[78-L] Early portable electric recording?

[Doug Pomeroy]

Hi Dave,

Whether they were "Orthophonic" would depend on the
curve imposed by the cutting amp they used.

As I understand it, the term Orthophonic refers to
the Victor's curve with the 500 Hz turnover, but the
early Victor 78s used other frequencies at various
times during the early years, so they were not properly
Orthophonic IMHO.

There are no simple answers?

Doug

> Message: 12
> Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:24:01 -0800
> From: Dave Murray <dave at spectacularopticals.com>
> Subject: [78-L]  Early portable electric recording?
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
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>
> Thanks for the info Doug!
> The recording expedition I'm researching was in Asia in 1927....it's
> hard to believe they could have hauled something as large as the
> setup Peer used.
> The smaller, spring driven set up sounds more likely...but would
> recordings still be "orthophonic"?
>
>
> Dave
>
>
> ...................................................
>
> 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
>