[78-L] First LP

[David Lennick]

From: mbiel at mbiel.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:50:47 -0700
> Subject: Re: [78-L] First LP
> 
> From: "Robert M. Bratcher Jr." <bratcher at pdq.net>
> > A 16" disc could hold 15 minutes with standard (pre microgroove) 
> > grooving which means they could put up to 4 takes on each side of a 
> > 16" disc at 33 rpm. I'll bet that saved them some money when buying lacquers!!
> 
> Not quite. For high quality it is not recommended to cut at less than
> 8-inches diameter which yields about 11 minutes. That would be two
> 12-inch takes or three 10-inch takes. 
> 
> Lacquers were actually quite cheap, less than $3 for a 16-incher. MUCH
> less than what a wax cost, even considering shaving and reusing. The
> problem in wartime was glass. They would want to use it for their
> safeties, but it was superior for the actual master for plating. I do
> not know what they actually did. Seth, and possibly Doug, would know.
> 
> Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com

 

There's a very audible difference between an outside track and an inside one when dubbed to 78, too..much duller sound. One account I read said that they used only the outer inch of the disc, which would mean one take per lacquer (for classical at least) but my ear tells me they must have done two tracks on occasion. For jazz and pop music, they're known to have let the disc run between takes and capture false starts, breakdowns and other goodies which would turn up as collectors items on LP reissues.

 

As for the matter of safeties..a couple of years back we had a story about a stash of lacquers, discovered in a safe place and which had never been used as source material. The CDs that resulted from some of them, like the Mahler First with Mitropoulos, were astounding..so were we getting 78 dubs from 33RPM dubs in the first place? No wonder they sounded so shitty!

 

Lacquers weren't always quiet, either. I can hear lacquer noise on a 1940 Guiomar Novaes 78 in its original pressing, and recently I transferred the "Music of Morton Gould" set from a near mint Lp. The sound is gorgeous, but the two spirituals have very noticeable lacquer noise on the Lp.

 

(Biel..notice I'm now spelling it "Lp"!)

 

dl