Acoustic recording process

[CharliePhono]

I have been wanting to bring this up for discussion for quite some time, so here goes:

I have often wondered how, "back in the day" of acoustic/mechanical recording, the engineers were able to get good recordings with such a primitive setup. To my knowledge, there were no VU meters or other ways to monitor and adjust recording levels. I've read about tracks (think mining cars) or a dolly installed in a recording studio to move a singer back and forth before the horn, depending on the loudness of a given passage. I've seen vintage photographs with a singer and piano accompaniment, where the piano was placed on a stand fairly high above the vocalist. I presume this was to capture maximum vibrations from the sound board of the piano.

Was all acoustic recording simply empirical/trial and error, exacting the best recording possible from experience in the studio and depending on the artist or band being recorded? This stuff fascinates me.

[OrthoFan]

The acoustic recording process was developed and "perfected" via trial and error science. By the time it was phased out in the mid to late 1920s, a lot of knowledge had been accumulated.

Here's a very long, though fascinating article you might be interested in --


"The Art and Science of Acoustic Recording: Re-enacting Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s landmark 1913 recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony" -- https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/art ... /#keywords

It goes into quite a bit of detail about the acoustic recording process and the efforts to recreate it.

OrthoFan

[recordmaker]

In my experience the word primitive should only indicate the early stage of the art rather than crude. The one thing that is certain is that acoustic recording has a number of limitations that need to be worked within with the limited sensitivity and frequency response.
The use of a trolley for a singer would really not be very easy to control and although I have also heard of it , in my personal experience it has never been the difficult to work with the performer to moderate the voice or move as needed during a performance.
In general once the most effective recorder and master blank are prepared running some short tests and selecting horns and positions is all that is needed, within a few weeks or months or making records an expert would have a regular set up for certain groups and performers and this would not often change if it worked well.
for this session we already knew the optimum horn for the piano and the playing level needed and ran tests for the position of the horn player as you see with the horn at an angle not direct into the horn as that overloaded the recording.

(Double-click the video above or click this link to go to the video on YouTube.)

You can hear an original record and new recording on the video the instrument played is the same one in both!

[CharliePhono]

Thank you very much, gentleman, for your input. Very educational and I sincerely appreciate it!

Charlie

[CharliePhono]

(Duplicate post.)

[CharliePhono]

(Duplicate post.)

[drh]

In my experience the word primitive should only indicate the early stage of the art rather than crude. The one thing that is certain is that acoustic recording has a number of limitations that need to be worked within with the limited sensitivity and frequency response.
The use of a trolley for a singer would really not be very easy to control and although I have also heard of it , in my personal experience it has never been the difficult to work with the performer to moderate the voice or move as needed during a performance.
In general once the most effective recorder and master blank are prepared running some short tests and selecting horns and positions is all that is needed, within a few weeks or months or making records an expert would have a regular set up for certain groups and performers and this would not often change if it worked well.
for this session we already knew the optimum horn for the piano and the playing level needed and ran tests for the position of the horn player as you see with the horn at an angle not direct into the horn as that overloaded the recording.

(Double-click the video above or click this link to go to the video on YouTube.)

You can hear an original record and new recording on the video the instrument played is the same one in both!

Thanks for posting that--in the words of the Laugh-In guy, "Verrrrrry interesting!"

Wasn't that "move the singer away from the horn on peaks" thing limited to lateral recordings, to prevent excessive cutter excursion that would mar adjacent grooves? With vertical cut, greater dynamic contrast would just make for a deeper groove.

[recordmaker]

[/quote]
Thanks for posting that--in the words of the Laugh-In guy, "Verrrrrry interesting!"

Wasn't that "move the singer away from the horn on peaks" thing limited to lateral recordings, to prevent excessive cutter excursion that would mar adjacent grooves? With vertical cut, greater dynamic contrast would just make for a deeper groove.
[/quote]

Vertical recording has a limit too the upstroke cycle ends up leaving the surface causing blasting making a deeper groove causes echo when the sides of the groove interact.

Also you need to make a record that sounds good on the phonograph in the managing directors office ....louder and dynamic range are not always the thing. And record wear is also an issue.

[CharliePhono]

The acoustic recording process was developed and "perfected" via trial and error science. By the time it was phased out in the mid to late 1920s, a lot of knowledge had been accumulated.

Here's a very long, though fascinating article you might be interested in --


"The Art and Science of Acoustic Recording: Re-enacting Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s landmark 1913 recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony" -- https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/art ... /#keywords

It goes into quite a bit of detail about the acoustic recording process and the efforts to recreate it.

OrthoFan

This is a fascinating treatise on acoustical recording. Via a link in the article, I was able to listen to a portion of the 1914 pressing of Beethoven's 5th and was frankly amazed at the quality of the recording. Thank you again.

[Menophanes]

This is most interesting, not only for the recording process but because the horn is of a type which went out of use in most parts of the world eighty or more years ago and has not, so far as I know, been widely revived – a true 'French horn' of narrow bore, with piston rather than rotary valves, and without the additional B-flat tubing which is usually included in modern instruments to make the higher notes easier to play.

Oliver Mundy.