[78-L] Lighten my darkness

[Royal Pemberton]

Do the Brunswick records made with the 'light-ray' apparatus have a
definite sound to them that marks them out from the acoustic records,
and the good quality electrics?   One Brunswick I have is a Ray Miller
disc on 3046 of 'Dreaming of a castle in the air' b/w 'Sweet
nothings'.  'Dreaming' was recorded 18th January 1926 and sounds very
good for the era, while the flip, recorded the next day, is a
distorted mess.  I wonder if one side was 'light-ray' and the other
done with the good equipment?

On 2/26/09, Michael Biel <mbiel at mbiel.com> wrote:
> John G. wrote:
>> Can any kind person tell me when Brunswick stopped using the "light ray"
>> method of recording ?
>>
>
> It was used only in 1925 and maybe a little into 1926.  The only place
> light was used was in the microphone.  It was a cone-shaped ddiaphragm
> with a tiny mirror at the back tip.  A light shined on the mirror and
> the vibrating reflection was read by a photo-electric cell.
>
>
> It was part of an entire system developed in 1922 by GE engineer Charles
> Hoxie, the Pallophotophone.  This was a system which recorded sound on
> film, and in 1922 he recorded VP Coolidge, Jackie Coogan, David Sarnoff,
> Marconi, and several other celebs for a Christmas program on WGY.   (A
> number of reels of WGY broadcast airchecks from 1928 and 29 were
> discovered a couple of years ago, and just last night I received a
> report on the successful  development of a machine to play the films.  I
> am panting in anticipation of hearing these -- I know basically what is
> on them and with one exception, they are totally unique.)
>
>> And can someone also explain to me how  it worked ?  I understand how
>> light ray recording was done for film soundtracks; but how was it
>> applied to produce a master disc ? And are the results really much
>> better than the traditional needle-in-a-groove  method ?
>
>
> In addition to the microphone, film recorder, and film playback unit,
> Hoxie also developed and patented amplifiers, and a phono record
> recording head.  Brunswick got left out of the Western Electric
> licensing, and since they had contacts with RCA -- they had started
> broadcasting on RCA's WJZ in December 1924 -- they went to RCA which
> gave them access to the microphone, amps, and cutter head for "Light Ray
> Recording", and the amps and playback head for their Panatrope
> electrical phonograph.
>
>
>> I have some early (British) Brunswick paper sleeves : the first  reads
>> "Electrical light ray process records"  in bold type, and over on the
>> right,
>> under two small graphs,   "Electrical light ray recording"  and
>> "Electrical
>> light ray reproduction."   However, instead of the last-named, another
>> cover
>> now reads  "Electrical Panatrope reproduction".
>
> Hoxie never used light and mirrors in disc playback so they probably
> were told to stop using the phrase.  I think the disc pick-up head they
> did use was based on a head Paul Fortin cobbled out of a modified Victor
> acoustical reproducer in 1916 by adding coils.  That same phono pick-up
> was also used as a contact microphone for pianos at WGY in 1922 by
> digging the needle into the piano soundboard.  In the early 70s I
> inspected the head and Fortin's papers at the Smithsonian a couple of
> weeks after he dropped them off, and  I briefly corresponded with him.
>
>>  Finally,  another, more
>> common,  cover simply refers to "electrical"  records with no mention of
>> light rays at all.
>> I am guessing therefore that it didn't last long.
>> Regards  John  Goslin
>
> They started using normal microphones, probably carbon and condenser,
> but probably continued using RCA Hoxie amps and cutter heads.  As the
> Western Electric Vitaphone sound-on-disc system started popularizing
> talkies, RCA utilized the film recording part of the system for their
> RCA Photophone system, using condenser microphones and then ribbon and
> dynamic mics instead of the light-ray mic.
>
> Eventually in the late 30s, Philco used light in a phono pick-up.  Again
> it had a tiny mirror connected to the needle, and a light shining on it
> with a photoelectric cell picking up the variation in light.  The head
> is triangular, but that same outer casing is used for standard
> pick-ups,  so not all Philcos with the triangular head on the tone arm
> are light ray pickups.  And lastly, at about the same time RCA
> advertised their Magic Brain changer using the word "light" to describe
> the pick-ups.  Light in this case referred to the tracking pressure.
> They are crystal pick-ups.
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
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