The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Greetings Kiwi-----check your personal msgs. Forgot to add that I can send you pix if you like. Kirk

I would like to thank everyone for all there information and pictures.
Many thanks
Kiwi

I have tried to reply to these messages but lost my message when I tried to send it, but seem to have it sorted now.

These Home Recording Discs needed a special weight that fitted over the reproducer for extra weight when recording.
Also these machines had their own special microphone which was missing from my machine when I bought it. I searched the internet and finally found pictures of what they looked like I asked some of the larger radio collector over here if they had seen anything like it but with no luck at all and with the usual "you will never find one of those" so with searching through the internet and looking on Ebay and radio websites I couldn't find anything. Late one night I was doing a search on Ebay under microphone and there it was just listed under microphone and also with the special recording weight I couldn't believe my luck and won the auction.

Can anyone tell me what the different colours recording needles that came with these machines were for.
Are they for loud or soft tone or did they ever record on the aluminium disc.

I am so thrilled with everyone’s input and pictures It has been fantastic and helped me greatly.

Now all I need is to find a manual.
First can anyone tell me what the difference is between the 1929 Victor Electrola and the 1930 Victor Electrola and was the only difference being the 1929 model having the on/off switch on the front panel where the 1930 has the switch on the side of the machine. This is all I could see from a picture.
All the best,
Kiwi

Kiwi-
(I just discovered this thread... I didn't know there was this much activity in the "music" section of this board!)

Anyways, I was a bit puzzled at the different colors of the needles. They needles seem to be of the same thickness and construction. Perhaps they just changed the colors at one point during production.

Just as an experiment, I took one of these discs, put it on my acoustic VV-IV phonograph, put one of the needles in the reproducer, started the thing turning, and shouted into the horn. Much to my surprise, I could faintly hear my voice when played back... even without electricity!

Shane,
I thought I heard a noise, Ha ha
I am looking forward in trying it all out
Shane now you might know this.
Today I had a large Phonograph collector call in and see me and I was telling him how much I was enjoying this message board and how helpful everyone has been.
He told me he came across some of these discs many years ago there were also some aluminium discs and some glass discs I had never heard of glass being used before I imagine the stylus would have to be very sharp and probably heavy. Have you heard of any type of recordings been done on glass.
Kiwi

Kiwi,

I think he was referring to the what the base of the disk was made of. During the 1930's onwards you could buy acetate blank disks which were basically aluminium disks coated in acetate. These were not grooved (as used in the Victor system) but required a machine with a drive thread to move the recording arm accross the disk.

During WW11 materials such as aluminium became scarce as they were needed for airplanes, munitions etc. To oversome this problem different bases were used, one of which was glass. The glass was coated with acetate and the recording made on that. I have heard that other types of bases were used as well but glass was the next best thing to aluminium because it could be made to be dead flat and was strong.

Of course, there was recycling done by commercial disk producers and many acetate disks using an aluminum base had the acetate stripped off so that they could be recoated with new acetate. I hate to think how many early recordings were lost this way.

RJ

RJ
Many thanks I understand what he meant now and why.
I haven't come across any with a glass base but I haven't been looking either I guess that is something else to look for.
But as you said they wouldn't of been made for the use on the Victor Electrola's Home recording they would have to be recorded on a more precise machine.
Thanks
Kiwi

Tony,

just as an extra piece of info, before they used acetate covered disks they used just plain aluminium and the grooves were cut direct into that. The fedelity was amazingly good as well. I did have a set of plain aluminium disks - these were a transcription of the radio broadcast breaking the news of the Hindenburg disaster. However, needs must.....and I sold them to help pay for some other records I wanted. But here is a short excert from one of them. Bear in mind that this is cut directly onto an aluminium surface!

http://www.box.net/shared/mkem9smylg

RJ

RJ.
Thanks for that I thought it was like two completely different sounds. Just a constant back ground noise and the speaker on it's own was very clear.
All the best
Kiwi

The needles, or should I say, styluses you need are called Victor transcription needles. They are thicker then regular needles and rounded on the playing end. The other end is painted red. I've picked up a few of these discs over time and recorded sound on them. I used a homemade setup with a Victor 4 soundbox. The level is low to medium, but speech still can be understood. I've even used them to play acoustic Pathés, but won't do it too much because the needles are metal, not sapphire.

from a guest.