Hello fellow Trolls!
Last few months I have been working an all-acoustic disc recording project asides from my regular Stereo cutting and I started a blog in November covering several experiments with modern acoustic disc recording and want to share it with you at http://odeonacoustic.blogspot.ca/
Feel free to join and participate if you interested in the ancient art of acoustic disc cutting!
Here also a little present:
http://youtu.be/Ahh_w_ktdW8
Happy Holidays and best wishes for 2013!
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jornibudich
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2007 12:48 pm
FROM A HANDCRANKER: HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL LATHE TROLLS!
JORNI (Vancouver BC)
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Aussie0zborn
- Posts: 1825
- Joined: Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:23 am
- Location: Australia
- Contact:
Hello Trolls, and merry Christmas,
I thought I would add a few details to the joyous message that acoustic lateral recording is now taking place again. Congratulations on your results! I myself have been down that road and I did quite a few experiments before being put to the test in 1994.
It all started when I received a substantial grant in 1981 to study the ways that knowledge about the recording technology used could inform the reproduction of historical records, and one very important source was the EMI Music Archives where I spent extended periods of time. Apart from finding important correspondence between recording experts and headquarters on both sides of the Atlantic (the constant cooperation but also inter-departmental competition between the Gramophone Co. and the Victor Talking Machine Company), I was also permitted to take the “Hayes Portable” recording machine (the one in the video referred to) to bits for photo-documentation and I was introduced to a collection of original recording horns that had been found in the loft above the old studios in Blythe Road, Hayes when they were restored. I took complete measurements and was permitted to borrow two of these horns for experiments, both in an anechoic chamber and for recording a piano trio. Before returning them I had replicas made by a restorer and coppersmith (in galvanised steel sheet as were the originals). In the course of my studies of early recording technology I also acquired a semi-professional recording lathe and recorded 78 rpm records electrically; I still do, but I have comparatively little experience with cutting LPs or singles.
Fast forward to 1994 when I was approached by a record company whose famous tenor had found out that the only way he could compare himself to Caruso was to make acoustic recordings just like Caruso and to compare the outcomes. I borrowed a Hayes portable machine from a museum (duly insured) and went on a recording trip to Italy with machine, horns, and original cutting soundboxes that I had borrowed from a third source. Two trips were made; for the first the Steinway was tuned down from a=441 Hz to a=435 Hz due to the wishes of the tenor. The piano tuner tried to console the Steinway Grand during the 4 hours this took. For recording we in particular worked on balance and avoiding overload. The second trip created disc records, both cutting wax and making Berliner-type etched records. I used DMM masters for the etching because I wanted to avoid the large crystals that you find in rolled zinc sheet, which would increase the surface noise due to different etching speeds when you reach a crystal border.
What has happened to this material? Am I the Fred Gaisberg of the 1990s? No, I had a contract, my time and efforts were paid, I have the audio and video documentation, some tests, but all originals went to the record company. There the material will most probably sit until there is demand for “extra material” or a 5th or 7th biography of the singer, or another video of his career is prepared. For me the important thing was to experience how a renowned vocal (as opposed to instrumental, which I tried before) artist would approach the acoustic recording situation where you have to wear your ears the other way round – you cannot trust what the horn throws back at you unless you are experienced.
Based on my exeriences and from observations of the publicly available experiments to make acoustic recordings in 1997 by Sean Davies I was able to prepare a paper for the Audio Engineering Society in 1998 -- it is “Authenticity in the Reconstruction of Historical Disc Recording Sessions”, Preprint No. 4829. For those who are not able to retrieve this at less than US$20 from the AES website I am willing to let Steve E. upload my original manuscript after the holidays. Imagine, I may be good at historical technology but I am not conversant with modern file distribution!
Happy holidays, everyone,
Greybeard
I thought I would add a few details to the joyous message that acoustic lateral recording is now taking place again. Congratulations on your results! I myself have been down that road and I did quite a few experiments before being put to the test in 1994.
It all started when I received a substantial grant in 1981 to study the ways that knowledge about the recording technology used could inform the reproduction of historical records, and one very important source was the EMI Music Archives where I spent extended periods of time. Apart from finding important correspondence between recording experts and headquarters on both sides of the Atlantic (the constant cooperation but also inter-departmental competition between the Gramophone Co. and the Victor Talking Machine Company), I was also permitted to take the “Hayes Portable” recording machine (the one in the video referred to) to bits for photo-documentation and I was introduced to a collection of original recording horns that had been found in the loft above the old studios in Blythe Road, Hayes when they were restored. I took complete measurements and was permitted to borrow two of these horns for experiments, both in an anechoic chamber and for recording a piano trio. Before returning them I had replicas made by a restorer and coppersmith (in galvanised steel sheet as were the originals). In the course of my studies of early recording technology I also acquired a semi-professional recording lathe and recorded 78 rpm records electrically; I still do, but I have comparatively little experience with cutting LPs or singles.
Fast forward to 1994 when I was approached by a record company whose famous tenor had found out that the only way he could compare himself to Caruso was to make acoustic recordings just like Caruso and to compare the outcomes. I borrowed a Hayes portable machine from a museum (duly insured) and went on a recording trip to Italy with machine, horns, and original cutting soundboxes that I had borrowed from a third source. Two trips were made; for the first the Steinway was tuned down from a=441 Hz to a=435 Hz due to the wishes of the tenor. The piano tuner tried to console the Steinway Grand during the 4 hours this took. For recording we in particular worked on balance and avoiding overload. The second trip created disc records, both cutting wax and making Berliner-type etched records. I used DMM masters for the etching because I wanted to avoid the large crystals that you find in rolled zinc sheet, which would increase the surface noise due to different etching speeds when you reach a crystal border.
What has happened to this material? Am I the Fred Gaisberg of the 1990s? No, I had a contract, my time and efforts were paid, I have the audio and video documentation, some tests, but all originals went to the record company. There the material will most probably sit until there is demand for “extra material” or a 5th or 7th biography of the singer, or another video of his career is prepared. For me the important thing was to experience how a renowned vocal (as opposed to instrumental, which I tried before) artist would approach the acoustic recording situation where you have to wear your ears the other way round – you cannot trust what the horn throws back at you unless you are experienced.
Based on my exeriences and from observations of the publicly available experiments to make acoustic recordings in 1997 by Sean Davies I was able to prepare a paper for the Audio Engineering Society in 1998 -- it is “Authenticity in the Reconstruction of Historical Disc Recording Sessions”, Preprint No. 4829. For those who are not able to retrieve this at less than US$20 from the AES website I am willing to let Steve E. upload my original manuscript after the holidays. Imagine, I may be good at historical technology but I am not conversant with modern file distribution!
Happy holidays, everyone,
Greybeard
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Angus McCarthy
- Posts: 760
- Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2010 6:22 pm
- Location: Bloomsburg, PA, USA