A couple of unusual records

[FloridaClay]

I picked up a couple of unusual records at the "mart" at a chapter MBSI meeting last weekend, both 12", a Victor scroll label that is essentially a frequency generator and a "Victor 'Pict-Ur' Music" disc. The latter states that "This record licensed or use on Electric Reproducing apparatus supplied by Electrical Research Products, Inc. Property of the Victor Talking Machine Co. Camden, N. J." Anybody know the history of these?

Clay

[estott]

Here's info on the Pict-Ur-Music discs: http://www.mainspringpress.com/theater-records.html

[FloridaClay]

Thanks Estott. Very interesting. I will have to ask the guy I bought it from how he came to have it.

Clay

[estott]

I think a lot of records like that ended up at radio stations for effects music

[Wolfe]

30 cycles to 10,000 cycles. Those Victor Scrolls can have can occasionally have that kind of range. But I wonder what kind of machine you had to have to hear in those days?

[PeterF]

What's on the flip side of the "frequency record"? That looks really cool, and would be fun to use on various big-horn orthophonics!

[PeterF]

A little googling turned this up:


John Cage (1912-92)

It’s not a physical landscape. It’s a term reserved for the new technologies. It’s a landscape in the future. It’s as though you used technology to take you off the ground and go like Alice through the looking glass. The Imaginary Landscape No. 1 was written to be subsequently broadcast or heard as a recording. It is in effect a piece of proto-musique concrete, though naturally, since at that date there was no tape, the instruments were records of constant and variable frequencies (then available chiefly for audio research), cymbal, and string piano (Henry Cowell’s manually muted grand piano). The original performance took place in two separate studios, the sounds being picked up by two microphones and mixed in the control booth. It has been used as a dance accompaniment by Bonnie Bird (Imaginary Landscape) and Marian Van Tuyl (Horror Dream).

— John Cage

In the score to the work, Cage specifies the following records: Victor Frequency Record 84522 B at 33-⅓ and 78 RPM, Victor Constant Note Record No. 24 (84519 B) at 33-⅓ and 78 RPM, and Victor Frequency Record 84522 A. These records proved to be long out of circulation, and very hard to reconstruct, and it is with much gratitude that I thank Leta Miller of U.C. Santa Cruz for generously sharing her research and her insights on recreating the original records.

[FloridaClay]

As the reference Estott found indicates, the "Victor 'Pict-Ur' Music" disc has the same recording on both sides.

Here is the B side of the frequency record. As you can see, it is divided into 2 sections. In addition to the embossed record # (84522B), there are some things etched into the run out area--not sure if original or added later. "Frequency Record Mr. Barton" and "13-40." I can not locate a matrix # on the disc. The "Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings" site lists 5 such records, recorded in 1929 and 1930, but none show a record number (as opposed to a matrix number).

http://victor.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix

Here is a performance of Cage's avant garde "The Imaginary Landscape No. 1," the Cage composition referred to in PeterF's post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On_LaftzqGc

Here is a short video about some work done to recreate the sounds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvL3jh4EAXM

There are a number of website references to this composition. One (from The New England Conservatory) refers to it as "Imaginary Landscape No. 1 for four players, two turntables, piano, and large Chinese cymbal (1939)."

Clay

[phonojim]

Love that frequency response test record! I have a 10" Brunswick 1Khz test record which is good for wow and flutter tests, but would love to find a copy of that Victor. Nice find.

Jim

[PeterF]

This thread had piqued my interest on how the Victor Frequency Record would sound on various big machines, so I set about finding a copy, and was recently successful. I played it through both a Credenza (6' horn is commonly assumed) and an HMV 194 (2nd biggest horn of the re-entrant HMVs, estimated by some at 7' total length). I used the same excellent-condition HMV 5a reproducer on each, with the same medium-tone tungstone needle, and recorded them under identical conditions with the same device - all of this to minimize variables.

It's not the most fun record to listen to, and is at some points actually shrill and painful to hear. There's a buzzer that sounds at various points, likely milestones of certain frequencies. You can definitely hear that the systems' frequency responses are peaky, as the overall loudness of the tone varies widely as the frequency changes. As a side note, it also seems like my own ears' frequency responses are not even close to identical, since I noticed variation across the width of my head as the frequency changed, making for a side-to-side panning effect. It's almost like hearing stereo coming out of a Victrola, which is pretty weird to experience.

I'll soon be posting the videos to youtube, in the hope that someone with a spectrum analyzer will be able to give us a bit of info on the differences between the two big horns' responses, and will post the links here.