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Shorpy has a good photo of a band taken in an acoustic recording studio, circa 1922.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/21141

Clay

Thanks for posting this, Clay. It reveals many items of interest. The band consists of violin (must be leader Specht: note the suit and bow tie), four reeds (saxes and a clarinet are visible), two trumpets, trombone, tuba (Sousaphone), banjo, percussion, piano (?), total eleven or twelve players (assuming piano, seen with lid up, aimed at horn). This is the nucleus of the later "big band" of the '30s-'60s, with the addition of one or two more trumpets, two more trombones, and substitution of guitar for banjo and upright (string) bass for tuba. Note the clever arrangement for the sheet music (individual parts): the music clip rods can move across the room on those rows of wires and the rods near (and even behind (!) the horn), and in addition it looks as though the rods telescope for height adjustment, so there is flexibility in three dimensions, as required for placement and balance according to type of group and content to be recorded. Save for the cloth over the horn, there doesn't appear to be any attempt to modify the room acoustics, but one might reasonably conclude that there was plenty of reverb from those bare walls and high ceiling. Of course we can't see how large the room is, or whether there is any acoustic treatment behind the camera. There is a stack of low platforms against the left rear wall, useful for some instruments in certain situations; indeed, some of the players are seated on risers in the photo. I should caution against drawing any conclusions from the photo about recording arrangement of personnel; these men are posing for a photograph, not in the act of playing and recording, and the music clips may have been (and probably were) moved to accommodate the composition and arrangement of the photo. This picture reveals more, the more one studies it. Thanks again for posting!

In the comments section of the Shorpy pic there is a link to a silent film of recording and record pressing at Columbia. While most of it is quite familiar to a lot of us here, I was puzzled by the record pressing sequence of the film. Didn't Columbia use a laminated record---with a thin paper under each surface---going back into the post-war 1920s? The process they show uses the "lump" of molten shellac compound that is pressed in the stampers, much like Victor did. Maybe I missed something, or maybe this was a "staged" sequence to convey the concept rather than divulge a pressing process that may have been proprietary at that time. Still, at the end, it's neat to see the family gathered around the Grafonola to listen to their newly acquired record.

Columbia Recording Studio, NYC
Front row (L to R): Russell Deppe-banjo; Chauncey Morehouse-drums (holding cymbal); Johnny O’Donnell-sax; Harold “Red” Saliers-alto sax (with pencil thin mustache); Paul Specht-violin-leader
Rear (L to R): Francis “Frank” Smith-saxes; Frank Guarente-trumpet; Arthur Schutt-piano (holding an alto sax!); Donald Lindley-trumpet (wearing glasses; he seems to be holding a cornet); Russ Morgan-trombone; Joe Tarto-tuba

Panatropia wrote: Donald Lindley-trumpet (wearing glasses; he seems to be holding a cornet);

Nope, it's definitely a trumpet.On a cornet, the curved tubing nearest the mouthpiece would not be as elongated as is seen in the photo. BTW, the main difference between the trumpet and the cornet is the proportion of cylindrical to conical tubing over the total length of the instrument. Picture the two completely unwound to form a straight piece of tubing. Each would be about 4.5 feet long. Over its length, the trumpet is ⅔ cylindrical and ⅓ conical, while the cornet is ⅔ conical and ⅓ cylindrical.

Look. At. The Floor.

It looks like a pretty live sounding recording room., with a bare floor. A visual of a cornet or trumpet, having played both, a cornet would be described as fat top to bottom, and shorter in visual length while a trumpet is longer and thinner in height. This is a trumpet sound on an acoustic recording I made in a balanced studio of live wood floor, however walls acoustically treated at Award winning Pilot recording studio in New York City, With Award winning trumpeter, and cornet-est John Sneider. A .005 glass diaphragm, Edison Triumph phonograph used. It is played back with a model C reproducer and picked up with B&K test microphone, which is used to test audio equipment. Cylinder recording and announcing by Shawn Borri (I am he if you have not figured that out by now! . From what I have seen of Columbia's recording heads, even by the time they got to the mid 20s, they pretty much are similar in construction, as far as the body to the Columbia reproducer, only it has some spring tension on the cantilever and is connected directly to the center of the diaphragm instead of a wire. or catgut linkage like most other studios. https://youtu.be/Xtc3A5Jn0f4

As always if you want to do some hands on experimentation with wax making, moulding cylinders, acoustical recording experiments, my lab is always open, for those who want to get down and dirty with discoveries. If you have questions come over and try them out! I am usually home from 4-8pm, and on Sundays, other than that, I am at work M-S.