 'Diamond Discs.'

This take of Bertha is most definitely different from the copy I have. No idea why. They were only pressed for short time.

 

A better Brunswick, There's A Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder by Al Jolson...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtT0kzPktxE

The transfer is weird, like it's using the wrong size stylus. Powerful sounding record when tracked properly, though. Blow the roof off your place. All those late 20's Jolie Brunswicks are great, and not hard to find.

 

Cool! Love this stuff.

dan c

 

Victor 19233, bat wing label, fine acoustical recording of a great band...

Mamma’s Gone, Good-bye – Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra (1923)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0D0aw3dwSw


Vocalion 1204, strong tenor sax work by multi-instrumentalist Junie Cobb:

Endurance Stomp – Junie C. Cobb and His Grains Of Corn (1928)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgee22DeiJo


Paramount 13125, the only known original was found a few years ago, amazing:

Times Has Done Got Hard – King Solomon Hill (1932)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUsZer_choE

 

From that thread, perhaps one of the two hail thee well, only again to depart, posts from forum member 'Shiffy' deserves a repost.



"In some cases obtaining even "MINT" disks does not permit extraction of the full bandwidth from their grooves. Companies that made superb masters often made unnecessarily noisy pressings during some periods (defined by years, who was managing, et. al). In the 20s, Victor made the worst pressings relative to high quality masters. Some electrical recordings were made without microphones, so they have resonance issues. These are exemplified by Brunswick's light ray process, which used a horn that converted the sound waves to optical modulation (a variation of G.E.'s Pallophotophone) that in turn were converted to electronic signals to drive the cutters.

Even "MINT has to be defined. The term implies that the disk is in the same condition as when it was newly manufactured. The term should be distinguished from UNPLAYED. I think that most UNPLAYED disks are not mint because of spontaneous changes that have occurred over time. These include development of lamination cracks in layered pressings. Also, I theorize that the pressings become noisier with the sublimation of plasticizers.

Directly playing positive and negative (the latter with inverted, V shaped styli) metal parts can even trump problems caused by the pressing process. I've heard fidelity from metal that is utterly astonishing.

The methods used to plate the wax or lacquer masters affected the playback quality.
Wax masters that were rubbed with graphite (in order to electroplate the originals)
are necessarily much more noisy than those that were cathode-sputtered. The earliest cathode sputtering applied to phonographic (grooved) recordings (that I can think of) are Edison's "Gold Molded" cylinders, predating Orthophonic and Viva-Tonal recordings by some 20 years.

The technology at first licensed by Columbia and Victor from Western Electric was all derived from work by Bell Labs (known before 1-1-25 as The West Street Labs). According to AT & T papers that I've read, their primary motivation was to be able to accurately record technical tests. Making the technology available to the phonograph record, motion picture, and broadcasting industries was a logical outgrowth of seeking markets for their inventions. Their R & D was methodical and intense: investigating every aspect of recording including acoustics and speech. They were always aspiring to the widest bandwidth and best S/N, mitigated of course by the legal, technical, financial and logistical restrictions of the markets into which they forayed. The legal issues were mostly patents: what they could and could not use when recording, pressing, a playing back. The other three always impacted highly upon quality. For example, for a fixed rotational rate (speed is an inappropriate term) the larger the disk, the faster the velocity of the outer-most grooves.) Larger disks enabled better sound. But that entailed more materials per pressing, higher shipping costs, and perceived cumbersomeness (i.e. of 14", 16" & even 20" diameters).

Reference was made to transfers made by Nimbus using acoustical playback equipment that was transducer by microphones. This might optimal in cases in which the reproducers' bandwidth does not exceed that of the recording. Acoustically made records could benefit from such a process. However, this method necessarily adds the characteristics of the room in which the playback / re-recording is performed. The conditions of such rooms then necessarily impact upon all subsequent playbacks. Is it philosophically acceptable to unavoidably introduce whatever ambience such a room superimposes to playbacks? Also, there’s the issue of which reproducer and horn
(or for that matter the entire machine) is used for which disk? A nettlesome example would be a compilation of recordings made by Billy Murray. The man recorded for
many different labels. Is a disk best played by a machine made by the company that made the recording? Even if it were agreed that a particular phonograph could best play any of his lateral cut ones (i.e. Victor & Columbia), then that configuration of that machine could not be used to play his vertical cut Pathes.

In the case of first generation electrical (electronic) grooves, acoustic reproducers lack the bandwidth of state of the art direct-to-disk recordings made 'back then'. Acoustic playbacks can sound charming and mellifluous, but they sacrifice the high and low ends of the information contained in the best-cut grooves.

Once digitized (and how they're digitized), they might be able to be improved depending upon the criteria defining "improved". For example, in just a few recent years the ability to discriminate between signal and noise had been greatly improved because the files can be many more bits deep and sampled many more times per second. But for all of the ballyhoo
of noise suppression, I still think that the greatest advantage to digital processing is the removal of clicks & pops (even manually), not overall noise suppression.

I still am thrilled by the terrific "punch" (a term used by Raymond Scott in the context of clarity and life-like nuance) of a superbly recorded and pressed, unworn 78 (33s from then too) played in real time by a proper system. In the case of electrically recorded ones, the intensity is simply not remotely achieved with an old original, properly maintained and operating acoustical reproducer: even those designed by Bell Labs. Perhaps a new design (using new materials and techniques) could accomplish equal or better results, but I'm not aware that this has been accomplished."



I think I agree with all points.

 

Quite a number of those acoustical Victors that were of jazz or dance bands in 1923-1924 are very loud cuttings. Really overloading the recording diaphragm sometimes. I wish I could find Twilight by Art Hickman's orchestra on the 'Tube, extremely loud record.

 

Some of these YouTube enthusiast videos have better sound than you can get from the commercial record labels.

 

This is nice.

Endurance Stomp played the State Street Ramblers in 1928.

Custom vinyl test pressing, unfutzed with transfer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtp_PuMNmps

 

RE: Brunswick Light Ray records

August of 1927 was when Brunswick switched to Western Electric, according to R.J. Wakeman.

This is another, unrelated Brunswick article he wrote...

http://www.gracyk.com/brunswick.shtml

 

was this a light ray recording? and do any of those old films with the sound oscillations still exist?

 

Western Electric, from 1928. Jolson's recording career on Brunswick starts back the acoustic days (mid 20's) on up through the early 1930's.

They didn't use any films for the Light Ray recordings, if that's what you mean. It was all driving an electric cutter, directly.

 

Gershwin's own recording of Rhapsody In Blue, Side 1 electric and side 2 acoustic!

A pressing error. Though illustrative of how far recording changed in just three years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVpZeKheCjA

 

Are you kidding me, this smokes!!!

 

What smokes?

 

The music and the recording themselves, it's spectacular!