Real Columbia recording horn pic

[Lenoirstreetguy]

You guys know how I fetishize pics of acoustic recording studios. I ran onto this one while digging in the Bain Collection , and purely by chance. The singer is George Meader who made all those rather uninteresting sides for Columbia in the acoustic era. But the interesting aspect is in this pic they are using a REAL recording horn rather than one one poked in for the photograph. The Sooy brothers...who were Victor's chief engineers ..write about using fake equipment for the publicity photos lest they tell tales out of school. But in this case we've got the real deal: octagonal with holes punched in it to diminish the resonant peak of the horn itself.
I like his spats. Now the question is: was he the same George Meader who acted on Broadway and in Hollywood?

Jim

[Aaron]

I have seen this picture along with one other. The tother one i saw was also a Columbia recording studio, but it was taking at a different angle. There are also the many Edison recording photos.

Aaron

[Lenoirstreetguy]

There are lots of shots...but the American ones rarely shoo either the horn or the studio set up that they actually used when making records. Admittedly a shot of the back the heads of a group of musicians isn't very picturesque, but you see what I mean. There is another of shot of the Columbia Studio in the Bain Collection that has a dance orchestra really set up in the studio ...it's a goodie. But you can't see the horns. The octagonal...or heptagonal...or whatever it is was I think the usual one for vocal recordings because they felt that it diminished the resonance of the horn. The horns were often wound with tape for the same reason...to diminish the resonant ring.

Jim

[Garret]

Jim,

Thank you for posting the picture. It is exceedingly interesting, to say the least!