4 minute recording on 2 minute cylinder?

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12jslater
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4 minute recording on 2 minute cylinder?

Post by 12jslater »

Would this make a good recording I have built a rather primitive recorder by placing a small thin speaker in place of the recorders diaphragm and I have had an idea to build a four minute variant but I would like to know if you can make four minute recording on an ordinary blank?

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edisonphonoworks
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Re: 4 minute recording on 2 minute cylinder?

Post by edisonphonoworks »

See for four minute you can shave a Gold Moulded record (I have yet to successfully shave a Wax Amberol.) And I have shaved the Gold Moulded records by throwing the belt off the feed on the shaver and slowly feeding the shaving head by turning the feed screw by hand (on an Ediphone shaving machine) by going right to left, taking very thin shaves. You could use this for creating four minute recordings for playing on your machine. The question is how many plays before it wears out, and how long your recorder cutter, or shaving cutter will last. The closest I have come to recording four minute is with the Ediphone at 150tpi, and on those soft Ediphone blanks for making dictation, these are much softer than the orange box four minute blanks, which are odd, as they are harder than a brown wax, softer than a gold moulded in some respects but a little more durable (confusing eh!). For making masters 194.6666tpi, and a regular brown wax can be used, if you are going to plate it and make hard resin copies. (I know my post will not be read.)

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12jslater
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Re: 4 minute recording on 2 minute cylinder?

Post by 12jslater »

Thanks for the reply, I will shave some clarion records I have that are worn beyond playability as they seem to have less surface noise when clean than Edison's cylinders.

Thanks, Jake

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Chuck
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Re: 4 minute recording on 2 minute cylinder?

Post by Chuck »

As Shawn points out, when you start shaving and
recording on harder waxes such as are required
for four-minute work, you must go in knowing that
both the shaver cutter and the recorder cutter will wear much faster in this service than they do on the old brown wax.

The deal with the tiny 200 TPI grooves of the 4-minute
format is that they tend to wear much faster during
playback than the much larger and much more robust 100 TPI, 2-minute format grooves do.

Edison knew of this, and that is why the 4-minute
molded black wax Amberol records are so notoriously
brittle. They have to be, because that wax compound
is harder than the Gold Moulded 2 minute wax is.

Same deal when Edison offered the 4-minute home
recorders and blanks. Those blanks are black wax
and quite a bit harder than brown wax.

I have heard stories about how fast an Edison 4 minute
home recorder cutter gets dull after recording maybe
a dozen or so of the 4 minute home recording blanks
all the way through.

As long as you realize the shortcomings of trying
to record on a wax blank of any kind in 4-minute format
and then try to play it back using a model H reproducer
it should be a fun and worthwhile experiment.

You could just simply start out recording and playing
back 4 minute records on brown wax. But those will
not get many plays before they degrade.

With the 4-minute format, being able to both record and play back using the same cylinder really stretches the capabilities of everything involved.

The wax must be soft enough to cut and record ok,
but must be hard enough to play back at least a few
times before the fragile grooves start getting worn.

When a hard enough wax is used to accomplish some
of this, then we are looking at accelerated wear
of the shaver cutter and the recorder cutter.

As they found out back when the 4 minute format was
being used, the 4 minute format really only works
best if a master recording is cut into soft wax
and then that is used to make a mold to produce hard
celluloid copies which can stand up to being played
a great number of times.

For home recording where it is expected to be able
to both record and play back on the same
blank, the 2-minute format is much more robust in this
regard.

The Dictaphone format of 80 rpm and 160 grooves to the
inch (or 150 grooves per inch for Ediphone), and using
a soft black wax blank again stretches the capabilities
to their limit.

On those dictation blanks we have a soft blank which is
easy on cutters, but again due to the tiny grooves,
we do not get many plays before the sound starts
to degrade. That trade-off was fine for dictation
service because the stenographer only needed to listen
to it once or twice to be able to transcribe it.

So, only getting a few plays is fine for that type
of service.
"Sustained success depends on searching
for, and gaining, fundamental understanding"

-Bell System Credo

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Lucius1958
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Re: 4 minute recording on 2 minute cylinder?

Post by Lucius1958 »

Chuck wrote:As Shawn points out, when you start shaving and
recording on harder waxes such as are required
for four-minute work, you must go in knowing that
both the shaver cutter and the recorder cutter will wear much faster in this service than they do on the old brown wax.

The deal with the tiny 200 TPI grooves of the 4-minute
format is that they tend to wear much faster during
playback than the much larger and much more robust 100 TPI, 2-minute format grooves do.

Edison knew of this, and that is why the 4-minute
molded black wax Amberol records are so notoriously
brittle. They have to be, because that wax compound
is harder than the Gold Moulded 2 minute wax is.

Same deal when Edison offered the 4-minute home
recorders and blanks. Those blanks are black wax
and quite a bit harder than brown wax.

I have heard stories about how fast an Edison 4 minute
home recorder cutter gets dull after recording maybe
a dozen or so of the 4 minute home recording blanks
all the way through.

As long as you realize the shortcomings of trying
to record on a wax blank of any kind in 4-minute format
and then try to play it back using a model H reproducer
it should be a fun and worthwhile experiment.

You could just simply start out recording and playing
back 4 minute records on brown wax. But those will
not get many plays before they degrade.

With the 4-minute format, being able to both record and play back using the same cylinder really stretches the capabilities of everything involved.

The wax must be soft enough to cut and record ok,
but must be hard enough to play back at least a few
times before the fragile grooves start getting worn.

When a hard enough wax is used to accomplish some
of this, then we are looking at accelerated wear
of the shaver cutter and the recorder cutter.

As they found out back when the 4 minute format was
being used, the 4 minute format really only works
best if a master recording is cut into soft wax
and then that is used to make a mold to produce hard
celluloid copies which can stand up to being played
a great number of times.

For home recording where it is expected to be able
to both record and play back on the same
blank, the 2-minute format is much more robust in this
regard.

The Dictaphone format of 80 rpm and 160 grooves to the
inch (or 150 grooves per inch for Ediphone), and using
a soft black wax blank again stretches the capabilities
to their limit.

On those dictation blanks we have a soft blank which is
easy on cutters, but again due to the tiny grooves,
we do not get many plays before the sound starts
to degrade. That trade-off was fine for dictation
service because the stenographer only needed to listen
to it once or twice to be able to transcribe it.

So, only getting a few plays is fine for that type
of service.
In cases such as this, I wonder whether it would be possible (if not perhaps feasible) to resurrect
Lioret's technique of recording on celluloid?

One would have to develop a blank of similar thermoplastic properties, which could be temporarily softened for recording (or shaving), but would become hard enough after cooling to withstand repeated playing: a quixotic endeavor at best, but a fascinating thought experiment.

Bill

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edisonphonoworks
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Re: 4 minute recording on 2 minute cylinder?

Post by edisonphonoworks »

celluloid is still being made today. Celluloid pens, and guitar picks.

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