[78-L] Early portable electric recording?

[Doug Pomeroy]

I don't know of any photos of the whole rig, but it was
big and quite heavy according to producer Ralph Peer
who took it on his field trips for Okeh and Victor.
It consisted of a turntable connected by belt to a
gravity-driven motor, which required a tall structure
to support the falling weight. It required AC power
for the amplifiers from a power company. The condenser
microphone required 200 Volts DC, which was supplied
by five 22.5 Volt batteries in series, plus a 6 Volt storage
battery for the tube filament. These batteries were extremely
heavy.  Also needed was an oven with which to
pre-heat the wax. Peer complained that he could
barely get all  this in his car!

This info is from a tape recording Peer made some years
before his death, and I believe it can also be found in
the book THE BRISTOL SESSIONS, by Charles K Wolfe
and Ted Olson (McFarland & Co., 2005, paperback).

Alan Lomax also wrote about the recording gear he
used on his trips through the South - I don't believe he
ever used Western Electric equipment.

So, for recordings in the field, where there was no
AC power, and no place to set up the huge gravity-driven
motor, other recorders would have been used, for
sure. Peer mentions that it would have been far
simpler for him to use a much smaller spring-driven
cutter, but he declined because the speed stability
was poor.

I believe Presto made small battery powered
recorders which cut lacquer discs, but that had
to await development of lacquer discs, which
wasn't until late 1934.

Doug

=====================================================

Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:33:05 -0800
From: Dave Murray <Dave at spectacularopticals.com>
Subject: [78-L] Early portable electric recording?
To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
Message-ID:
	<89DF3C01-627A-458B-805A-B1A7E7F037F1 at spectacularopticals.com>
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Hello All,
I'm doing research on some Asian records from the late 1920's and
wondering what the Western Electric portable equipment would have
been like in terms of size circa 1927? I'm trying to get a sense of
how difficult it would be to haul the stuff around. Maybe there's a
picture on the web somewhere?

cheers,
Dave