Victor 19814 Waring's Pennsylvanians

[scullylathe]

What are the titles on the Waring record that sparked this discussion?

It actually got sidetracked, but it all has to do with the quality and amount of room ambiance or reverb on early electrics. And nobody's really come up with a GOOD explanation of the foghorn-like noise on Whitey Kaufman's "Paddelin' Madeline Home".

[syncopeter]

The fitrst electrical issue of Jack hylton, which was regorded in the same month for HMV , actually sounds very good.

[OrthoSean]

There are lots of early Victor electrics that sound great if you ask me, such as the "Miniature Concert By Eight Popular Artists" which is in fact one of, or perhaps the first electrically recorded side Victor issued. They actually recorded acoustic and electric takes of it, the electric is what was issued. The "foghorn" sound in "Paddelin' Madeline Home" I'm familiar with, but I don't know what the sound is or where it was coming from. There are plenty of records that were issued out there where noises from outside the studio were picked up by mics and recording horns (the Galli-Curci acoustic -title escapes me right now- with the VERY audible Campbell's Soup Horn comes to mind off bat, though). Is it possible this was a car horn? I'm trying to remember which Victor it is I have where you can plainly hear an "Oogle" horn being blown somewhere nearby, but that too escapes me, it's been a rough day at the office!

Sean

[Wolfe]

I, too, can appreciate the lively, roomy sound of the early batwing Victor electrics, apart from those that sound somewhat overmodulated / distorted.

[scullylathe]

It's also entirely possible that even though condenser mic technology was around (and was most likely used in tests in the development of the electric system) the big labels may have chosen sides recorded with a carbon mic as their first issues because of their sound being "different", but closer to late acoustic recordings and radio broadcasts so as to not "shock" customers purchasing new electric recordings, but still playing them on their older non-Orthophonic machines. Sides like Olsen's Knee Deep in Daisies still sound fine on a Victrola X, but later sides like Reisman's Low Down Rhythm or Weems' Marvelous really tend to push the older machines into overmodulation on playback, especially machines with the smaller Exhibition reproducer. Also, with the older, less compliant soundboxes, records from 1927 onward wore more quickly on the older machines. Because of faltering sales in the two years prior to 1925, the big labels may have wanted to avoid any marketing problems and give the public a year or two to hear the better quality and upgrade their playback equipment (if they were going to), then push out sides that really exploited the advantages of the new system.

[Wolfe]

Anyone noticed loud many of those late acoustic Victors of 1924-25 are? Paddelin' Madelin Home or Whiteman, Waring ect. Loud even to the point of distortion, and congested, too. Bring in an electric of 1925 and it's a breath of fresh air, in more ways than one.

[Viva-Tonal]

I just heard 'Paddlin' Madeline home' via YouTube. The noise reminds me of one which occurs on Waring's 'Collegiate' as well. My take on this is that indirectly heated cathode tubes (or valves) had not yet been developed along with techniques to effectively reduce microphonism. Filamentary tubes very susceptible to microphonism were all that existed in 1925, and they simply did not have them sufficiently isolated from mechanical or acoustic stimuli when these recordings were made.

(The noise reminds me of a similar tendency in an old radio I own, a mid-1920s Crosley 51 which used battery tubes such as the 01A. Some years ago I actually had the set not only operational, I had made a coupling network that allowed its one audio tube's output to be connected to my stereo system. Turn the system up too loud, and feedback would result, and it sounded considerably like this same roar!)

[syncopeter]

And that noise couldn't be heard with the headphones or speakers of the time. I had late 30s Dutch recordings with a very loud 50 Hz hum. Again, inaudible at the time.

[Wolfe]

50 Hz could have been audible on certain reproducing gear of the time. Sometimes one has to ask oneself if, since they couldn't hear the records until after the tests came back, and all the original musicians scattered to the four winds, if they knew and just let it go anyway. Expensive to redo whole the session over a little hum.

[syncopeter]

The funny thing is that those recordings were high quality (you could say early hifi), but for that hum. The engineer was Jaap van den Hul, father of Aalt Jouk from the world famous cartridges and cables, and he hea a set of very good ears.