The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I have a copy of Victor 19834,"Paddlin Madeline Home" by Whitey Kaufman's Orchestra. I noted that there's a hum from the microphone when it was being recorded.Has anyone else noticed it?edisonplayer.

Oh yes!

This is an excellent record--my copy is almost worn out from before I got it but that Victor microphone hum is present still. It gets louder & louder as the needle reaches the end, and I've run across this phenomenon on some other early VE discs as well but cannot remember the numbers and titles.

Yes, some really pronounced feedback on that side! I'm surprised it got issued like that, actually. I haven't noticed it on any other records. There are some VEs that develop a pronounced squealy hiss towards the end that gets worse and continues to the runout.

Maybe the guy who approves recordings was half asleep?I thought surely that Victor would've had the band come back for a redo.edisonplayer.

There’s a fair possibility they couldn’t hear it in the playback. I believe it’s an oscillating fan. There’s another Victor from the same era that one can hear workers nearby hammering the daylights out of something. I’ve got a number of Plaza labels that the mic was hot when they cut the lead-out grooves; you’ll often hear the banjo player checking his tuning or the guys nattering among themselves.

I think the humming on these was part of the recording process, but background noise sneaking into the old records is fun. You'll hear factory whistles tooting, musicians tuning up their instrument or talking, automobiles blowing electric klaxons in the street, the recording engineer saying "OK!" at the end of a track, all kind of stuff. On the 2010 record "Yuppie Exodus from Dumbo," recorded on Eschatone Records and molded at the Vulcan works in Sheffield, you can hear the roar of an elevated railway train going by during the middle of the song (which is appropriate for the New York atmosphere.)

When we moved away from the rough-and-ready atmosphere of vintage recording we gained audio quality but we lost a lot of that intimate connection to the music.

But that hissing on early Victor scrolls I believe to be part of the recording process as they were able to work it out by around 1927-1928 as best I can tell. If it were an oscillating fan it would fluctuate more--early fans back then have more of a brrrrrrrr sound instead of that whistling.

I've heard that "hum", or "whistle" too on many records.

BTW, how do you suppose Madeline felt about being paddled?

You're mixing that hum (a hum is a low frequency noise) with the famous His Master's Whistle that can be heard at the end of many recordings, which is much higher frequency. I would not call 'hum' that whistle...

Inigo wrote: Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:52 pm You're mixing that hum (a hum is a low frequency noise) with the famous His Master's Whistle that can be heard at the end of many recordings, which is much higher frequency. I would not call 'hum' that whistle...

Right- two different noises. I think the whistle was a result of a curing process issue with the masters. The hum is def. microphone feedback, similar to early Beatles recordings but a much lower frequency.

JerryVan wrote: Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:38 pm I've heard that "hum", or "whistle" too on many records.

BTW, how do you suppose Madeline felt about being paddled?

She probably liked it!