When did multiple microphones start to be used in recording?

[JHolmesesq]

I've just come across an online debate with a famous collector (although famous for his attitudes and rude comments) online and a video he posted - and a debate has arisen regarding whether multiple microphones were used from the mid 1920s onwards, albeit then translated into a monophonic cutting head.

Does anyone have any information for or contrary to this idea?

[Nat]

Not quite the same thing, but multiple mikes/multiple cutting lathes were used to ensure back-up copies. There is a fascinating example on Naxos 8.111022 of Elgar conducting his own Cockaigne Overture in 1933: Mark Obert-Thorne noticed slight differences in two different examples of the last side, and concluded that two microphones/cutters had been used. He was able to combine the two for what he calls "Accidental Stereo" - and the results are amazing and startling. The seer quality of the sound seems, because of the stereo, to be far, far better than anything being done at the time - and yet the frequency response, etc. would have been exactly the same.

[edisonphonoworks]

I would also like to know also. I onetime built a stempunk , breadbaord stereo pre amplifier using 01a tubes, and the sound actually was pretty good. I am thinking of making a whole 01a console, mixing 4 microphones together, and using them for mic pres, and making a 20s looking mixing board, only stereo. Anyone have any schematics for early mixers or pre amps previous to 1930? The closest I have is a 1927 ARRL handbook for building a CW radio station, but it does not talk much about voice or music transmission. Most of that equipment used ux-210 tubes. hifi enthusiast are making SET amps, that use 6sn7 pre amp tubes, and 45 output tubes. Here is a photo of a Western Electric mixer. Used only for educational purposes, not sure where I got the photo.

[WDC]

Although I cannot recall the reference, I somewhere heard or read that Telefunken did use two microphones for their studio recordings in the early 1930s.

The earliest accidental distinguishable stereo recording I am aware is the 1932 recording of Duke Ellington on two separate Victor Program Transcriptions. A CD "Stereo Reflections in Ellington" with the the synchronized content was published in 1993, quite well done also by standards of today.

Especially the first disc side has a great fidelity, that lifts the level of realism even further. The stereo songs are Mood Indigo, Hot and Bothered, Creole Love Call, East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, Lots o' Fingers, and Black and Tan Fantasy.

[Viva-Tonal]

One electric 78 I have in which I can detect levels of mikes being raised and lowered is on Velvet Tone 7079-V (mxx 150555 and 150556, recorded 2 June 1930).

[Wolfe]

In 78 disc recording, I'm not sure.

For films, quite early on. The Vitaphone Don Juan (1926) was multi miked on the orchestra, I remember reading. They used a huge orchestra for that. Though of course, it was still direct to disc in that case, 33 ⅓ rpm 16" discs as was used for Vitaphone.

[Wolfe]

One electric 78 I have in which I can detect levels of mikes being raised and lowered is on Velvet Tone 7079-V (mxx 150555 and 150556, recorded 2 June 1930).

I wonder if in a case like the 1927 Nat Shilkret Lucky Lindy...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kflQSovXfw0[/youtube]

They would have used more than one microphone. It's certainly possible to have physically moved the plane noise maker closer to a single mike, or perhaps it was faded up and down off another.

[Edisone]

In a May 21 1928 note to Charles Edison, Walter Miller listed 4 items "we should be working on" - #2 was "Mixing box transformers that will enable us to use more than one mike and arranged so that we can fade from one mike to another without being noticed on record. "

I think it's interesting that the terms "mixing" and "fade" were already being used in 1928.

[Lenoirstreetguy]

Lucky Lindy always amuses me. In terms of multiple mics in recording, I think it was Hollywood that led the way in this technology for recording purposes. Radio broadcasting had used multiple mics from an early date, but I have the feeling that it was the exigencies of the movie sound tracks that really advanced the use of faders mixers and multiple mics for recording purposes. I have read that the technicians were making advances virtually monthly in Hollywood, so that the sound track standard of say, late 1927 was antique by 1929.
Jim

[Wolfe]

Movies have often stayed on the cutting edge. Like Fantasia in stereo (in some theaters) in 1940.

They pushed film recording technology on to records in the 1950's, with those LP's that were recorded to 35 mm magnetic film, Mercury Living Presence and the like. Sometimes using multiple strips of magnetic film, each for one channel, mixed down to 2 channel magnetic tape, for cutting.