[78-L] Presto cutter

[simmonssomer]

On Nov. 7, 1940 Jack Towers recorded an entire dance (four sets) by Duke 
Ellington and His Orchestra at the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo North Dakota.
He used a Presto-Y portable recorder and 16 inch aluminimum based acetates. 
Three mikes were employed.
There were two mike inputs on the Presto plus a pre-amp input that was 
plugged into an additional "remote" input on the Presto.
The dance is available on CD.

Al Simmons

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bertrand CHAUMELLE" <chaumelle at orange.fr>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2009 4:12 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Presto cutter


The Presto that Philips used (only for 78's) was of the "portable"
variety. I don't have a picture at hand.

BC
Le 16 mai 09, à 21:26, Michael Biel a écrit :

>
>
> From: Bertrand CHAUMELLE <chaumelle at orange.fr>
>
>> Oh, I see, I forgot about transcriptions, thanks, Royal.
>> In Paris, Philips used Presto cutters around 1954 for their sessions
>> (at the same time, they used a tape recorder for the 45/33
>> pressings!).
>> But they recorded on very thick discs, do you think it was a radically
>> different Presto model ?
>
> The 6 series was a "portable" machine -- portable in that it had
> handles
> on it!!  It is more likely that Philips used the 8 series lathes which
> were studio machines that weighed hundreds of pounds.  There now are
> many web sites that illustrate some very good collections and even some
> of the old literature.  None of that info was around when I did my
> research in the 70s, but I found found the son of one of the founders,
> and he had a very good memory and even better scrapbooks of every piece
> of literature Presto ever published.  Of course I am not near my
> microfilms of his data right now.
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com