Noisiest records?

[Lenoirstreetguy]

So much depends on the shellac formula and how it reacted to steel needles and atmospheric moisture. Take HMV: the " HMV crackle" is notorious, but when one finds a copy that has been stored properly they can be perfectly fine. When I was a beginning collector I muttered about the mediocre surfaces on Canadian Berliner/Victor records. I subequently came to the conclusion that the Montreal pressing plant used less abrasive in the compound. This means that if the record is unused, the surface is sublime. But sadly it didn't take many plays with a steel needle for the surface to degrade.
I suspect a lot of the cheap labels like Grey Gull partake of this syndrome.
Jim

[John]

I just did a quick test, using a fairly beat-up copy of The Parade of Bands Part 4 from ~1938 on the Victor label. It's a really interesting record, with a fake radio intro courtesy of Mr. Rudy Alley(?) and a rather neat medley of dance tunes (My Time is Your Time, Let's Dance [not the Chubby Checker song from the '60s, and not the David Bowie song from the '80s ], and Got a Date With an Angel) from Richard Himber and his Essex House Orchestra.

I did a quick and dirty transfer in Audacity, inverting the RIAA curve, speeding it up, and applying the RCA Victor '38 curve and a filter at 100 and 9000Hz. I noticed that the 33 and 45 RPM transfers had much less surface hiss (well, crunch in this case ), but the 78 RPM transfer really packed a lot of punch and got a lot out of the grooves. Still, my theory was correct.

[gregbogantz]

My experience is mostly with electric recordings. But I agree that the WWI era Edison DDs are probably the noisiest records of all. Among the electrics, I find that the Victors from the late 30s onward were very quiet. And durable. These records were made to take abuse from the Victor record changers which they did quite well. Among the postwar records, the Deccas are universally noisy. They sound like they were made from regrind compound. And they are also notorious for exhibiting pock marks that are the result of burst blisters. These were probably caused by water in the compound that formed little steam blisters during pressing. Over the years, these blisters on the surface broke and left a divot. I happened to notice an unusually quiet Decca a while back. Incredulous, I inspected the record more closely and discovered that it was actually pressed by RCA which is why it didn't sound like a Decca. The big pressing plants did occasionally do work for other labels who ordinarily pressed in their own plants. The RCAs are among the quietest of this period with the Columbias and Capitols a little noisier. But my suspicion is that the black label Capitols with silver lettering were made from regrind and are MUCH noisier than the purple label Capitols. These also suffer from blisters. I try to avoid buying these black/silver Capitols for this reason.

It matters what stylus you use. The late acoustics and early electrics were cut with a bigger tip radius on the bottom of the cutting stylus than was used in the postwar years. If your playback stylus is just a little too small it will hit the bottom of these grooves and generate noise and distortion. And most of the postwar records were played and worn with a 3.0 mil stylus which was the standard size furnished with just about all record players back then. When you play them now with a 3 mil stylus, you are hearing all that record wear, noise and distortion. Use of a 2.5 mil or 3.5 mil stylus will generally yield much quieter and cleaner playback of these records. So you really need to have a variety of playback stylus sizes to find the one that works best with a particular record. I find that a 2.5 or 2.7 mil stylus works pretty well with most postwar 78s.

[Victrolacollector]

I would say that the noisiest records that I have encountered are the 1916-1920 era Edison Diamond Discs due to the war era. I would then say the brands like Emerson and Gennett and Okeh would be noisy, but maybe thats because all of mine in those labels are few and worn at that.

[Torjazzer]

I find acoustic Okehs to be among the best recorded of the era. But I have to agree with a previous poster that WWII era records are the worst. The independent labels like Savoy and Keynote are just horrible. Some of my favourite music is on these records and I'm always buying copies of records that I already have, hoping to find a better pressing. A lost cause, I think.

[John]

It matters what stylus you use. The late acoustics and early electrics were cut with a bigger tip radius on the bottom of the cutting stylus than was used in the postwar years. If your playback stylus is just a little too small it will hit the bottom of these grooves and generate noise and distortion. And most of the postwar records were played and worn with a 3.0 mil stylus which was the standard size furnished with just about all record players back then. When you play them now with a 3 mil stylus, you are hearing all that record wear, noise and distortion. Use of a 2.5 mil or 3.5 mil stylus will generally yield much quieter and cleaner playback of these records. So you really need to have a variety of playback stylus sizes to find the one that works best with a particular record. I find that a 2.5 or 2.7 mil stylus works pretty well with most postwar 78s.

Geez, I had enough of a time trying to wrestle the 3 mil needle in there

[VintageTechnologies]

Mr. Rudy Alley(?)

That's Rudy Vallee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPyJGWWcN8Y

"Rudy Vallee was one of the first broadcast entertainers to discover the value of a signature tune ("our radio greeting")--he commissioned Heigh-Ho Everybody from composer Harry Woods."

"The song was named for New York's Heigh-Ho Club, where Rudy & the Yankees attained their first great success (and radio contract)."

[edisonphonoworks]

I have an early black and silver label Columbia of Your A Grand Old Rag by Billy Murray,and you can barely hear the audio over the surface noise, seems the early black and silver label Columbias in my opinion are about as noisy as you can get.

[John]

Mr. Rudy Alley(?)

That's Rudy Vallee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPyJGWWcN8Y

"Rudy Vallee was one of the first broadcast entertainers to discover the value of a signature tune ("our radio greeting")--he commissioned Heigh-Ho Everybody from composer Harry Woods."

"The song was named for New York's Heigh-Ho Club, where Rudy & the Yankees attained their first great success (and radio contract)."

Was this an inspiration for "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go" from Snow White?

Come to think of it, the name Rudy Vallee sounds strangely familiar, but I can't place where else I've heard the name....weird

[FloridaClay]

Vallee was wildly popular in the 20s and around for a very long time, showing up now and then on radio, TV, on Broadway, or in the movies for decades.

Clay