[78-L] surface noise feedback on acoustic recordings

[Ron L'Herault]

The surface noise coming off the cylinders that I have recorded upon was
minimal.  I'll have to pay more attention to what comes back out of the horn
next time.  Don't forget that the horns were pretty directional. You don't
pickup off-axis sounds unless they are powerful enough to rattle the horn
and even the on-axis sounds had to be fairly loud.

Ron L

-----Original Message-----
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com
[mailto:78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of DAVID BURNHAM
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 2:55 PM
To: 78-L at 78online.com
Subject: [78-L] surface noise feedback on acoustic recordings

I think it was Martha who first posted the observation that in the acoustic
era, the performer would hear surface noise back through the horn while
recording.

This was new to me, I'd never heard of that before, but I can think of at
least two uses for this phenomenon: first of all, there would be no need for
someone in the control room to tell the artist when to start, they could
just start a few seconds after they hear the surface noise.  Secondly, if
Patti Page had been recording 30 years earlier, she could easily have done
her over-dubbing trick.  After the first take, they could have used the same
record to record the second track and she would have heard the first track
coming out of the horn while she was singing the second part.

I can't imagine that the noise coming from the horn while recording would
also have reentered the horn, unless there was a hard surface close by to
reflect it, but I once read an article by Peter Dawson where he said that,
before the era of disc recording, he would spend a whole day in a room,
surrounded by about a dozen cylinder recorders, singing the same song over
and over again, (actually he said the engineer would go around to each
machine, start it recording and say into the recording horn the title of the
song and that it was sung by Peter Dawson then stop it.  When he had done
this to each machine he would operate a master switch which would start all
of the machines and Dawson would sing his song.)  But I'm thinking what a
lot of noise there would have been in the studio with a dozen machines
generating surface noise all at once.

db
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