SH Spotlight Difference in early 1930's recording techniques. Isham Jones & his Orchestra BRUNSWICK vs. VICTOR

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, Fred Astaire was pounding a platform with his feet in a recording that still rattles the windows today.



Unfortunately I can’t find a really good transfer on YT, this was recorded in London for Columbia using the Western Electric system but not released in the USA. There’s a good transfer on Pearl if anyone’s interested.

Enjoy the little chat with George Gershwin too!

 

That mirror must have been pegged right at the back of its enclosure during that and the Erskine Tate sides!

 

By mid-1928 their system was working quite well - but they still couldn’t quite contain Gene Krupa! This is another one I’ve got on an Aussie laminated pressing from the original Brunswick metal, superb stuff.

 

There was an alternate?

 

Oh yes, safety takes etc, but I didn’t know that an alternate of that one had made it into the wild as it were!

 

Are those two-track stereo, even?

 

That's what I read, as hard as it is to believe! Of course, there are experimental stereo recordings from war-torn Berlin, in which distant artillery can be heard.

In the cadenza and some quiet passages you can hear the artillery from outside the RRG-building (2´30"+, 5´40"+). For me this is just unbelievable, a historical document and an impressive testimonial against war. Historic Stereo-Recording from 1944 with Walter Gieseking as soloist and Arthur Rother and the Großes Berliner Rundfunkorchester. 2009 we can celebrate the 65th anniversary of stereophonic tape recordings. So I thought it might be interesting to upload a few recordings that Mr. Helmut Krüger made at the RRG in Berlin in the early 40´s with the AEG-Telefunken K7 stereo tape recoder (Krüger was nicknamed by his radio colleagues Krüger-Krüger, in witty reference to his habit to record everything in stereo). After the soviets brought the complete RGG-archive to Moscow in 1945 unfortunately from the hundreds of Stereo recordings only a handful found their way back to Berlin. And in a very bad condition. The over 60 years old tape was transfered directly to digital equipment w i t h o u t any processing.

 

Thank you for this! How could anyone not love this stuff? These are historical documents!

 

I know that recording. Goosebump stuff. Real stereo from 1944.

In talking to a friend of mine who's a big classical music connoisseur, he told me he thinks that the claim that “hundreds” of stereo recordings have been made in Berlin 1944-1945 is implausible. The reason being that if there would have been money to be made from those recordings by the Soviets, they would have definitely surfaced. Improper storage and/or destruction of the tapes is also plausible, but why? I'm not sure what the story is here. It would have meant also hundreds of tapes made over hundreds of days. Not sure how likely that was/is during a time of war.

Here is another source claiming the same number:
Missing German stereo tapes from World War II - Anton Bruckner

 

That WWII video linked me to this 1932 recording. Is this true stereo? If so, how was it done?
That WWII recording sounds great.

 

Say what?!

 

That's some cool $#!+ for 1920s recording tech!

 

I really love the history of recorded music. It really gives you a better appreciation of all the hard work and effort that went into these older recordings.
I remember from watching the Tom Dowd documentary when he first got into recording. They were only using one mic at the time, and he said he couldn't hear the bass if I remember correctly. So he came in and started adding mics for each of the instruments so they could be heard.
I find it all fascinating.

 

Ellington collector/expert Steven Lasker discovered in the early '80s that there was more than one disc of the same performance, and that the balances of the two recordings were very different. He synced them - in the analog domain! - and created a stereo effect. I'm pretty sure it has since been re-done with digital technology.

This is the original 1984 LP release, which I have:

 

1931 - I love this sound so very much

 

I believe it was Theodore Case who invented the process and licensed it to Fox.