Show Me Your Berliner Disc!

[JohnM]

I sense that piano accompaniment held sway for so long as it took the recording people a fair amount of time to work out a good balance of orchestra and singers. Budgetary considerations may have been a factor, as they knew singer-with-piano recorded well, and bands recorded well by themselves, but what if they tried recording a singer or singers with an orchestra, and everything was a reject? Quite a lot of money they'd have lost paying all those people for their services, only to have a set of discs they could never recoup the investment from via record sales.

Berliner's first recording engineer, Fred Gaisberg, was a pianist/accompaniest as well, so the piano was likely the default accomaniment for general purposes. I would imagine "Professor Gaisberg" played on even more recordings once William Sinkler Darby was brought into the fold and trained to run the recording equipment.

John M

[Viva-Tonal]

I have a hunch FG is quite likely the accompanist on my record, as it was recorded prior to his sailing to England to help start the Gramophone Co.

[Viva-Tonal]

Here's the two oldest Columbia records I own. I wonder how many others here have Columbias that apparently have Zonophone notches on their backs?

The oldest 10 inch:



Matrix 149-3. Recorded circa late 1901, pressed sometime between mid-1903 and late 1904.

My sole 7 inch:



Matrix 415-1. Recorded circa late 1901, pressed circa late 1902.

[Amberola 1-A]

Another question, has anyone ever heard a Berliner that sounded "good". I have a few early brown wax that sound pretty good but have never heard a comparable berliner disc. Is it because all that survive are so worn or is that just "as good as it ever was"?

I'm wondering if the reason these records sound poor is due to the fact that these were originally played on front mount machines, which we know has a notoriously poor soundbox tracking and wears the bejesus out of the grooves. And weren't the earliest ones made of hard rubber? I imagine those wore faster than shellac.

[EdisonSquirrel]

While the definition of sounding "good" is undoubtedly subjective, I personally find that a Berliner disc in decent condition (i.e., a solid E) sounds pretty good. Of course, if it's being played on modern equipment the sound quality may appear diminished due to the inability to adjust for the very slow pitch.



Rocky

[Viva-Tonal]

It must also be borne in mind that Berliner's recording process was quite different to what was used by Johnson and the Columbia people. Berliner's process was that the recording stylus traced a line through a fatty substance coated onto a zinc sheet. Once recorded, and the title and artist information handwritten into its centre, the coated zinc sheet was placed into an acid bath for about 15 minutes. The acid literally 'ate' the grooves into the zinc to produce the metal master. This item, suitably plated, yielded the metal negative disc used to press the records.

Quite a difference from Eldridge Johnson's method of cutting grooves into a heated, softened wax slab. This was made electrically conductive by dusting it with graphite, which permitted electroplating. The wax was then melted away, producing the metal negative original.

Until late 1902 or early 1903, this metal negative original was used to press records. This severely limited how many records of a given performance could be pressed. As a result, many very early Victor records were re-made numerous times as the phonograph market expanded, and demand for records skyrocketed.

By early 1903 Victor perfected a series of plating processes that to this day are known as the five-step pressing process. The metal negative master made from the original disc may be plated numerous times, yielding metal positive discs which are called 'mothers'. Each 'mother' may be plated many times, yielding a large quantity of stampers, permitting many more discs to be manufactured from a single disc original than the first method.

[ColoradoPhonograf]

Here are several of my Berliner discs. I can't say they sound very good in general but it is nice to have some early examples of discs in a collection.

[Shane]

Hey, thanks for all the pictures and info everybody... this is turning into a really neat thread. You almost never see these discs out in the wild, but our collective accumulation shows a great variety of these rare records. I might suggest to the board ops to throw this thread into the archives once it has run its course.

[phonogfp]

Here's the two oldest Columbia records I own. I wonder how many others here have Columbias that apparently have Zonophone notches on their backs?

There are a surprising number of earlier Columbia discs out there retaining vestiges if their Climax origins. The Zonophone depressions are just one characteristic. Most Climax discs featured a brass grommet around the spindle hole, and the earliest Columbias still had them as well...

George P.

[phonogfp]

I promised some interesting Berliner discs, and since I'm home today I took some photos. Now if Photobucket will only cooperate (anyone else having to re-size everything?), I'll post some:

The oldest Berliner I have is one of the very first, and sold in England. This 5" disc was recorded in zinc and SOLD that way! No copies... Just an acid etching, cleaned off, gold stamped markings, and out the door! This practice was very short-lived. Notice the title: simply "Song." It's obvious that these little discs were sold entirely for their novelty! This disc probably dates from 1889.



Another 5" Berliner disc, this time in celluloid. These celluloid discs were recorded in Germany by Kammer & Reinhardt until about 1891. This one is the Lord's Prayer, recorded in English. The story ("Well that's what I was TOLD!") goes that this was recorded by Emile Berliner himself. I wouldn't bet on it, but I suppose it's possible:



Recording quality was not the greatest, so Kammer & Reinhardt thoughtfully included the lyrics (or in the case, the words) to many of the records on the reverse side.


My next installment will focus on American Berliners...

George P.