[78-L] First LP

[samhopper at mail.com]

During my research for my Columbia Masterworks discography, I found the following information:



"What is more surprising however, is the little known fact that Columbia had the foresight and marketing nonce to see the huge potential of the LP record as far back as the late 1930s - a decade before it was technically possible to produce a salable version of the product. In 1939, through it progressive and risk-taking management, Columbia capitalized on the future potential of the LP by introducing a policy of recording on ‘sixteen inch acetate discs recorded at the speed of 33 and 1/3 for safeties on everything recorded by Columbia, Okeh, Vocalion and Harmony.’ [2] ‘This was so that it could be more immediately transferred to microgroove when the time was right.’ [3]


This, ahead-of-its-time policy clearly illustrated that the management of Columbia Records was innovative and progressive to new ideas, marketing strategies and technical innovation.


As a result of this important in-house development, their on-going development of its LP format led to the ground breaking use of vinyl for record production - often called ‘vinylite’ for some 78 rpm and all early LP releases.[4] This development helped Columbia become the number one distributor of LP’s by as early as 1949.


As Holmes writes in The Routledge Guide to Music Technology, ‘by this time, Columbia and several other LP labels had taken over the classical music area. Columbia stood for the first time as the dominant rival in the half-century struggle with Victor.’ [5] 


Improved attempts at making quieter (as well as lighter) recordings with vinyl instead of shellac made the LP a more economically, light-weight and aurally better product."


See: http://www.scribd.com/doc/30624296/Columbia-Masterworks-78rpm-Discography-v1-9







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-----Original Message-----
From: DAVID BURNHAM <burnhamd at rogers.com>
To: 78-L at 78online.com
Sent: Thu, Jun 24, 2010 3:24 pm
Subject: [78-L] First LP


A lot of those early numbers were experimental..don't forget, they didn't have 
tape yet in 1948 and everything had to be dubbed from original lacquers with the 
side joins and overlaps done in real time!



dl

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A lot of folks on this list know more about this than I do, but I thought the 
process actually went in the other direction - that throughout the '40s, 
Columbia, in anticipation of their forthcoming Lp, was recording their classical 
materials to large lacquers on which they could record entire movements without 
stopping, then dubbing these with the necessary cuts to produce the 78 releases.  
When the Lp was finally introduced, they could be dubbed in their entirety onto 
the Lp master.

db
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