The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

bfinan11 wrote:I've found a bunch of these, usually a typical 78 rpm stylus (Shure N78S, 2.8mm) works quite well.

Semi-related question: one stack of them from 1941 was recorded at about 60 RPM. Was this ever standard or did someone have a wildly out of tune machine?

I imagine some recording machines had constantly variable speeds, like Victor home units did. I have a pile of line checks, not the same I mentioned before, that play at about 27-28 RPM. They play with a 1.0 mil stylus and sound horrible with anything else. Why the very slow RPM and smaller groove is anyone's question, a few well known transfer guys have seen these and asked the same questions I did, but they sound fantastic and were obviously professionally done line checks from the 1930s. In my 35 years of transferring things like this, I've just always found that having a selection of sizes can make a gigantic difference, unless the recording itself was poorly done to begin with.

Sean

OrthoSean wrote:

bfinan11 wrote:I've found a bunch of these, usually a typical 78 rpm stylus (Shure N78S, 2.8mm) works quite well.

Semi-related question: one stack of them from 1941 was recorded at about 60 RPM. Was this ever standard or did someone have a wildly out of tune machine?

I imagine some recording machines had constantly variable speeds, like Victor home units did. I have a pile of line checks, not the same I mentioned before, that play at about 27-28 RPM. They play with a 1.0 mil stylus and sound horrible with anything else. Why the very slow RPM and smaller groove is anyone's question, a few well known transfer guys have seen these and asked the same questions I did, but they sound fantastic and were obviously professionally done line checks from the 1930s. In my 35 years of transferring things like this, I've just always found that having a selection of sizes can make a gigantic difference, unless the recording itself was poorly done to begin with.

Sean

This particular seems to, at certain points have fluctuations in speed. Only for a bit though. I do not know if it was the Recordio machine or what. If this record was recorded in '41 (seems to be) it would have been in the "home recording" infancy right?


Anyway, I just boxed up the record to mail out to you Sean and see what you can do with it.


-Travis

travisgreyfox wrote: If this record was recorded in '41 (seems to be) it would have been in the "home recording" infancy right?

That particular form of home recorder, yes - there were earlier systems using pre-grooved discs going further back into the 1930s, and also of course brown wax cylinders, which were inherently recordable from 1889 on.

As far as I know Philco had the first of these home recorders, and released it in late 1939 or early 1940, followed shortly by the Recordio, both launched at the 1939-40 World's Fair, and 6-inch cardboard discs recorded at that fair are relatively common.

The label of your particular example, for what it's worth, matches mine that I know were recorded on or about October 1, 1941.

bfinan11 wrote:

travisgreyfox wrote: If this record was recorded in '41 (seems to be) it would have been in the "home recording" infancy right?

That particular form of home recorder, yes - there were earlier systems using pre-grooved discs going further back into the 1930s, and also of course brown wax cylinders, which were inherently recordable from 1889 on.

As far as I know Philco had the first of these home recorders, and released it in late 1939 or early 1940, followed shortly by the Recordio, both launched at the 1939-40 World's Fair, and 6-inch cardboard discs recorded at that fair are relatively common.

The label of your particular example, for what it's worth, matches mine that I know were recorded on or about October 1, 1941.

Cool stuff and great info. Does anyone a working recordio machine from the early 40s? It would be interesting to play with if you had a bunch of blanks lying around.

Well OrthoSean worked his magic and cleaned up the record. If you would like to give it a listen he put up some live links.




https://app.box.com/s/y27y2izbxxwopyxwupg09du5t3qs8foq

https://app.box.com/s/k8zrr2oolwhw39twen4yn3ljr65y7k88

https://app.box.com/s/mufqb3vflxegd342az8623la95fix834

Thanks again Sean, great work (the record is in bad shape).