Oldest known voice music restored...

[Andersun]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-575 ... MixRelated

[edisonphonoworks]

It is really shocking to hear a recording from 1878, one of the earliest phonograph recordings. next to the phonautograph.

[Henry]

Guess I'll have to hop in the car and hustle on up to Schenectady to hear it at 6:30 tonight (Oct. 25). Mmm, let's see, if I start right now I could be almost to Poughkeepsie by then. Not good enough

[Starkton]

I wished I could take part at the museum event tonight. Here is a newspaper clipping of 22 June 1878, issued on the same day as the St. Louis tinfoil recording:

“Wonder Agape! – The Phonograph Puzzling Atlanta’s Citizens. – […] The phonograph is here at last. […]. Prof. Wm. Henry Peck spoke a Shakspearian quotation into the phonograph […]. There are no phonographs for sale. There are only forty in existence, all of them being used for exhibition purposes. Of these twenty-five are in America and fifteen in Europe. The right to exhibit them has been sold at enormous prices. Boston sold for $10,000 […].

The Western Union company has agreed to take 12,000 of these machines, as soon as they are perfected, and to pay him [Edison?] $125,000 per annum for the use of them. Their idea is to combine them with telephones […].
In Augusta Mr.Morey succeeded in having nine languages spoken into the machine, and in Savannah eleven languages were spoken. Atlanta must decidedly outdo these towns. Prof. Peck has already lead off with some English, Irish, Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, Chinese, Indian and [n****r]. […]

The cost of admission is only 50 cents […]. When they are regularly manufactured the cost will be only $25 – and then no family will be complete without one. […].” (6/22/1878 The Daily Constitution, p. 0_4)

[Wolfe]

The Frank Lambert tinfoil cylinder / machine was supposed to be from 1878, too. It contains a recording of a man counting down the hours as on a clock.

They managed to play that more conventionally, with a modern electric pickup.

[Henry]

The PBS News Hour tonight (10/25) broadcast a tantalizingly short excerpt from the recording. Couldn't tell much about it; a tiny bit of cornet, ditto voice. I'm sure they didn't want to steal the thunder from the official presentation. I'm looking forward to hearing the whole thing someday.

[Starkton]

The Frank Lambert tinfoil cylinder / machine was supposed to be from 1878, too. It contains a recording of a man counting down the hours as on a clock.

The date of the recording engraved on the massive lead cylinder of the, so called, Lambert talking clock, has never been conclusively demonstrated. The year 1878 was only wishful thinking of the then owner Aaron Cramer, now unfortunately deceased. Patrick Feaster and myself expressed our reservations against the dating and classification of this device already in 2002 in a letter to the editor of the ARSC Journal. (Dialogue on 'The Oldest Playable Recording' (continued), ARSC Journal 33:2 (Fall 2002), 237-242)

[TinfoilPhono]

This is of immense importance in phonograph history. It is a complete, audible record of an actual phonograph exhibition on June 22, 1878. You can listen to the complete recording here: http://websnap08.lbl.gov/Tinfoil.html

I have known of this foil sheet for several years. It was folded in quarters and put into a promotional envelope as a giveaway. I am astounded that Carl Haber and Earl Cornell at Lawrence Berkeley Labs were able to compensate for all the damage. They did a heroic job.

It is not the earliest known voice music; Léon Scott's April 8, 1860 phonautogram, digitally restored in 2008, is a vocal song. But this is the first authenticated tinfoil recording to be digitally restored. I dreamed of such a thing when I wrote my book about tinfoil phonographs 10+ years ago, I'm thrilled to see it come to fruition.

And all the more so given that when I did a recreation of an 1878 exhibition at Stanford University in 2008 I recorded 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' as well as a cornet solo. It turns out that was very fitting for such an event.

[gramophone78]

It is such a overwhelming feeling to be a part of recovering recorded history. My Wife and I know from personal experience. The hairs on the back of your neck will stand straight up the first time one hears a recording that has not been heard in who knows how long. Like ghosts from the past returning.

When we discovered the early 1890's K&R Berliner talking doll (only complete one), we were faced with a disc recording that was only 8cm or a little over 3" in diameter (one of two known) and wafer thin. This recording had not been play perhaps over a century.

Thanks to many experts....including the individuals involved in the extrapolation of the Phonautograh paper recording in France, our record was brought back to life.

The amount of time and patience entailed is something that most would never have to experience. Finding the correct speed and filtering.....over and over again to bring it back to life is mind blowing.

We will never forget the feeling that over came us when it was first heard. It was a once in a life time experience.

[dennis]

I have heard about IRENE for years now, but I haven't been able to find a collection of recently processed items, other than the Bell Labs collection. Does anyone know of such a collection to explore? So far, IRENE seems to be an unfulfilled promise. Please correct me, if I'm missing something!