Paddlin Madeline Home by Whitey Kaufmans Orchestra

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Wolfe
Victor V
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Re: Paddlin Madeline Home by Whitey Kaufmans Orchestra

Post by Wolfe »

The whistle is the result of the wax master cooling to quicky during cutting, otherwise known as "wax whistle". It's most often found on early electric Victors, but also on a few other labels, IME. It may be an unforseen adjustment they had to make in the acoustic to electric changeover, as acoustically records are not bedeviled with that whistle and I haven't found any electrics from the later 20's to have it either.

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rojoknox
Victor Jr
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Re: Paddlin Madeline Home by Whitey Kaufmans Orchestra

Post by rojoknox »

Greetings from RojoLand!

Re "His Master's Dog-Whistle" — There definitely are late-1920s and early-1930s Victors that suffer from it. For instance, my copy of Victor 22969-A "Keepin' Out Of Mischief Now" by Coon-Sanders Orchestra is plagued with a loud case of it. Other titles from that same session (24 Mar 1932, NYC Studio 2) have it to a lesser degree, but it's there.

As for the original topic — the feedback heard on Victor 19834-B "Paddlin' Madelin' Home" is also audible on Victor 19850-A "Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue" by Art Landry and His Orchestra (among others). I figure a monitoring system was in use, turned up to a critical level; what else could cause feedback like that?

Take care,

J. E. Knox "The Victor Freak"

gunnarthefeisty
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Re: Paddlin Madeline Home by Whitey Kaufmans Orchestra

Post by gunnarthefeisty »

GlensterTX wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 5:45 pm There’s a fair possibility they couldn’t hear it in the playback. I believe it’s an oscillating fan. There’s another Victor from the same era that one can hear workers nearby hammering the daylights out of something. I’ve got a number of Plaza labels that the mic was hot when they cut the lead-out grooves; you’ll often hear the banjo player checking his tuning or the guys nattering among themselves.
let me know what some of those serial numbers are- that sounds pretty cool!

streetmechanic14
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Re: Paddlin Madeline Home by Whitey Kaufmans Orchestra

Post by streetmechanic14 »

This may be an overly technical distinction but what I think we are hearing on the Whitey Kaufman record is not feedback but a "microphonic" tube (I'm picturing a Western Electric 230D but an expert might correct me on that). For feedback there would have to be a speaker in the recording studio and in the many pictures of Victor's Camden studios no speaker is in evidence. There would have been little use for one since the wax recording could not be played back for the musicians approval and signalling the band to begin was still being done with the "beep-beep" that can be heard on many Victor records just before the music starts- a simple buzzer or noisemaker of some kind.
It is surprising Victor let this pass as the howl is easily heard even on pre-Orthophonic machines but then again there are indications the company didn't pay much attention to jazz and popular music records. The double-entendre of Paddlin' Madeline (and yeah, everybody got it back then- this was the Roaring Twenties remember) apparently didn't bother them!
-Dave

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