The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Skihawx wrote:Even the ones recorder on are probably blank today.
The grooves were just streched and I don't think really cut.
Has anyone found period home recordings on these that atill
have information?

I have a number of them with recordings on them, a number of "air shots" from the early 30s. Some good stuff too, one has Duke Ellington and his orchestra doing a live broadcast in NYC on it. They require a very wide stylus, like 7 or 8 mil. I've gotten decent results using my 2 minute stylus designed for the ACT reproducer. It's a Stanton 500 style that fits in my Stanton carts.

Sean

I'll second Orthosean: I've got about five of these that actually don't play badly at all. The most interesting one is a political speech broadcast on a Hamilton,Ontario radio station by a candidate for the CCF party, probably during the 1934 provincial election campaign. ( The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation party was the precursor of the current NDP party ...I know: I'm speaking Greek to you American guys. The New Democratic Party is the left of centre party up here and not to be confused with the US Democrats. ) But the interesting thing is that at the conclusion of the speech we hear the guy who gave it record his comments on hearing the recording! It was obviously recorded by a friend who had then played it for him and asked him to record his impressions of the broadcast.
I've always thought I should make a dub for the Ontario Provincial Archives, but I've never done so. This is a very early recording of Canadian Radio: there is little that was recorded before this date.


Jim

I have a lot to learn on stylus requirements. All the ones I found I played with a steel needle or typical junk modern turntable all had virtually no sound. 7-8 mils sounds like a really large stylus. What were they using when they were first recorded. I've seen recording needles but not specific home recording playback needles. Were you suppoesd to use the recording needles?? Some day I have to buy a modern turntable. Have a bunch of 78's that are just too rare and too nice to play with steel needles. If they are somewhat worn and not a true rarity I just play them with a steel needle or a tungs-tone needle on an automatic and enjoy them. I believe there are plenty of other good records around to be saved for posterity.

What were they using when they were first recorded. I've seen recording needles but not specific home recording playback needles. Were you suppoesd to use the recording needles??

No, the "home recording" discs made by Victor were an early vinyl or similar compound. Cutting styluses wouldn't work and weren't necessary since the "blanks" were pre-grooved. They worked as embossing discs and as stated in other posts, some retained their recordings quite well while others didn't. Occasionally you'll find packs of "Victor Home Recording Needles" on eBay or in antique shops. They look sort of like regular playback needles, but if you look closely the tips are much larger. They were sold in packets of eight and the shanks were painted red, I guess to distinguish them from plain steel phono needles. You used the same needle to make the recording and to play it back.

I do audio recovery/restoration work and have made several stylus assemblies to fit modern cartridges for these types of discs out of original Victor needles. You can use other types of styluses but they won't fit the groove in the necessary manner to get the best reproduction. I find material other than radio broadcasts on these discs pretty fascinating - almost like finding a home recording on a cylinder. People making records at home wasn't very common in either the cylinder or Electrola era so the material is quite interesting. Presto developed and marketed the lacquer disc in 1934 and home recording equipment (by Presto and many other companies) became more commonplace; subsequently the material on home records became less interesting. A lot more radio broadcasts - usually of uninteresting stuff - silly personal recordings, bad musicians, etc.

Were all home-recording discs pre-grooved?

Are there other brands of blanks that would work in the early Electrola recorders ?

Back when I was in high school (early 1980's), I had a Silvertone radio-phono-recorder table model ( though not "portable"!)... don't know who made the working bits... as best I recall, it had a 10" turntable with a spring-loaded drive pin ( Like a Wilcox Recordio )... radio and phono worked, recorder head didn't seem to.... traded it for some other late '30s radio gear; kind of wish I hadn't.

Also ran across the occasional 1940's Philco floor model radio-phono-recorder...

Are these disc recorders still viable as recording devices, or are they more a mute fossil of an ealier technology ?

I think the Wilcox-Gay Recordio machines are still usable- IF you can find the cutting needles and usable acetate blanks.

The machines using pre-grooved discs are probably just curiosities- even if you can find usable blank discs there's a finite supply of them.

estott wrote:I think the Wilcox-Gay Recordio machines are still usable- IF you can find the cutting needles and usable acetate blanks.

The machines using pre-grooved discs are probably just curiosities- even if you can find usable blank discs there's a finite supply of them.

I guess you could always make your own pre grooved disks if you could find some useable acetate disks, a recording machine with a screw driven cutter. You could cut a blank groove ready to use in a victor machine.

S-B-H

The Wilcox-Gay recorders and similar others from the late 1930s thru the prewar period did not use grooved recording blanks. The mechanisms included a feedscrew to drive the recorder across the disc. This feedscrew was below the deck and not visible while in operation. Quite a number of set makers had this type of recorder available, and most of the mechanisms were made and OEM'd to the set makers by General Industries of Elyria, Ohio. GI also made a combination slicer changer and recorder. Philco offered a recorder arm option for its 1941 and 42 line of Beam-of-Light changers. These mechs all employed a recording arm separate from the playback tonearm. The recorder was a large crystal cartridge, and most of the playback pickups were also smaller crystal types. Unlike the earlier magnetic recorder/pickups used by Victor and which are likely to still work, these crystal units are now most likely dead. One or two companies will rebuild these recorders today, but I don't have any experience with them. Regardless, the systems used cold stylus cutting in either aluminum or acetate "lacquer" blanks and the sound quality is pretty poor by commercial 78rpm standards. Wire recorders displaced these disc recorders for home use for several years before they were replaced by home tape recording after WWII. Both the wire and tape recorders gave superior performance to the home disc recorders.

What type of cutting do these discs employ? Some are vertical, right?

Do they tend lean one way or the other? Some lateral, some vertical...

The Wilcox-Gay discs I've encountered are lateral cut. They were intended for playback on standard machines. Wilcox-Gay machines also played standard commercial recordings