[78-L] Early movie music discs... "ScoreDisc"

[Graham Newton]

Here'a a weird one...
For non-synchronous turntable playback of music to accompany film in the early 
days of sound before sound-on-film.

Scoredisc a cardboard disc with slots cut it it to allow cueing the desired 
music to be played from phonograph discs supplied by a music library to follow 
the action on the screen.

Apparently they lay a specific ScoreDisc for the movie being shown on top of 
the music disc to be played for a given scene, and place the playback needle 
*through* the required hole or slot punched in the ScoreDisc to contact the 
groove it is supposed to be playing!  This apparently holds the ScoreDisc 
motionless as the record rotates under it and the needle travels laterally 
across the record surface toward the end of the slot.

The cardboard ScoreDisc would thus be grinding any grit or dust into the record 
surface as the disc rotated with it in contact with the disc surface.  However 
with the discs being pressed in the very hard shellac/slate compounds of the 
day, and stylus pressures being on the order of 2 or 3 *ounces* this probably 
would not be of much consequence!

What a ghastly idea!  I can think of many pitfalls with this system and would 
not be surprised if it didn't catch on with the film exhibitors and 
particularly the projectionists who had to deal with this in a busy projection 
booth where a film reel was being consumed every 10 minutes.

Has anyone ever heard of this and, has anyone got any examples of the music 
discs or the ScoreDisc itself.  Perhaps a label photo or some other additional 
info on this wacky system!

Mike Biel are you listening?




... Graham Newton

-- 
Audio Restoration by Graham Newton, http://www.audio-restoration.com
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