Steppin' In Society and Meadow Lark (plus speed question)

[Lenoirstreetguy]

They both sound better slower. Speeds until about 1932 were entirely all over the map. Remember HMV and Columbia and god knows who else were still using weight driven cutters until nearly 1940. They only started to put stoboscope markings on the cutters in the early 30's...although the ones used in Hollywood for the Vitaphone system were much more accurate and not weight driven. And a lot of dance sides were recorded a tad slow on purpose so that they'd have more bounce when played at 78. Who was it posted this on the old board quoting a performer from the twenties?
The syndrome that drives me the craziest are those Victor discs from 1923-24 that speed up( that is to say the cutter slows down) during the side. Drives me mad: Whiteman's acoustic Where the Rainbow Ends is a prime example. IT's recorded so slow that at 78 the trumpets sound like kazoos.
Jim

[Wolfe]

Even as late as 1931 HMV was still issuing disks which were recorded a significant distance away from 78rpm. You would of thought that the company that made such a fuss about ensuring your machine was calibrated to exactly 78 would have got their house in order before that date. I am not sure if the speed variation thing went on beyond 1931 or not but it is the latest disk that I have where this is very noticible.

Some of my late recorded John McCormack HMV sides from 1941-1942 don't play at 78, I think even as low as, like, 74 RPM.

[bart1927]

They both sound better slower. Speeds until about 1932 were entirely all over the map. Remember HMV and Columbia and god knows who else were still using weight driven cutters until nearly 1940. They only started to put stoboscope markings on the cutters in the early 30's...although the ones used in Hollywood for the Vitaphone system were much more accurate and not weight driven. And a lot of dance sides were recorded a tad slow on purpose so that they'd have more bounce when played at 78. Who was it posted this on the old board quoting a performer from the twenties?
The syndrome that drives me the craziest are those Victor discs from 1923-24 that speed up( that is to say the cutter slows down) during the side. Drives me mad: Whiteman's acoustic Where the Rainbow Ends is a prime example. IT's recorded so slow that at 78 the trumpets sound like kazoos.
Jim

You sure about that? I transferred "Steppin'" at 80 rpm, and in order to lower the pitch one semitone I would have to slow it down to 75.5 rpm, at which speed the song sounds terribly slow and looses all of it's pep.

[syncopeter]

Well, the trumpets may sound like kazoos, but the music was like that. Just listen to Whiteman Stomp or Sensation Stomp. Several takes of both still exist. Frantic tempo, extremely high notes. This WAS the jazz age remember and has nothing to do with deliberately lower recording speeds. Bands had also to perform like this before live audiences. That there were no good stroboscobes before synchronisation to movies was necessary is evident. I don't believe a bit that bands recorded in a slower tempo at a lower speed so that on play back it sounded a bit peppier. Particularly Paul Whiteman would never go for that. He was very fussy and heavily involved with recording his band. He switched from Victor to Columbia because the latter allowed him an unlimited amount of takes.

[Guest]

Well with the Dan Rayno book we do have the keys of the arrangements of virtually all of the Whiteman repertoire, so it's pretty easy to pitch the records.
Now whether or not they played with the cutter speed on purpose is a moot point..all I'm doing is quoting a post on the old board.
Jim

[Wolfe]

He switched from Victor to Columbia because the latter allowed him an unlimited amount of takes.

Without getting too far O/T, it's strange that Victor wouldn't allow such a hot property as Whiteman the number of takes he desired. After all, he was selling records like a choo-choo train in the 20's.

[OrthoSean]

I agree with you fully there, Wolfe. Considering some of the electric Galli Curci discs from the same era went well into double digit takes. There's a D'Alvarez I have which is take 18 or 19 from around 1929.

Sean

[Lenoirstreetguy]

There is also the story that he was annoyed that Nat Shilkret and the Victor Orchestra were recording selections that he wanted for his own band. Shilkret touches on this in his autobiography saying that had he known this, he would certainly have deferred to Whiteman. I wonder about that statement, because how could the artist and repertoire department not have known that Whiteman was annoyed if in fact he really was. I suspect the main reason Whiteman transferred to Columbia was none of the reasons given but rather money, pure and simple. Herbert Ridout ( of English Columbia which owned the American company at that time) says in HIS memoirs that they payed Whiteman a bundle to leave Victor. Their president, Lewis Sterling was particularly pleased at having lured Whiteman away from the Victor folks . Speaking of Ridout's memoirs, they appeared as a series in the Gramophone during the early 40's. They should be printed as a book.

Jim