The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Amberola wrote:

edisonphonoworks wrote:Welcome to the forum. I am Shawn Borri, and I am kind of a thorn in the side of the collector community. I am more of an audio mad scientist than a collector. But I have recorded a few thousand cylinders and make phonogram recording blanks. If you check out the post of myself and Chuck Richards you will find much on the subject of cylinder recording and record making. Dubbing is best done making a little cardboard horn, big enough to encapsulate a 3-5" full range speaker, sealing the end of the horn, roll low bass 30-100 cps 8 db, increase the 250 cps range 4db and decrease mid range in the 1000 and 3000 cps range 5db, increase the 6-10,000 cps range 8db where it falls off. This is where I get the best dubbing on most cylinders. most talking records make with a 30" long by 3" end horn, band records, a 56" brass horn, a 36" brass cone horn works well too for instrument recording. For solo instruments a 25" long by 6" opening cone horn works well. You can make the cone horns out of poster board or manillia cardboard folders, rap them with electrical, or masking tape. speak about 2-3" from the horn use an even spaced diction, and constant volume. S's and ch sound emphasized, if you give an old man style consonants with a slightly whistled effect intelligibility with be increased.

Come on Shawn, we all aren't as smart as you. I don't understand any of this? I have always just used a 14 inch horn and played into it with good results. If your having volume trouble, check the cutter on the recorder? I play guitar and have used my Amp. next to the end of the horn and recorded some real good stuff.

I don't understand much of what he describes either, but that doesn't make any of it untrue, nor does it mean it shouldn't be said. I appreciate Shawn taking the time to explain his methods. It's very generous of him, given the countless hours he's invested in honing his skills.

I had two great home recordings, that are now in the USCB archives, both were mandolin recordings, and they were very loud and clear, they sounded professional although you could tell they were home recordings, as it was a mountain style mandolin playing, which I don't think was recorded by commercial cylinder record companies.

I just made my first two attempts at this.

I found an Edison recorder in good shape on Ebay a few weeks ago, and purchased several brown wax blanks (Busy Bee) from a forum member here.

I apologize for how crude my methods are, but I am just getting my proverbial feet wet...

In the first attempt, I mounted a piece of ½" radiator hose on the recorder, an stuffed two earbuds (the type with the soft, silicon ear-seals) into the other. They pretty well sealed against the tube. Music was then played from an Ipod. This proved to be far too quiet, as I thought it might be.

The second attempt used an automotive funnel, again mounted to the same piece of radiator hose on the recorder. A small, portable speaker was suspended in the end of the funnel by about 1" of soft foam, all the way around (the intention was to seal the speaker into the funnel with no air leakage. While still on the too quiet side, this worked out much, much better. The recording came out sounding quite clear when played back through a "witches hat" type horn. The sound could stand to be a bit brighter (I suspect that the foam absorbed too much of it.

In both cases, I let the cylinders sit on a table in the sun for about 10 minutes before attempting recording.

I now have to make or purchase a shaver, so that I can make more attempts.

This is going to be an interesting process going forward. This thread has helped a lot!

I have a very, very great deal to learn.

RAK402,

Good job! That was a very resourceful set of tests
that you just did!

First let's talk about the earbuds. They sound loud
and fine when they are in your ears, but they don't
work well with the cylinder recorder. Why is this?

The answer is that the mechanical impedance of the
earbuds is much better matched to a human ear with its
dimensions, ear canal size, length, etc., size of
eardrum and all such things.

But try to funnel the feeble pressure waves made by
them squeezed down to operate the much more massive
Edison recorder diaphragm and cutter, combined with the
much larger sound tube, then there is just not enough
available energy.

They work fine in your ears because they match the
ear's impedance. Impedance can be thought of in rough
terms as the resistance to the transfer of energy.

If the impedances of the transmitting and receiving
devices is matched, then the transfer of energy can
take place efficiently with a minimum of loss.

Ok, now for the speaker, it is much larger, its cone
has a much farther travel than the earbuds' tiny
parts do. The speaker cone is a much better match
to the recorder parts.

I'd recommend doing more experiments along those
lines and play around with the method of sealing
the speaker to the funnel. The more airtight it all
becomes, the better it will work.

This goes also for the connection hose from the funnel
to the recorder. Make that as airtight as possible.

Also do try a few talking records using about a
3 inch x 29 inch cone horn. Something as simple
as a couple of manilla office folders rolled up
into that shape and taped with scotch tape works
great as a recording horn. Be sure to seal it tight
to the recorder with a 2 or 3 inch length of the proper kind of soft stretchy rubber hose meant for this purpose.

These are the same hose pieces used to connect
morning glory and signet horns to cylinder reproducer
necks.

If you don't have any of that type of hose, you really
need to get some from Ron Sitko. Get several of
them to have on hand. It seals very well because
it has about the same properties as the yellow
surgical tubing.

Chuck,

Thank you for the kind comments, explanation, and assistance, sir!

This is really getting interesting. I am looking forward to making another attempt next week.

Your help and advice is greatly appreciated!

http://members.tripod.com/~edison_1/id7.html This is a webpage I have had for years that talks about cylinder recording. I think soon I am just going to re-publish the whole brochure of "Making records at Home on the Edison Phonograph." It shows positions of musicians, and pointers to make better records. One of my favorite dubbing systems is a Bose media Mate computer speaker system, that seems to work very good, a 30" brass horn works great with this, and if you have had any of my recordings that is what they are made with. I however boost the high frequencies a lot, bring the mid frequencies down, now most would say to accentuate these, however, the home Edison cylinder recorder has peaky resonance in the 800-1,200 cycle range bringing that range down will result in pleasant records, the diaphragm response falls off at about 5,000 cps so those higher frequencies tend to come up. Even the home recorder is capable of recording at least 6,500cps, and better ones higher. It is expensive to experiment recording on the phonograph, however experimentation is the key to learning how it works. Even after hundreds of hours of experience, sometimes things go wrong, however most of the time, it works very well. The below videos show some tips to recording, and I chose these because a home recorder is used (an 1890's Edison with glass diaphragm.) I do have a lot of home recorders of the later kind to rebuild, however I am at a stopping point until I can purchase some good recording sapphires. The ones I had made back in 2001, the factory made more than they ever told me, they work great, but the minimum order is now out of my range. They actually made hundreds of the recording stili.



https://youtu.be/G0Hb28ePqpo

http://members.tripod.com/~edison_1/id7.html

https://youtu.be/SNiQK5FrjmY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O9fLHCt8yI

For a connecting hose between horn and recorder, or reproducer, if you live in even a moderately large community you can purchase surgical tubing from a surgery supply store. This is very soft and flexible.

I just want to take a moment to thank everybody who has contributed to this thread so far, even though I have not been involved. I have been experimenting with cylinder recording since last February or so, but I have been stalled by lack of a shaver since I became wholly unhappy with having to chemically shave the blanks sometime last summer.

I am picking up 2 shavers this year at Union, which will allow me to pick up where I left off, and the wealth of information present even in this one thread, will be fantastic for me in the coming months and years.

As suggested by several members of the forum, I have constructed a speaker attachment to place on an Edison recorder. Purchased off the internet, the speaker is 1.5 inches wide. For the cone, I cut down a plastic funnel to fit, and reamed the small end to press-fit tightly on the recorder. Playing through this from my stereo into my Edison Model B Home, I am finally able to get a decent amount of volume on playback, although much experimentation is needed for optimum sound quality. My big holdup now is the lack of a shaver. I will be putting a wanted ad in the Yankee Trader forum; hopefully something will turn up.

Here is a photo of the device mounted on the phonograph. It weighs just over 2 ounces.