[78-L] Victor buzzes

[Bryan Wright]

The current issue of VJM has an article by Ben Kragting Jr. and Harry  
Coster on Victor's Church studio in Camden that claims that recordings  
made in Studio 1 (the church hall) are easily identifiable by two  
short buzzes at the start of the recording that were a signal from the  
control room to the performers to begin. I know the buzzes and their  
purpose have been discussed on 78-L before, but this is the first time  
I've read of them being unique to a particular studio. I have dozens  
of acoustic Victors as early as 1914 (four years before Victor  
acquired the Church in Camden!) that have the buzzes clearly audible.  
A few of those that I looked up in discographies were recorded in  
Victor's New York studios. Clearly the buzzes aren't unique to the  
Camden church. Did Victor use the same buzzes in any of its other  
studios? (In Chicago or on the West Coast, perhaps?) Did Kragting and  
Coster perhaps mean that only one of the two studios at the Camden  
church facility had the buzzers, thus making it easier to identify  
which of the two church studios was used on a particular recording?

Bryan W.