The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls

Yes, it's a vary lathe model. My S/N is #644. The body of the machine says "501" in some parts (like the assembly holding the flywheel the turntable belts hook up to), but I assume this is because the molds have this same label. The molds would indeed have dated to when the company was making the o...

I am curious as to who at Motown's Hitsville studios' mastering section "LENNY" would have been. (That name was on many lacquers cut by this person on some late '60's / early '70's Motown 45's.)

I happen to be interested in the photos and:

12. 8 and 32 pitch solenoid adjustment

Appears from the S/N you must have a Model 601. I always dug the lead-in and -out grooves emanating therefrom (the "8 and 32 pitch" which was a bit less on the former and a bit more on the latter).

One key would be to look within the "pyramid" setup on the lathe - such as on an earlier version of the "knob dial" setup as from 'dubfidub' as can be seen on this photo (his lathe is S/N 489). Another place to look would be on the manufacturer's plate (which would presumably list "Scully Machine Co...

I'm curious - are the secondary "finer" pitches seen below the 88-136 lpi range on the gearbox, 150-234 or 178-274 lpi? I know Columbia, in their New York studios, used a 501 with the 150-234 secondary pitches through 1966. Also, what would be the serial number of the 501 with which you find yourself?

P.S. Randy Kling wasn't the only one of the RCA Chicago mastering engineers who handled Motown masters, to later transfer to another RCA studio. There was another mastering engineer there whose signature looked like an upside-down version of Columbia's "Lp" logo, who by the mid-1970's was working ou...

i am still trying to learn to tell how a record was cut-on a scully or neumann etc Records cut on Scullys - especially on post-1950 lathes (including post-1955 Model 601) with variable pitch knobs - are easy to spot a mile away due to the spacing of the lead-in and lead-out grooves, and on some rec...

I'm using a Westrex 3DIIa head on my Scully (model number unknown, S/N 423); it uses an advance ball. For a short test I attempted to run the head without the advance ball assembly attached, but found the cutting depth was uneven, so after getting the replacement advance ball (from Apollo) I've stu...

The control panel looks like the type that was in that 1956 film The Sound and the Story on the making of LP records at RCA Victor. I sensed it looked different from the other control panel layouts I've seen. As for the 70 - 350 lpi layout — I've read of Scullys with pitch control knobs ranging from...

I'll have to do some more research on this topic. I've always liked the short film "Command Performance". It shows the process at RCA in Camden NJ in the 1940's. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnkndGHVm4Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS6mUy8YXBI Compare and contrast this with the 1956 short film ...

Most of those metal parts as in that film (the RCA logo during the opening credits, however, points to a circa 1942 or '44 re-release) disappeared when the Camden, NJ building that housed them was demolished some time in the 1970's. A few escaped the wrecking ball when collectors took whatever they ...

Very eye-opening, as others have doubtless mentioned. I would have loved, however, to see which model numbers were manufactured when. (Such as the 501 lathe manufactured from the late 1930's through the late '40's, and the 601 which was first unveiled in 1955 - I'm still searching for the model numb...

Some early 1970's lacquers emanating from MCA Records' Universal City, CA studios bore a signature of "B.D.I." (which sometimes, when written in script, looked like "B.D.J."). Those initials stood for Brian D. Ingoldsby, a mixing and mastering engineer of the early to mid-1970's who later worked els...

I believe the SRC logo that you are referring to is the logo of Specialty Records Corp. which pressed the Warner catalog in the 1970s. It's not a signature of the cutting engineer. Specialty started out as an independent pressing plant but was later bought by Warner. FYI, the cutting engineers at m...

I wonder - was the Scully shown in that manual the post-1938 Model 501, or was it one of the 20 lathes the company built for Victor between 1934 and 1937? (And if so, what would that model number have been?) [Timeline of building based on 1956 High Fidelity magazine article referred to in other thre...

ejemmons wrote:For awhile, I had both chains from the old Annex Studios, Scully/Westrex, back in 1994, on loan from a gentleman who'd lost his facility. How I wish I'd been able to hang on to them!

I have quite a few LP's and 45's mastered on those Scully/Westrex' from Annex Studios.

It would appear, on the face of it, that at least 10 LS-76's were produced.

When did Larry J. start designing and when did John J. stop? John J. died in or about 1950, from what I've read, as the first automatic variable pitch / depth lathe was being developed and on the verge of being introduced; the models thereafter (such as the post-1955 model 601) were designed and it...

Notice, in the part of the film: http://youtu.be/Il-F3Rq7heY?t=6m53s where the lacquer mastering was taking place, the RCA RT-11 tape machine - done in a layout (diagonal on the wall) that would also be used for some of the company's later Quad videotape - er, "television tape" recorders. (Some have...

I seem to have read (in an interview in a book on mastering engineers - or was it with Frankford/Wayne Mastering Labs' co-founder Tom Steele) that in the early years of Frankford/Wayne's existence in Philadelphia, they used a Presto 6N with Grampian feedback cutterhead; two major hits cut on this la...