[78-L] acoustic recording

[David Lennick]

Don't know the last issues..Steve Barr has a Canadian Columbia from 1960, I 
have a few from '59. A brief paragraph in High Fidelity mentioned that they 
were stopping production of 78s in the Spring of '57.

dl

Royal Pemberton wrote:
> I'd thought 'A certain smile' by Johnny Mathis was the last US Columbia 78
> (41193), but I can't remember where I read that.  So what were the final US
> and Canadian Columbia 78s?
> 
> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 3:38 PM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>wrote:
> 
>> Indeed, the dates vary. Columbia actually discontinued 78s in the US in
>> 1957,
>> as did a few other labels (a very late RCA Elvis from '59 was mentioned
>> here a
>> few weeks ago) but Canadian labels kept 78s into 1959 and '60 in some
>> cases.
>> And the speed stayed in use for production libraries till 1968 because of
>> superior fidelity and ease of cuing in studios.
>>
>> dl
>>
>> Royal Pemberton wrote:
>>> Certainly RCA Victor and Columbia released their last US 78s in 1958, but
>>> didn't Atlantic/Atco release their last ones in February 1960?  And what
>>> about Chess and their labels?  (I have the Argo release of Rod Bernard's
>>> 'This should go on forever' on 78 from 1959.)
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 3:28 PM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 78s didn't disappear till 1958, stereo LPs didn't disappear in 1982 (in
>>>> fact
>>>> they're still being manufactured).
>>>>
>>>> dl
>>>>
>>>> Royal Pemberton wrote:
>>>>> And if you include the Phonautograph in the chronology (c.1857) that
>>>> makes
>>>>> acoustic recording the only method for 69 years.
>>>>>
>>>>> I remember seeing a photo in THE FABULOUS PHONOGRAPH showing three
>> horns
>>>> in
>>>>> use on a  Victor recording, of a quartet....three of the singers on one
>>>>> horn, the lead singer on a second horn, the musicians playing to the
>>>> third
>>>>> one.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 9:35 AM, DAVID BURNHAM <burnhamd at rogers.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> Michael Biel wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Caruso's daughter Gloria was three years old when Caruso died.
>>  Masters
>>>>>> could not be played back without ruining them, so when they played
>> back
>>>>>> a wax master it was either a test that they weren't planning on using
>>>>>> anyway, or a duplicate master on a parallel machine.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Were they able to record two discs at once in the acoustic era?
>>>>  Certainly,
>>>>>> if a single horn is feeding two recorders, such an arrangement would
>> cut
>>>> the
>>>>>> available power to each recording head in half.  I think I would opt
>> for
>>>>>> your first thought - that it was a test recording.  If the blank waxes
>>>> were
>>>>>> larger than the final record, they could use the area beyond the
>> useful
>>>>>> diameter for the test.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So far, the acoustic era has been the longest era in recording
>> history.
>>>>>> Although comercial recording didn't get under way at the beginning,
>> from
>>>>>> 1877 to 1925 acoustic recording was the only recording - 48 years.
>>>>>> Electrical 78s had their era for 23 years from 1925 to 1948.  Mono LPs
>>>> from
>>>>>> 1948 to 1957, a mere 9 years, stereo LPs from 1957 to 1982, 25 years
>> and
>>>> the
>>>>>> CD from 1982 to the present - 28 years and counting.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm curious to know if they ever tried multi-horning - using one horn
>>>> for
>>>>>> the voice and a second for the piano or orchestra or whatever.  They
>>>>>> certainly had long enough to try this kind of inovation, they were
>> aware
>>>> of
>>>>>> the complications of trying to get all of the musicians around a
>> single
>>>>>> horn.  Flexible tubing should enable the horns to be moved around and
>>>>  the
>>>>>> recording engineer could even have chokes, similar to those used to
>>>> control
>>>>>> the volume of an acoustic gramophone, to control the recording volume
>>>> from
>>>>>> each horn.  I'm sure that likely they didn't but it's an interesting
>>>>>> thought.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> db