[78-L] First LP

[Michael Biel]

From: DAVID BURNHAM <burnhamd at rogers.com>
> 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

They never thought to record a long piece straight through because the
only thing they were selling were the 78s and there was no assurance
there ever would be an LP.  The 16-inch masters were recorded in chunks
the length of the 78 sides for easy dubbing onto the 78 masters.  

There is a page on the web quoting Wallerstein saying that these
lacquers "gave Columbia a tremendous advantage overits competitors, who,
when LP finally appeared, were forced tomake copies from their old,
noisy shellac records for any materialpredating tape. RCA issued many of
these old records with wordsof apology for their poor quality printed on
the jackets."  BALONEY.  They dubbed them from vinyl pressings, you dumb
ass.  The note about quality concerned the sound of the recording in the
pre hi-fi days, not surface noise.

>> 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

He also said that 40% of the original June 48 release was from tape
masters because they had been using it since 1947.  WRONG. "Columbia
also had an advantage in that we were the first people in the U.S. to
use tape for master recording. Murphy was one of the first to see a
German Magnetophon tape recorder in newly liberated Luxemburg after the
war. He quickly packed it up and shipped it back to CBS. Not long
thereafter both EMI and Ampex came out with machines, and we immediately
placed an order for both. By mid-1947, we were using them and had
discontinued direct disc cutting. The Ampex proved to be the better
machine, so we sent the EMI machines back. Of the originally issued LPs
about 40% were from tape originals." 

http://www.musicinthemail.com/audiohistoryLP.html

IDIOT!  The first recording to be mastered on tape, along side of disc,
supposedly, is South Pacific in 1949.  And they used the disc masters.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com