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I've picked up a stack of V-Discs. By the looks of them and the playing time, they seem to be some sort of microgroove, even though they are 78s. Should I use a 78 stylus or an LP stylus to play them?

Clay

V-Discs use a standard 78 groove which requires a 3 mil conical needle. An LP needle is too small and will float between the groove walls giving poor results. Most of the V-Discs are vinyl but you will occasionally find a shellac pressing. I would advise you to only play them on modern electric equipment.
V-Discs can be interesting. Much of the material is dubbed from commercial releases of the day, but some is found nowhere else. Another interesting thing about them is that some contain a short band at the beginning with a greeting to the "Boys" by the artist. I have at least a couple of these that I can think of off hand, one by Benny Goodman and one by Art Tatum.

Jim

Three of the ones in my group have the intros, including one by Carmen Cavallaro's then very young daughter.

Two of the vinyl recordings in the bunch have damage that prevents them from being played on my modern player. The light tone arm just bounces all around. But interestingly they both played beautifully on my Credenza with no drag or detectable damage. I couldn't do that with most vinyl 78s.

Perhaps, knowing that they would sometimes be used in pretty primitive war theater settings, a more rugged vinyl formulation of some sort was used. I expect more that a few were played on military wind-up portables of the day.

Some of the V Disc material was actually new and unique. Because of a 2-year strike by the musicians' union (42-44) against the major record labels no new orchestra/band music was recorded, but a deal was reached to let the musicians record for the troops on V-Discs during the strike.

Clay

Hi Clay -- I just saw these on eBay (not mine): http://www.ebay.com/itm/1940s-V-DISC-Na ... 43e1ee9d18

Cody K wrote:Hi Clay -- I just saw these on eBay (not mine): http://www.ebay.com/itm/1940s-V-DISC-Na ... 43e1ee9d18

These V-disc packs have ordinary steel needles, the V-discs did not require any special needle to be played. You can play them on a well tuned gramophone with steel needles. If the gramophone is from the electrical recording period it should not cause any abnormal wear to the discs. I play them on Credenza, EMG, large Columbia with good results.

Cody K wrote:Hi Clay -- I just saw these on eBay (not mine): http://www.ebay.com/itm/1940s-V-DISC-Na ... 43e1ee9d18

Cool!

Clay

I actually find V-Discs to be fairly common "in the wild." Finding the "vinyl" V-Discs without some degree of groove damage much less common.

I believe all the V-Discs were unique recordings. In more recent years there's been some nice CD collections of certain prolific V-Disc makers like Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Les Paul and so on.

Wolfe wrote: I believe all the V-Discs were unique recordings. In more recent years there's been some nice CD collections of certain prolific V-Disc makers like Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Les Paul and so on.

Actually a substantial share of the V discs was not unique,for instance, all of Duke Ellingtons's V discs were reprints of his commercial recordings. Some artists like Fats Waller recorded specially for V discs, Louis Armstrong recorded one session with Jack Teagarden for V disc, Art Tatum also recorded some, and others like Red Nichols. Some records sound different because they were made-up of two 3 minute commercial records put together into a single 4 minute side. Some others were snatched from live recordings, like Billie Holiday's record from the All Star concert with Art Tatum and Roy Eldridge.

Thanks.

Here's a l'il rundown on the Ellington discs. Looks like they were drawn from a variety of sources.

http://ellingtonweb.ca/Hostedpages/Dooj ... VDiscs.htm