Diaphragm Test No. 2: Carnival of Venice - ASO

[Lucius1958]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NXBEsoAZQ0[/youtube]

So, here's another test of the "True Tone" diaphragm: #50099-R, "Carnival of Venice - Variations", played by the American Symphony Orchestra (most likely), in an excellent pressing from 1913/14.

Almost seems as if it had been designed as a demonstration of Edison's ability to capture various instrumental combinations with exceptional fidelity...

Bill

[FloridaClay]

Sounds good to my ear.

This does have something of the nature of a demonstration record, doesn't it?

Clay

[edisonphonoworks]

Nice sounding diaphragm! Walter Miller is still in my opinion the best sound engineer of his era, you can hear the high airy string sounds on the violin, and the deep sound of the bassoon and the drone of the bass strings on the cello with all the over tones. I still think very highly of the recording quality of the Edison hill and dale system, this record proves it.

[Henry]

"American Symphony Orchestra" is a euphemism for "band." Except for the one violin variation, I can't detect the presence of any string instruments besides the harp and double bass, which were both frequent members of bands in the good old days. The soloists are piccolo (and the recorded sound is so good that one immediately hears that it's a wooden, not a metal, instrument), clarinet, bassoon, violin, double bass, clarinet duet (trio?), and some kind of wind instrument that sounds like nothing I've ever heard---anybody want to take a stab at that one?

BTW, the repeated low notes in the bassoon variation are two octaves below middle C, IOW 65.4 Hz, and the high notes in the piccolo and violin variations are the note F; here they are two octaves and a fourth above middle C, 1396.92 Hz. Not bad! For reference, the lowest note on the piano keyboard is A @27.5 Hz and the highest is C @4,185.92 Hz.

Nice sound! You should be very pleased with that diaphragm.

[gregbogantz]

I guarantee you're not hearing 65Hz from any Edison acoustic phonograph, regardless of the diaphragm. The frequency response of the entire acoustic system, both in the recorder and the player, just does not support this frequency at anything above the noise level of the disc. Even the best Victor orthophonic with the biggest horn is rapidly petering out at 100Hz, and the Edisons are WAY worse in low frequency response. Note that there are almost no recordings of string bass (I can't think of even one) in any acoustic records because it just doesn't record or reproduce acoustically. One of the reasons that a tuba or euphonium was used so prominently in acoustic recordings to play the bass line is because it makes a multitude of strong harmonics as do all wind instruments. The listener hears the bass line, but he's not hearing the fundamental, he's hearing the second and higher order harmonics. The ear hears the sound as seeming to be harmonically correct and unconciously fills in the missing lower harmonics. This is a standard trick that has been used by record producers and engineers and player makers since, well, since the acoustic days. It's the same way that you get a sense of bass in rock and roll records that you used to listen to on your GE Wildcat record player with the 4 inch speaker which didn't have any real bass response. A distorted electric bass guitar makes plenty of harmonics to support the illusion.

[Henry]

Sorry to void your guarantee, but you *are* in fact hearing 65.4 Hz. There is no way for the ear to "unconsciously fill in the missing lower harmonics." Believe me, I know; I have studied acoustics and also played in symphony orchestras and all kinds of musical ensembles for 45 years. There is no illusion involved. We are not speaking here of phenomena like difference tones, and even if we were, those tones would be present in the recorded sound, and not due to some acoustical event external to that recorded sound. If you hear a second harmonic, you are hearing a pitch that is an octave higher than the fundamental, but such hearing is extremely unlikely; it supposes an amplitude and wave shape that can overcome and dominate the fundamental, which is always the most powerful component. The upper partials contribute to the timbre of a given pitch, and enable us to know whether we are hearing, say, a flute or a trumpet, but these upper partials are not heard in isolation as separate pitches.

The reason that tuba was substituted for string bass in acoustical recordings is not that the string bass lacks "strong harmonics" (a vibrating string has plenty of those), but because the tuba can play louder and with a more forceful attack. This has nothing to do with pitch as such. Also, and importantly, it provides a more suitable bass timbre to accompany the ensemble of other wind instruments that were substituted for the orchestral strings in acoustical recordings. The recording at hand, lest we lose sight of it, demonstrates that the double bass was plenty capable of functioning as a solo instrument in that context.