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

[joe@salerno.com]

I have detected a slight fragrance (?) of vinegar on my World clay 
colored transcriptions. Little Orphan Annie is not so sweet...

joe salerno


Michael Biel wrote:
> 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
>>
> 
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