[78-L] First LP

[David Lennick]

Couple things here. Columbia may not have been the first to master from 33s..Varsity seems to have been doing it in 1939. I have two different cuttings of "She Had to Go and Lose It at the Astor" which run at different speeds (above and below 78) and when adjusted, both prove to be the same recording. And the 45 reissue of Jan Peerce's "Vesti la Giubba" is clearly from a noisy 33rpm lacquer (which is odd because the earlier Majestic and its subsequent reissue on Varsity vinyl isn't noisy at all).

 

Columbia vinyl 78s? I've seen several Masterworks sets, including the Grieg Piano Concerto played by Levant, but they didn't do this for very long..in fact they probably dropped the entire idea once they were ready to launch the Lp. At the same time, other labels were using vinyl for DJ pressings but Columbia was still sending out laminated shellac for quite a while. I have Kiss Me Kate on white label DJ pressings. Same lousy stuff as the commercial issue.

 

dl

 
> From: mbiel at mbiel.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 23:35:39 -0700
> Subject: Re: [78-L] First LP
> 
> From: samhopper at mail.com
> > During my research for my Columbia Masterworks discography,
> > I found the following information:
> 
> What you have found during your research on this matter needs to be
> taken with a grain of salt. Columbia was not the only company mastering
> on lacquer safeties. Decca also was, and their masters were Western
> Electric Wide Range Vertical recordings which would blow away ANYTHING
> Columbia was recording. This is why some of the early Decca LPs sound a
> whole lot better than the early Columbias.
> 
> > "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]
> 
> BALONEY. There was no assurance there would be an LP. If they were
> doing it for the LP, they would have made the recordings LP length, not
> 78 length. This is written in hindsight.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Then what would you make of Decca's use of HIGHER QUALITY safeties
> mastering than Columbia? Also remember, Decca had started its series of
> albums in late 1937 and had about 125 of them issued with illustrated or
> colorful covers before Columbia resumed their popular album series in
> March/April 1940. 
> 
> > 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]
> 
> RCA Victor started using Ruby Red Vinylite in their Red Seal De Luxe 78s
> in 1946. During the war the V-Discs RCA pressed were exclusively vinyl,
> while the Columbia V-Disc pressings were heavy, breakable laminated
> shellac. They cost twice as much to ship overseas, and the paper in the
> laminated pressings did not fare well in the damp tropics and ocean
> voyages. What are the "some 78 rpm" releases Columbia was doing? Only
> their kids records, right? ANY others????? Cosmo was the pioneer of
> using vinyl in kids records, and Victor was using it also early on by
> 1947. So was Decca. Their whole CU series was vinyl, and they were also
> pressing some of their pop albums and singles in vinyl. I see no
> Columbia 78s in that era in vinyl. Victor was the heads-on leader in
> vinyl pressing in 78s, and Columbia was a copycat of the use of vinyl in
> LPs from the Program Transcription -- Wallerstein admits it in the piece
> I referenced in my prior posting. 
> 
> > This development helped Columbia become the number one distributor of LP’s by as early as 1949.
> 
> Because they were the ONLY distributor of LPs then. The other companies
> only started in early 1949. You have GOT to stop reading this corporate
> propaganda.
> 
> > 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] 
> 
> Which only proves that they had spend a half century BEHIND Victor! But
> give me sales figures. I need proof. What is "by this time"?? I still
> see more RCA Victor LPs from the 50s than Columbia. "Dominant rival"
> does not mean that they were outselling Victor, it only means that of
> the rivals, those "several other LP labels", Columbia was dominant of
> them. Together those labels might be outselling Victor, but probably
> not Columbia alone. 
> 
> > 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."
> 
> Sounds like a good advertisement for VICTOR, not Columbia, if you know
> the real facts.
> 
> > See: http://www.scribd.com/doc/30624296/Columbia-Masterworks-78rpm-Discography-v1-9
> 
> I have and I like what you are doing, but gosh, must we have this
> corporate propaganda?
> 
> Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com 
> 
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