The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

After having chem-shaved the wax a few times, I think I have gotten to a good surface. That, and I actually remembered to warm up the cylinder with a heat lamp this time. The record cuts out for like 2 seconds - you'll hear it - and I don't know how or why it happened, but whatever, the rest came out pretty good, I think!

As always, constructive criticism is welcome. Just don't diss my singing voice. I can't help that, it's the only one God gave me

I haven't really tried singing...

My more successful attempts were with spoken word recordings.

One on an old shaved brown wax blank:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1supm ... ding_music

Another on one of Shawn Borri's blanks:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1sv3b ... ding_music

Bill

Wow, you sound like one of them doots from the oughts! Great records.

Here's a new one: And here is the source audio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNN_pnjKvYE

The recording is actually quite good, but there's a terrible RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE background noise. Does it really comes out of the cylinder? It doesn't seem so. May it be that it is your microphone catching the rumble of the motor, as it is not isolated?

No, that's actually the cylinder - you can even see it in the grooves. I have been wracking my mind trying to figure out how it gets there, but I haven't been able to as yet.

Having tried to record several cylinders, i have noticed some recurring issues. First, the rumble in the first part of the records as mentioned above. Looking at the actual grooves indicates that the stylus somehow skips on and off of the surface. in these areas. Secondly, I find that the recording volume randomly cuts out to nothing at least once per cylinder.

How do I fix these problems?

Concerning the skip, it seems to indicate that the threaded guide of the recording carriage is damaged at the beginning, or that the outermost threads don't have a constant gauge for some reason. Or something hampers the movement of the carriage in that area.

Concerning the muting: may it be an agglomeration of wax forming under the needle's tip, that is expelled by movement shortly after?

I think you're right about the muting problem, but the 'skip' is not a skip in the usual sense. The carriage advances freely and no grooves are crossed, but the recording stylus alternates between cutting and actually lifting off of the surface of the blank in quick succession. I will probably post a picture of the grooves soon to illustrate the issue. I don't think it's the cylinders being out of round as it alternates very quickly between cutting and not cutting, and I think it would be sustained throughout the duration of the cylinder were it out of round. Furthermore, it has happened to every single record I've made (which is really frustrating).

If these recordings are all on chem-shaved black wax, I would think that the medium itself may contribute to the problem.

Black wax (at least the formula used for the Gold Moulded records), was not designed for recording; also, chemical shaving, while adequate for field recording, can never match the sound quality of a properly blade shaved blank.

Usually, you could look for moldy, unplayable brown wax cylinders (although, with modern scanning technology, some previously unplayable cylinders have been rescued from oblivion: one never knows whether there may be some historically valuable recording on any particular cylinder); but a couple of our members have devoted themselves to the task of recreating the original blanks.

Bill