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Positively Absolutely
Foxtrot (S.Coslow - Jean Herbert)

Kapelle Herbert Glad (= Herbert Fröhlich)

Tri Ergon TE 5041/M0693
Berlin, August 1927

I once posted this on my YT channel (Formiggini), but was unhappy with
my sound sound transfer..... so here is a new.
The Bandleader Herbert Fröhlich used the name "Herbert Glad" for Dance Band records. Together with Geza Komor
he was the "House Band" of the Tri-Ergon Label in Berlin.

The record company Tri Ergon used a very special technology of sound recording, they used a filmstrip.

Tri-Ergon is out of old greek and means "Work of (the) three"
The recording process for this Label used early sound on film technic;
That means that first the sound was cut on an film, than after possible editing
transferred to the phonograph/grammophon record.
The inventors hoped to make a better sounding record.
Before I came back to the Label, a lttle look back on early sound on film Talking Movie technic.

In 1918 three german innovators had the Idea of recording sound directly on the film with light via a photo cell. The Tri-Ergon sound-on-film system was patented in 1919 by the inventors Josef Engl (1893-1942), Hans Vogt (1890-1979), and Joseph Massolle (1889-1957).

On 17. September 1922 the three introduced in the Alhambra Theater/Berlin the first (short) talking movie with a sound track on the film. Almost half a year before Lee De Forest presented his Phonofilm in the USA! (De Forest improved the patents by Tri-Ergon and Eric Tigerstedt in Finland)

In the lack of money, TriErgon sold their patents to the Tri-Ergon AG in Zürich/Swiss.
The german cinema company UFA verifyed the chance of the new soundfilm. In Summer 1925 they sponsored a sound movie "Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern" (The Girl with the match). The film premiered in December 1925. But technical problems made it a disaster - the early loudspeaker system drop out, only loud row and noise came out of it.... the audience booed out the presentation. The UFA chanceled immediately all contracts, and passed the chance of Talking Movies!

Again without money, Tri Ergon sold the patents to america. In 1926, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation purchased the U. S. rights to the Tri-Ergon patents from Tri-Ergon Aktiengesellschaft (Tri-Ergon AG), Zürich, Switzerland. Fox used these inventions to create the new sound-on-film system: Fox Movietone. One of the first feature films to be released in Fox Movietone was "Sunrise" (1927) directed by F. W. Murnau. Fox also used the system for the long-running newsreel series Fox Movietone News. To make it more complex, Fox also used patents and technic of the RCA photophone - and contrawise used RCA technics by Fox (actually Tri-Ergon)...

To make some money at least the "Tri-Ergon Photo-Electro-Records" Label was established in 1927. The Tri-Ergon system used a special form of microphone without mechanical moving parts (Katodophone) for sound pickup and a special electric discharge tube for variable density film recording.

I found in an old Broadcast magazine ("Bastelfunk", issue November 1929) an article with two photos about this record Label and system. With "Photo A" the sound on film equipment is shown. In the middle on the right you can see the film, aside this in the black tube is the photo cell transferring the electric impulse from the microphone into light .
The speed of the film is faster than normal, to improve sound quality - c. 70 shots per second instead the usual c. 25 shots.
The whole "recording" equipment is the same as used by Engl, Vogt and Massolle for real sound films, but without the camera optic atop.
In "Photo B" is the transmission to record equipment. On the left is the filmreel, the little white tube beyond is the photo cell and over that the projector.
In the middle is the wax record. Notice that the record is upstanding!
Right of the record matrix is the cutter. Behind all this is the
Sound amplifier.

To improve sound quality, the re-recording procedure was slow downed in speed c. a 100 times. So the re-recording of a 4 min. record takes over 6 hours!!!

By the whole process the engineers had to master some new problems that aren´t with the standard technic.
For example the wax matrix is heated during recording process for good resultes. - No Problem if the process takes only c. 5 minutes, but what if this procedure needs 6 HOURS ?!?!.... and so on.

Here is the link to the (almost) full article with the two photos, in high-resolution - but in german..... http://www.box.net/shared/zqavlli7ft

In c. 1931 the company gone out of business.
The company also used their technics for longer radio dramas. On some Tri Ergon records you can hear a heavy echo
- also this was a new technic by
the company, they overlaped TWO sound strips with a little delay before
they transfered it to record - most of these records sounds awful....

This is a fascinating article! Thanks for posting it. I always figured there'd have to have been companies trying to use the filmstrip medium for early editing, etc. It ended up being an awful lot of trouble!
This reminds of the later technique used by Command Records when they recorded 3-track musical works on 35 millimeter sprocketed magnetic film in the late 1950's-early 60's. Lots of these were reissued when CDs came out, and the sound quality was still very impressive.
Bob

I agree. Thanks for posting a very interesting article!

An interesting recording technique. I had heard of it before but never knew any of the details or seen pictures of the machines used to do the recording. Facinating. You chose an excellent tune to demonstrate the process - thats really got my feet tapping

Out of interest you mention that on some disks they create an echo by using two strips of sound track. I wonder why they did that? Also did you have an example of a disk using that - i'm just interested to hear what that would sound like.
RJ

Also did you have an example of a disk using that - i'm just interested to hear what that would sound like.

.....
sorry, I haven´t.
Another collector I knew, once told me very angry about this "new technology". He found a rare record by French wagnerian soprano Laure Bergé of the Monnaie in Brussels - TriErgon added their echo - what a sacrilege !!
He told that it sounds like she sang against a wall.....

I ask him about a transfer, will take some time....
About he why - I think it is just that simple: they were the first with this technology, so they used !

This is really interesting: the wax master position is extraordinary! The Tri Ergon patents were trotted out in several court cases in the United States. They had one very important ,,and patented aspect...which was the use of a flywheel on the film feed device . It sounds simple,,,and was ,,,but it was especially important to keep a steady speed for sound reproduction. William Fox who had the American rights to the Tri Ergon patents tried to use this as a basis to gain a stake in all the sound on film processes in the States. He won the first round but lost when the supreme court reversed it's decision.

The Tri-Ergon patents caused also some court case in europe.
The patents were the only reason why "The Jazz Singer" 1927 with
Al Jolson appeared - as a silent movie !!!!

There was a judgment in the swiss, dating 1. July 1930 - forbidding the
Modern-Cinema-Theater the representation of Fox-Movietone, using equipment
of the RCA.
Soundmovies in europe got their really start as late as 1930, all because
of the Tri-Ergon patent litigations !

A great record and the article is fantastic. Prior to your post I just had the description from the Tri-Ergon catalog which is (unfortunately) not very detailed. Yours way more interesting to read. Thanks for posting all this stuff!