The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Here are a few resources that some of you might not have seen before.

The first by Wakeman about the uses of shellac.

https://www.antiquephono.org/the-origin ... j-wakeman/

The second resource is a film made by RCA Victor about how records are recorded and pressed. The part with the Banbury mixer combining the record materials starts about minute twelve.

https://youtu.be/qdhNNaQhgv8

Mark

As regards Edison diamond discs, when washing them, don't get any water on the thick edge...they're not sealed, and you can split the record right in two!

I find 30's HMV's and UK Columbia's often have what I call a 'crinkly' surface. On modern equipment, they have a crackle that I'm sure vintage players didn't pick up. One person said it due to higher shellac content than Victor's, Brunswick's and other high-quality US made records. It's a shame to play a mint condition HMV that sounds not unlike a US dime store label!

barrympls wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 12:28 pm On modern equipment, they have a crackle that I'm sure vintage players didn't pick up.

Actually the crackle in HMVs and Columbia's from the 30s onwards is very perceptible - and annoying - when played in gramophones. Such crackle is not a product of ageing: I remember an article in the Gramophone magazine from that period mentioning what the author named the HMV crackle. The Columbias made before they were absorbed by the Gramophone company are high quality laminated pressings, with quiet surfaces. After the merger the new company, EMI, decided to abandon such technology and went on with the noisy shellac of the HMV pressings, that got even worse during the WWII years.

But in Australia, for instance, they retained the Columbia process for all records under the Emi umbrella, including also Decca there.

Inigo wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 6:18 pm But in Australia, for instance, they retained the Columbia process for all records under the Emi umbrella, including also Decca there.

Correct, and also in France and Italy. The Spanish pressings are very good, but I am not sure if they are laminated.

No, Spanish laminated pressings (Odeon, Parlophon and later Regal-Columbia) ended with the formation of EMI, and Gramófono Barcelona overtaking Odeon- Parlophon finally towards 1933.
Regal-Columbia of San Sebastian (an independent company with a special regime} was the last one, maintaining the laminated pressings until 1935, when it was closed and refounded as Fabrica de Discos Columbia SAE. These new records were no more laminated. The process belonged to EMI, I suppose, and as the links with them were terminated, the new records were normal shellac mixture. Nevertheless, they developed their own technical improvements, and very soon their records and recordings were much better than the Gramófono products. Maybe their 1943 agreement with UK Decca had something to do, related to transference of Decca technology to Spanish Columbia.

Gracias, Iñigo, you confirmed what I suspected, that the later Spanish Columbias are not laminated. Certainly they had some special recipe in their production, as the records sound almost as good as laminated pressings.