Has anyone done their own Home Recording?

[Edisonfan]

Has anyone one done their own home recording? I have seen videos on YouTube obviously, but is there any thing I should know? I still need to buy a recording head and a blank cylinder?

The reason why I ask, is i have an idea for my channel Introduction aka. Trailer.

Paul

[Lucius1958]

I've done a few recordings, some years ago; primarily spoken word. Besides a recorder and blanks, it's best to get a dedicated shaving machine: the motors on many Edisons are too weak to do a really good job.

Also, a lamp to warm up the blank for recording (you need a surface temperature around 80-90°F for a good recording), and a soft brush to clean off the swarf.

-Bill

[Edisonfan]

Thank you Bill!

[edisonphonoworks]

I have done a lot of cylinder recordings, I started recording cylinders in 1994 (on Edison Two Minute) around 1989 for Dictaphone cylinders.) it is still fascinating, and I still learn new things every day, it never gets old, because always something new to learn. A good read is The Reproduction of Sound by Henry Seymour, 1918. https://www.antiquephono.org/wp-content ... sound-pdf/

[Edisonfan]

Thank You!

[donniej]

I've done 2 and 4 minute cylinders with Edison consumer grade cutters. They're easy to use and work pretty well. You just need to practice a few times and you'll get decent results. A Gem horn is good for recording, a warming lamp is a good idea and probably a brush for the swarf.

[Inigo]

Disc recordings are valid?
When starting in the hobby, 40 years ago, I used to make my own soundboxes, rough, but they were usable for sound reproduction. Later I got a Columbia Viva tonal no15 soundbox, and almost immediately I started doing tests for recording. First trials were done on the silent runoff grooves of 45rpm singles... Just imagine! But it was lots of fun. Still I have some of those singles, and when the music ends, you start hearing faint shouting and things...
Later I made my own blanks, using coloured vinyl sheets, and even added my own labels to the records and made an album for them. The latest ones were done with a homemade electrical cutting head, a clumsy affair done with a small speaker to which I attached a stylus bar to make kind of a gramophone soundbox. Then I feed the speaker with the output of a cassette player. Guess what... the grooves moved too much side to side for the needle to track them. The only fragments audible had only a muffled sound with much bass but no intelligible music. In all, it was lots of fun to try it... I still keep the album with the dozen or so records made, all double-sided, 6" diameter. Will post a photo later at home...

[Menophanes]

A couple of additional points from an occasional and very amateur recordist: –

1. Cleaning a used cylinder with white spirit (called 'petroleum spirit' in the U.S.A., I believe) is a serviceable substitute for mechanical shaving, although it may cause a slight increase in surface noise.

2. Warming the surface of the cylinder with a lamp is becoming more and more difficult, since modern energy-saving bulbs do not generate as much heat as older types. My technique is to put the blank in a microwave. I stand it upright, give it 25 seconds at full power, turn it the other way up for another 25-second burst, then repeat the process twice more so that the blank has had four spells totalling 100 seconds. Nobody else seems prepared even to consider this method, but it does work; the shortness of the exposures ensures that the blank does not begin to distort.

I have recorded several songs and have also made recordings (very faint, largely because I could not use my warming process) of a 16-piece orchestra and a choir of 22 members.

Oliver Mundy.

[AmberolaAndy]

I have a rebuilt recorder but I have no idea where to get the blank records at.

[Menophanes]

A British specialist of more than forty years' standing, Paul Morris, supplies brown-wax blanks which are used throughout the world (see http://www.paulmorrismusic.co.uk/WaxCylinders.asp); prices start from GBP12.50 per blank (about $15.60). In the U.S.A., Chuck Richards (https://www.richardslaboratories.com/in ... nformation), who sometimes posts here, also makes blanks, his being somewhat longer than the standard Edison size; these are considerably more expensive but the difference in shipping cost may possibly compensate for this.

I may add that, while recordists usually assume a speed of 160 r.p.m. as used by most manufacturers from about 1902 onward, I personally feel there is very little lost by reducing this to the pre-1901 standard of 120 r.p.m. which allows just over three minutes' playing time on a standard cylinder; if a phonograph 'flutters' at 120 it will still do so at 160. However, I repeat that I am not an authority.

Oliver Mundy.