Julia Gerity - Aeolian Vocalion 78 - with Yerkes Jazzarimba

[luke68]

Finally getting around to posting a message, asking about this 78 I found 2-3 months ago. I'm actually at work typing this, so don't have the disc in front of me to remember what songs are there, but wanted to know if there's a way to play on a standard phonograph?

I have an Audio Technica PL120 turntable with a 78 Grado cartridge that KABUSA set up for me. I'm weary of swapping the wires around on it since I probably couldn't get it back to normal. I could swap out another headshell with the recommended "changes" but don't know where to start.

Thanks in advance!!!

[OrthoSean]

If it's a red wax Aeolian Vocalion, you shouldn't have to modify anything, if it isn't and you're implying it's a vertical cut disc, all you have to do is reverse one side of the cartridge wires, it's pretty easy. If you could post the disc number, it would really help. The only entry I find under Gerity in my (early) edition of Rust shows her singing in 1931, way past the vertical cut era! There are so many Yerkes' Vocalion discs listed hat without the title, I really can't do any more for you.

Sean

[luke68]

Finally was able to take a picture of the disc:

[luke68]

I was able to use another cartridge to get the 78 to play. I uploaded the A side (so far) to archive.org. Didn't get a chance to clean it up much so it's a bit noisy.

http://archive.org/details/JuliaGerity- ... aOrchestra

[Wolfe]

I was able to use another cartridge to get the 78 to play. I uploaded the A side (so far) to archive.org. Didn't get a chance to clean it up much so it's a bit noisy.

http://archive.org/details/JuliaGerity- ... aOrchestra

It'll sound much cleaner if you get into to real mono. The surface noise is stereo and the music is a very centered mono. Makes me think it is a vertical cut on that basis. If you flip it into mono, it has the characteristics of a passable, slightly under recorded, vertical cut recording.

A simple fix would be to connect two opposite Y-cords between your turntable and your amplifier.

[OrthoSean]

It's vertical cut for certain, but I still didn't find it in Rust, though it may be in a later edition.

Sean

[luke68]

My Audio Technica turntable has hard wired RCA wires coming from it. From there I run into a ARTcessories USB amp and then into my computer. Perhaps if I change the Recording to 1 Bit or set up Audacity to record in Mono, one of those aforementioned options will work...

[WDC]

I converted it into mono and gave it some basic cleanup: https://www.box.com/s/1jjnn8thcayi0vr6rnb6

You can just record in regular stereo and can do the conversion to vertical mono digitally. I made a little tutorial for Audacity several years ago: http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... f=7&t=2702

Btw. if your connection allows, it is much better to upload in lossless Wave oder FLAC at archive.org. They will automatically convert into MP3 and Ogg Vorbis and further cleanups could be done by others under the use of the lossless transfer.

These vertical cut Vocalions do always have a very thin sound, to my opinion shellac material isn't really appropriate for vertical cut grooves because it is not smooth enough.

[Wolfe]

These vertical cut Vocalions do always have a very thin sound, to my opinion shellac material isn't really appropriate for vertical cut grooves because it is not smooth enough.

Vertical cut Okeh's sound very good. But I think they were using better shellac.

[luke68]

Wow - that sounds amazing! Definitely an improvement over what I was able to do. I'll have to check out your Audacity tutorial as I use it all the time, but mostly for LPs (have been too lazy to copy 78s).

Would you mind if I upload this version to archive.org until I can (possibly) upload a FLAC audio file (not sure if I can or not)?