1934 Victor Record Cutter...need pre-grooved vinyl...?

[Daniel Lapp]

Hi fellow LT's! This is exciting to discover this great network - a subculture of subcultures I have a 1934 Victor Record Cutter that a friend is helping me restore and we're very excited so far with the results. All tubes etc. are working, the radio sounds great, it's playing 78's & 33's (one of the first long play record machines I think...? some of you would certainly know) and the VU meter is working when set on 'Recording from Radio' or 'Recording from Microphone'. A couple of blank vinyl discs and some needles came with the rig - along with the original microphone and the 'weight' that sits on it....however, we've determined that this is not a 'lathe' but a 'cutter' only...the blanks threw us at first. I'm assuming that we will need "Pre-Grooved" vinyl to cut onto. I admit, this is all NEW to me but as an avid collector of old fiddle music 78's and other 'old' things I'm pretty excited to see if this actually works. Any info on this machine or how to locate pre-grooved vinyl would be GREATLY appreciated...and perhaps I'll need to actually get my own lathe as well someday!

[opcode66]

Welcome!

Quoted from Wikipedia (so you know it's 100% accurate )

"RCA Victor introduced home phonograph disk recorders in October 1930. These phonographs featured a large counterbalanced tone arm with horseshoe magnet pick-up. These types of pick-ups could also be "driven" to actually move the needle and RCA took advantage of that by designing a system of home recording that used "pre-grooved" records. The material that the records were made from (advertised as "Victrolac") was soft and it was possible to somewhat modulate the grooves using the pick-up with proper recording needle and a fairly heavy weight placed on the pick-up. The discs were only six inches in diameter so recording time at 78rpm was brief. Larger size Victor blanks were introduced late in 1931, when RCA-Victor introduced the Radiola-Electrola RE-57. These machines were capable of recording at 331⁄3 rpm as well as 78 rpm. One could select to record something from the radio or one could record using the hand-held microphone. The RAE-59 sold for a hefty $350.00 at a time when many manufacturers had trouble finding buyers for $50.00 radios."

If in fact you do have one of these then you can use recordio style discs. They show up on eBay here and there. Someone here might have some to sell. Otherwise, there is no new source of this style of blank that I'm aware of.

[emorritt]

No, you can't use Recordio discs; the RE series Electrolas had no means of driving the pickup/recorder across the record, hence the pre-grooved plastic disc. The 'recording' needles basically embossed (poorly) the sound into the walls of the existing grooves. You had to use the special needles for recording and playback of the home recording blanks made by Victor, as a standard stylus for playing a 78 would reach below where the recording was in the groove. You might be able to use a lacquer disc if you cut some 'dead' grooves in it first, but they would have to be very wide and deep to work on a recording Electrola. Not sure if the drag of one of the Victor home recording needles would pull a pre-grooved lacquer to a stop, but it might be worth a try.