[78-L] Acoustic/electrical recordings on same disc

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Julian Vein" <julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>
> Dan Van Landingham wrote:
>> You're right regarding the sound of those acoustic Brunswicks.I felt that 
>> their recordings in
>> the mid to late thirties were horrible-I mentioned a 1937 Brunswick I 
>> have of Gus Arnheim's
>> orchestra doing Shubert's "Serenade" and it was truly awful.Those 
>> recordings from the mid
>> twenties were so much better.However,I do remember a Duke Ellington date 
>> where some
>> engineer put a speaker and mike in the men's room to give it an echo 
>> chamber like sound.
>> This was around 1936.Can anyone give me some input regarding the rather 
>> high quality
>> sound OKeh recordings from the twenties? I can cite a few Bix 
>> Beiderbecke-Frank Trumb-
>> auer for examples such as "Three Blind Mice" and "Krazy Kat".
> ====================
> I used to believe that Harmony acoustic was the only studio sound that
> one could immediately identify. But, of course, there are the late 30s'
> Brunswicks with their mushy sound. It made Eddie De Lange and Fletcher
> Henderson sound the same!
> It puzzles me how a record company could adopt such poor recording
> equipment. Did reviewers of the day comment on the poor sound? If a
> recording company is considering updating their equipment, either by
> their own development or buying in, wouldn't they make some test
> recordings first?
>
No...this was the "fifties," and folks bought records either to dance to,
or because they were "popular!" Admittedly, there was a tiny minority
of lovers of classical music who might have been concerned about
the sonic accuracy of recordings (who debated by mail in any number
of obscure journals; however, our mythical "Joe Gabroni" simply
wanted a copy of the "latest hit!"

Steven C. Barr