The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I recently picked up this really great Edison Diamond Disc record 51992-R. It is a terrific rendition of Ain't She Sweet with just two performers. The fabulous Andy Sannella plays the Clarinet and Johnny Marvin both sings and plays the Ukulele. The recording is so clear I thought sure it had to have been an electrical recording. But, it is too early for that. Just a really well made record. I think many of the late Edison records are just about as good as the electrical records anyway. But, with just two performers the recording engineers must have had the chance to do a great job of recording horn placement. Speculation of course, but I really like the record and I hope you do too!

[youtubehd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If_fzYR57no[/youtubehd]
https://youtu.be/If_fzYR57no

Very amusing indeed!

Yah, IIRC, this is about a month before Edison went to electrical. It's on BA, too.

This sounds maybe as good as some of the really bad electrical records that some of the dime store labels were using.

Tanks for the upload.

This a WONDERFUL performance, and great video presentation too!
I'd guess your transfer was done via modern electric pickup?
Also, what neat video program do you use to make such interesting slide shows?

I'd venture that two solo performers would be less taxing on any recording device but this is a fine example of how far the Edison Engineers got with acoustic recordings.
Thanks for posting!
Bob

I'd guess your transfer was done via modern electric pickup?
Also, what neat video program do you use to make such interesting slide shows?

Yes, it was done using a modern electric pickup. I used Audacity to capture the music and a combination of Click-Repair and Audacity equalizations to clean up the sound a bit.

I used iMovie on my Mac Book Pro to build the video.