Moulded cylinders: how many copies from one mould?
Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 9:47 am
A curious point has been raised in another thread (http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... =3&t=40346): – How long could a black-wax or celluloid cylinder be listed in a recording company's catalogues? In other words, was there a practical limit to the length of time a mould could be kept in use, or to the number of copies that could be made from it?
To the best of my understanding (and I am entirely open to correction on everything that follows), the process of manufacturing cylinders involved only three stages: positive (the original studio recording or master), negative (the mould created from the master by electroplating) and positive again (the commercial cylinder for sale to the public, made in the mould). This contrasts with disc manufacture, in which from 1900 onward there were five stages (positive master, negative matrix, positive mother, negative stamper and positive record). When a disc stamper wore out, one could make a new one (or a succession of new ones) from the mother; when that in turn wore out, there was still the matrix as a source for a new mother. By contrast, when a cylinder mould reached the end of its life there was, I believe, no way of replacing it, since the master had unavoidably been melted down during the electroplating process; thus the only way to keep a particular cylinder in the catalogue beyond the life of the mould was either to dub it from an existing copy or to record it again.
Such is my belief, at least. I do know for a fact that in the moulded era one still sometimes finds two (or perhaps more) different performances of a given title under a given catalogue number. For example, I have at different times had two copies of an Edison-Bell black wax two-minute cylinder entitled 'Music-Hall Melodies No. 6', played by the London Regimental Band; the title and artists were therefore the same and so was the catalogue number (somewhere in the 600s, I think – I have forgotten), but the actual performances were different, one having a cymbal-clash which was not present in the other. Why would the company go to the trouble of paying the band to play the selection again, unless it was because the demand for the title was too great to be met by the existing source? This seems to suggest that there was a fairly narrow limit to the number of copies that could be taken from one master. On the other hand, I also know that Edison sometimes issued a particular title in both Amberol and Blue Amberol form and that the same performance might be found on both. An example (again I have not got the catalogue numbers handy) is Stephen Adams's 'Thora' sung by Peter Dawson, which I have owned in both versions, and I will swear that these are not two different renderings. Does this mean that Edison's technicians had by that time found a way of prolonging the life of moulds or of duplicating them? Or was the Blue Amberol, in such cases, merely dubbed from the wax version?
I shall be grateful if anyone can stiffen my speculations with some hard facts.
Oliver Mundy.
To the best of my understanding (and I am entirely open to correction on everything that follows), the process of manufacturing cylinders involved only three stages: positive (the original studio recording or master), negative (the mould created from the master by electroplating) and positive again (the commercial cylinder for sale to the public, made in the mould). This contrasts with disc manufacture, in which from 1900 onward there were five stages (positive master, negative matrix, positive mother, negative stamper and positive record). When a disc stamper wore out, one could make a new one (or a succession of new ones) from the mother; when that in turn wore out, there was still the matrix as a source for a new mother. By contrast, when a cylinder mould reached the end of its life there was, I believe, no way of replacing it, since the master had unavoidably been melted down during the electroplating process; thus the only way to keep a particular cylinder in the catalogue beyond the life of the mould was either to dub it from an existing copy or to record it again.
Such is my belief, at least. I do know for a fact that in the moulded era one still sometimes finds two (or perhaps more) different performances of a given title under a given catalogue number. For example, I have at different times had two copies of an Edison-Bell black wax two-minute cylinder entitled 'Music-Hall Melodies No. 6', played by the London Regimental Band; the title and artists were therefore the same and so was the catalogue number (somewhere in the 600s, I think – I have forgotten), but the actual performances were different, one having a cymbal-clash which was not present in the other. Why would the company go to the trouble of paying the band to play the selection again, unless it was because the demand for the title was too great to be met by the existing source? This seems to suggest that there was a fairly narrow limit to the number of copies that could be taken from one master. On the other hand, I also know that Edison sometimes issued a particular title in both Amberol and Blue Amberol form and that the same performance might be found on both. An example (again I have not got the catalogue numbers handy) is Stephen Adams's 'Thora' sung by Peter Dawson, which I have owned in both versions, and I will swear that these are not two different renderings. Does this mean that Edison's technicians had by that time found a way of prolonging the life of moulds or of duplicating them? Or was the Blue Amberol, in such cases, merely dubbed from the wax version?
I shall be grateful if anyone can stiffen my speculations with some hard facts.
Oliver Mundy.