[78-L] stereo, ca. 1932, celluose acetate pressings?

[Michael Biel]

From: "Milan P Milovanovic" <milanpmilovanovic4 at gmail.com>
> I've read the article. Is it possible that "Pressings of the recordings
> were then made using cellulose acetate disks, rather than the typical
> noisy shellac material of the 78 rpm era."?  Best wishes   Milan


I am very glad you pointed this out so I can explain it.  I have led a
fairly successful crusade against the use of the term "acetate" when
referring to lacquer-coated metal or glass based recording discs.  The
material on those are NOT Cellulose ACETATE, they are Cellulose NITRATE.
 They can only properly be called "lacquers" or perhaps "nitrates" but
that latter term is really only used for the explosive type of motion
picture film.

But the article is CORRECT in discussing Cellulose acetate pressings of
Western Electric recordings because the early clay-colored
greasy-feeling floppy pressings WE and World Broadcasting System used
WERE cellulose acetate!  It is one of the reasons why broadcasters
incorrectly called lacquer discs "acetates".  The special shadowgraphed
needles for these were sometimes labeled to be used for acetates because
those needles were first used for the acetate pressings before the
lacquer discs were introduced in late 1934.  Brunswick also was having
its 16-inch discs pressed by Flexo, and these also were cellulose
acetate.  The red Brunswick labels said to use acetate needles on the
blue pressings which were acetate, but to use regular steel needles on
the black pressings which were shellac.  Again, the continued use of
this label form further confused broadcasters.  

When Presto introduced the lacquer disc in Oct 1934 they called it The
Presto Disc.  In the recording industry as other companies came into the
field, the name lacquer started to be used, but the broadcasters had
started using the word acetate.  As early as 1940 AudioDevices in their
book "How To Make Good Recordings" mentioned several times that the word
acetate was improper, but I am not sure broadcasters knew how to read
books.    

In the mid-30s World Broadcasting System (which used the Western
Electric Wide Range Vertical Recording system) started offering their
stations a choice of the acetate pressings or the stiffer vinyl
pressings.  And so as WBS stations started switching over to vinyl
pressings, the name acetate moved over to the lacquer coated discs.  

By the way, it IS possible for the floppy acetate pressings to have
vinegar syndrome!  While I have never noticed it on the clay colored
World pressings I do have a set of discs pressed by World on a similar
blue colored opaque material that has a slight vinegar smell but show no
deterioration.  Likewise, I have also smelled vinegar on a special
pressing that was made for a present to Arthur C. Keller of one of the
Stokowski 1932 stereo masters.  It was on a clear material that showed
some embedded newspaper articles thru it.  It had been in the collection
of David Goldenberg and was shown at the 08 Jazz Bash.  

It is NOT possible for a lacquer coated disc to have vinegar syndrome
because they are not made of acetate.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "joe at salerno.com" <jsalerno at earthlink.net>
To: "78-l" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 3:31 AM
Subject: [78-L] stereo, ca. 1932


>A brief article - mentions the BBC's attempt at a stereo broadcast in
> Dec. 1925
>
> http://www.sequenza21.com/index.php/1480
>
> and he directs interested readers to -
>
> http://www.stokowski.org/Harvey%20Fletcher%20Bell%20Labs%20Recordings.htm
>
> to learn more about the Philadelphia Experiment - the one with
> stereophonic recording of the P.O. broadcasts, I mean.
>
> joe salerno
>