The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

On the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, the guns fell silent. It brought an end to four years of war which crippled Europe, leaving 17 million dead including 888,246 British or Colonial servicemen. As we approach the centenary of the Armistice on November 11, the Imperial War Museum has released a recording of the moment the war ended, patched together using recordings from their collections.


https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/07/eerie-re ... 1-8114109/

https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/09/100-pict ... d-8122352/

Thanks for posting the pictures. They sure are great.
Harvey Kravitz

One image from the beginning of the war, and one from the end.

[youtubehd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d-Bnr4Ozac[/youtubehd]

Zeppy wrote:As we approach the centenary of the Armistice on November 11, the Imperial War Museum has released a recording of the moment the war ended, patched together using recordings from their collection.

This cannot be true and must be a reconstruction. 1918 technology did not allow the capture of sound of artillery in the field at the end of the war. Of course Will Gaisburg was dispatched to make the Gas Shell bombardment recording but that was it.

Governor Flyball wrote:

Zeppy wrote:As we approach the centenary of the Armistice on November 11, the Imperial War Museum has released a recording of the moment the war ended, patched together using recordings from their collection.

This cannot be true and must be a reconstruction. 1918 technology did not allow the capture of sound of artillery in the field at the end of the war. Of course Will Gaisburg was dispatched to make the Gas Shell bombardment recording but that was it.

Really? The Imperial War Museum is quite reputable. I don't think they would fake it?

I know it's already been posted but this time in tandem with the "National Aires".

[youtubehd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGvxJ6ZY1O4[/youtubehd]

One of my favorite records: Aeolian-Vocalion National Airs

Really? The Imperial War Museum is quite reputable. I don't think they would fake it?

The only known recording documented sound recording of WW1 was Will Gaisberg's October 1918 recording of the gas shell bombardment at Lille France. And it's authenticity is in doubt! Read this link as it amply shows the limited capability of live event recording during the acoustical period.
https://soundstudiesblog.com/tag/horace-merriman/

I would claim the first live event recording in the world was the ceremony of the burial of the unknown soldier on November 11 1920 by Merriman and Guest.I do not believe Merriman and Guest used the vacuum tube as it had not been applied to audio amplification properly at that point. I believe they employed only carbon microphones which would yield adequate modulated currents to actuate crude electromechanical cutters. Hence the almost indiscernable recording quality of the November 11, 1920 recordings. It took Western Electric to develop the audio amplifier and condensor microphone to achieve adequate quality by 1923.

Listen to the best quality at the time field recordings from 1920 from Youtube and the stokowski.org websites. The recordings are loud enough but are muffled and have no fidelity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obIc7TPe_yQ&t=121s
http://www.stokowski.org/Development_of ... ording.htm

To achieve what the news article claims would have required technology which did not yet exist. The vacuum tube power audio amplifier was not yet developed. The army may have set us seismic strip recorders but that is a long way from capturing actual gun fire audio. The only sounds in the field prior to which were captured prior to 1920 that I know of were the acoustical recordings of the Mapleson Met cylinders, the Captive Nightingale from Bremen Germany in 1911 and the post produced and likely staged Gas Shell Bombardment in 1918.

If you visit the Imperial War Museum site, they said it is a re-enactment. The news article was obviously written by a youngster with limited understanding of the history. We sadly live in an age where technological developments are trivialized.

Governor Flyball wrote:

Zeppy wrote:As we approach the centenary of the Armistice on November 11, the Imperial War Museum has released a recording of the moment the war ended, patched together using recordings from their collection.

This cannot be true and must be a reconstruction. 1918 technology did not allow the capture of sound of artillery in the field at the end of the war. Of course Will Gaisburg was dispatched to make the Gas Shell bombardment recording but that was it.

Among historians of audio technology, the consensus seems to be that the Gas Shell recording is likely an 'enhanced' version; using acoustic dubbing of the original field recording (possibly using an Auxetophone?), with the voices and 'whistling' added in the studio.

As for the 'Armistice' audio, I am not sure: it seems rather unlikely that any record company would have had information of the pending cease-fire early enough to get their equipment out to the front in time...

Bill