[muzician21]

It's my understanding that wax-cylinders were one-offs. If you wanted
100 copies you had to have 100 machines running, or record 10 times
with 10 machines etc.

What about the recording formats that came later? What was the master?

[Scott Dorsey]

muzician21 wrote:
It's my understanding that wax-cylinders were one-offs. If you wanted
100 copies you had to have 100 machines running, or record 10 times
with 10 machines etc.

Early on, this was the case. But later on, Edison figured out a really
neat way to press duplicates which relied on a molding material that had
controlled shrinkage and could therefore be removed from a cylindrical mold.

What about the recording formats that came later? What was the master?

Well, for discs originally the master was cut onto a soft metallic wax,
which was then plated and used as a stamper.

This graduated to a nitrocellulose lacquer which was then plated and
pressed. The lacquer could be played directly once or twice if you were
very careful so you could tell what you had recorded without waiting a
week to get your metal back from the plant.

And then in 1949 Ampex came out with a commercial tape machine and then
everything changed.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[muzician21]

On Dec 30, 1:12*pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

What about the recording formats that came later? What was the master?

Well, for discs originally the master was cut onto a soft metallic wax,
which was then plated and used as a stamper.


So basically it was a "direct to disk" system. Did they generally only
make one per recording? Seems like it would be dicey to depend on a
single stamping to make however many records you were going to press.

So when you hear these Swing Era compilations, surely they're not
taking them off the original master? I would assume they must have
been transferred to tape long ago and then at some point digitized,
particularly as noise removal and enhancement technology has improved?

[muzician21]

Were there any experiments with stereo prior to tape?

[Scott Dorsey]

muzician21 wrote:
On Dec 30, 1:12=A0pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

What about the recording formats that came later? What was the master?

Well, for discs originally the master was cut onto a soft metallic wax,


So basically it was a "direct to disk" system. Did they generally only
make one per recording? Seems like it would be dicey to depend on a
single stamping to make however many records you were going to press.

You can do two-step process... plate the disc, make a negative image,
plate that and make a positive mother, then make multiple stampers off
the mother.

So when you hear these Swing Era compilations, surely they're not
taking them off the original master? I would assume they must have
been transferred to tape long ago and then at some point digitized,
particularly as noise removal and enhancement technology has improved?

They're almost always done off of pressings, although occasionally you will
find recordings where the original lacquers exist. Normally the lacquer is
destroyed in the process of making the pressing.

Sometimes you will find metalwork in the archives, and the metal can be
played directly with special apparatus or you can make clean pressings off
of them.

Many of the recordings in the forties would be pressed on ordinary shellac
for consumer use, with all of the filler that normally goes into shellac.
However, they would make pressings on unplasticized vinyl for radio station
use; those DJ pressings couldn't be played on an acoustic phonograph but
they were much, much quieter than the shellac.

There were also some consumer discs and V-discs made on filled unplasticized
vinyl.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

muzician21 wrote:
Were there any experiments with stereo prior to tape?

Yes.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

muzician21 wrote:

Were there any experiments with stereo prior to tape?

Yes, first stereo experiment was - by accident - in Paris at the world
exhibition in 1891 if I remember this correctly. A concert was transmitted
via telephones and holding one telephone connected to one microphone and
another, connected to another, allowed listening to the transmission in
glorious A-B stereo. And then there was Blumlein in UK in the 1930'ties and
in the US I think Disney was the forerunner, but the local people over there
know that tale better than I. Suggested literatu Blumleins patents.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

And then in 1949 Ampex came out with a commercial tape machine and
then everything changed.

Not an Ampex invention per se, they relied on the German improvements of
Poulsens original wirerecorder, the Telegrafon. The most important
improvement being caused by a fortuitous amplifier oscillation, AC bias
kinda invented itself, but the use of (at first) papertape coated with
ferromagnetic powder instead of a wire was also a major step forward.

--scott

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[William Sommerwerck]

Were there any experiments with stereo prior to tape?

Both Bell Labs and EMI experimented with stereo recording. The latter even
patented a stereo cutter head in the 30s.

You need to do some research on your own. Start with "From Tinfoil to
Stereo", and search the Web.

[John Hardy]

On 12/30/2010 12:12 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
wrote:
It's my understanding that wax-cylinders were one-offs. If you wanted
100 copies you had to have 100 machines running, or record 10 times
with 10 machines etc.

Early on, this was the case. But later on, Edison figured out a really
neat way to press duplicates which relied on a molding material that had
controlled shrinkage and could therefore be removed from a cylindrical mold.

What about the recording formats that came later? What was the master?

Well, for discs originally the master was cut onto a soft metallic wax,
which was then plated and used as a stamper.

This graduated to a nitrocellulose lacquer which was then plated and
pressed. The lacquer could be played directly once or twice if you were
very careful so you could tell what you had recorded without waiting a
week to get your metal back from the plant.

And then in 1949 Ampex came out with a commercial tape machine and then
everything changed.
--scott

There is a movie from 1942 entitled Orchestra Wives. The opening scenes
are in a recording studio. It features the Glenn Miller Band. Corny
movie, but an interesting look into how things were done then. It is
available on DVD.

John Hardy

[William Sommerwerck]

There is a movie from 1942 entitled "Orchestra Wives".

Also "Sun Valley Serenade". Both films were recorded on RCA's 7-track
optical recorder (which was also used for "Fantasia"). The stems survived,
and one can hear these films with an ersatz-stereo soundtrack.

[PStamler]

On Dec 30, 12:49*pm, "Peter Larsen" wrote:

Not an Ampex invention per se, they relied on the German improvements of
Poulsens original wirerecorder, the Telegrafon. The most important
improvement being caused by a fortuitous amplifier oscillation, AC bias
kinda invented itself, but the use of (at first) papertape coated with
ferromagnetic powder instead of a wire was also a major step forward.

High-frequency AC bias seems to have been invented several times,
apparently independently. In 1921 Wendell Carlson & Glenn Carpenter of
the US Naval Research laboratories applied for a patent on it. In 1939
Marvin Camras of the Armour Research Foundation in Chicago
rediscovered the technique. Around the same time Kenzo Nagai in Japan
also rediscovered the technique, but I don't have further details.
Finally, in 1940 Walter Weber & Hans Joachim von Braunmuhl, in
Germany, rediscovered it and applied it to the Magnetophone. After
World War II ended an American named Jack Mullin, who was in the
Signal Corps, liberated a couple of Magnetophones with DC bias and
brought them back to the States, where he refitted them with AC bias.

Peace,
Paul

[Scott Dorsey]

Peter Larsen wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:

And then in 1949 Ampex came out with a commercial tape machine and
then everything changed.

Not an Ampex invention per se, they relied on the German improvements of
Poulsens original wirerecorder, the Telegrafon. The most important
improvement being caused by a fortuitous amplifier oscillation, AC bias
kinda invented itself, but the use of (at first) papertape coated with
ferromagnetic powder instead of a wire was also a major step forward.

Yes. But Ampex actually made a commercial product that you could buy
over the counter. Within two years, every studio and every radio station
in the country had one and the world had changed.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[John Hardy]

On 12/30/2010 1:23 PM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
There is a movie from 1942 entitled "Orchestra Wives".

Also "Sun Valley Serenade". Both films were recorded on RCA's 7-track
optical recorder (which was also used for "Fantasia"). The stems survived,
and one can hear these films with an ersatz-stereo soundtrack.



I've got Sun Valley Serenade too (possibly on Laserdisc, maybe its VHS).
I'll have to look at it again. But it was the opening scenes of
Orchestra Wives that caught my attention the first time I saw it many
years ago. Sounded great, even on small TV speakers.

I wasn't sure which movie had those scenes, so I put both of them on my
"Secret Santa" list and received both of them about three years ago.

John Hardy

[hank alrich]

muzician21 wrote:

Were there any experiments with stereo prior to tape?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo

Therefrom: "The first stereo transmission was made telephonically by
Clément Ader in 1881. The BBC made radio's first stereo broadcast in
December 1925. In the 1930s, Alan Blumlein of EMI patented stereo
records, stereo films, and also surround sound."

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://armadillomusicproductions.com/who'slistening.html
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShai...withDougHarman