The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I will be recording live jass musicians in the Quad Cities at the home of Bix Beiderbecke tomorrow in the evening around 3 or 4 pm on my new spiral core blanks. Sincerely Shawn Borri

Recording session went well, the band consisted of percussion, piano, trombone, cornet, trumpet, double bass, banjo and clarinet The Cylinders recorded at a medium volume, which is nice because there is no blast or distortion. I was very happy with how the grand piano recorded., reminded me of an Ernest Stevens Diamond Disc sound.
I used a standard speaker style recorder with a copper diaphragm. the bottom had two rubber gaskets, and one on top, and I had added extra weight to it. . I was very surprised that the double bass recorded, but it did, something I had been told was an impossibility in acoustic recording. One of the cylinder is now in the Bix house collection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Bisma ... ecke_House
I will let you know when video and photos of the session are available.
Sincerely Shawn Borri

That sounds quite interesting, especially the historic must have been really something to enjoy. Yes, please post any media links, I'd really like to see and hear how your recordings turned out!

I am still on my way to get a small machine to electrify, so I can make recordings at a steady speed. The tiny flaws in the spring motors have been always somewhat annoying to me when I tried it myself, especially because they do add up when being played back with again with a spring powered motor.

edisonphonoworks wrote: I was very surprised that the double bass recorded, but it did, something I had been told was an impossibility in acoustic recording.
Shawn Borri

Over the years, I've seen sources that claim some ridiculous limitations on acoustic recording/playback. Forgive me for pulling rank here, but as a professional musician and musicologist, I can only conclude that such claims stem from ignorance of elementary acoustical facts about instrumental and vocal ranges. For example, I have an acoustical recording of a bass voice (Victor 17309-A, Wilfred Glenn, bass) singing "Asleep in the Deep," which goes down to great D (almost two octaves below middle C). At A=440 Hz, great D=73.4175 Hz, and on playback (VV-XI w/Exhibition) this note is clearly heard. For comparison, the lowest note on the acoustic double bass is contra E, which has a frequency of 41.20375 Hz. While you probably won't hear much jazz that calls for this lowest bass note, it is certainly reasonable to assume that you will hear a lot of notes in the octave above that, and beyond. To make a blanket statement that the acoustic process had a lower limit of, say, 150 Hz (a more-or-less typical claim) is simply not supported by actual numbers.

I had recorded at Madison square garden, in NYC around 2003, and used a baked, shellac two step paper diaphragm, with blue RTV gaskets, and when electrically played back, the boom boom sound of Slick Rick, would make the woofers on my Cerwin Vega speakers move, so that is pretty low, it actually was similar to the sound of those cars that annoy everyone. I hope to purchase some new glass diaphragms soon, really glass makes very good recordings,, the drawback to high SPL or certain notes can shatter them, I have had it happen. Acoustic recording is a Compromise, if you want clarity, they have to be at a medium volume, if you want volume, you will lack somewhere. I have actually became somewhat rusty with recording, I do record here and there, but have been mostly concentrating on the blanks. My Ted X recordings turned out pretty good, made with a cygnet horn, the Bix session I used the 56" brass horn.

http://www.myspace.com/thenorthamerican ... pany/radio

This page has not been edited in years, It is not even current with name, but there are several transfers and experiments, Sweet Georgia Brown is recorded with a paper diaphragm, Crazy Baby shows a good bass response, and the Dead cylinder jam, was interesting, trying to edit 13 minutes of a jam together, was quite a challenge, you can hear how different cylinders, record quite differently, these were recorded back before I even used Ceresine in the wax!

Hello, I have uploaded a few cylinders from the Bix home recording featuring Andy Schumm on Cornet, In this cylinder we have Cornet, Piano, traps, trombone, clarinet, and banjo. In another cylinder recorded at the home is a nice Jazz piano solo, the diaphragm used was green bristol board shellac coated and baked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkM7P2Pu ... kM7P2Pu1dI

This Video is taken at the home of Bix, in Davenport. Many Thanks to Marilene McCandless and Avati brothers for allowing us to do these recordings in Bix's home, and . Enrico Borsetti, Andy Schumm and everyone who put this together. A really great take of the recording session is at the home on display. The recorder I used was an 1890s Edison recording head with green fiberboard diaphragm and 56" brass horn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3Wjv6K0 ... ure=colike

Thanks. Really neat to see the video!

Clay