[78-L] Portable recordings facilities

[Michael Biel]

From: banjobud at cfl.rr.com
>>  How about Victor's recording of Lindberg's return home,
>>  narrated by Graham McNamee?    Bud

On 8/4/2010 11:11 AM, David Lennick wrote:
> That was taken off a radio feed, something which was being done as early as 1923 (or earlier..?).
>
> dl
>
>

And I think the Victor ledger sheets show which studio they used to 
record the Lindbergh broadcast.  There also were six 12-inch sides 
published of speeches broadcast that day by Coolidge and Lindbergh.  
MCNamee is heard on one of those as well.  But he is not the only 
announcer on the 10-inch compilation disc.  The first half of side two 
is narrated by John Daniels.

The Western Electric experimental recordings are the ones dl is alluding 
to, making recordings from WEAF broadcasts of the New York Phil-Sym, in 
Carnegie Hall, and broadcasts from the Capitol Theater, etc.  It is one 
of the features of electrical recording that they could do "remotes" by 
simply recording the ones that broadcasters do (although Arthur Keller 
of Bell Labs did set up some stereo mics in the Capitol Theater in 1927 
for stereo recording experiments that were not broadcasts.)  The famous 
1925 Columbia electrical of The Associated Glee Clubs of America and 
audience from the Metropolitan Opera House of "John Peel" and "Adeste 
Fidelas" was from a WEAF broadcast.  We are just not sure if these were 
recorded off the air or off the telephone company lines.  The two Apex 
Radiatone records also from 1925 do seem to have been recorded off the 
air, as was Frank L. Capps' recording of Woodrow Wilson in 1923.

But the choral recording reminded me of another case of Victor using 
portable acoustical recording equipment in North America before Steve's 
mythical date of 1923.  They published in a monthly supplement a 
photograph of the recording of the 1600 voice Billy Sunday Chorus doing 
"America" and "Sail On" in a tabernacle somewhere around 1916.  Likewise 
they did a recording of a gentle strike of the Liberty Bell in 
Philadelphia, and in both pictures you see the recording machine.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com


>
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> From: "Michael Biel"<mbiel at mbiel.com>
>>> On 8/4/2010 2:06 AM, Steven C. Barr wrote:
>>>> From: "Michael Biel"<mbiel at mbiel.com>
>>>>> On 8/4/2010 1:40 AM, Steven C. Barr wrote:
>>>>>> From: "Hans en Corrie"<koerthchkz at zeelandnet.nl>
>>>>>>> Did portable recording facilities exist in 1930? If so, what record
>>>>>>> companies used it?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Apparently Okeh was the first company to use "portable" on-site
>>>>>> recording equipment; IIRC they started acoustically around
>>>>>> 1922-23.
>>>>>> Steven C. Barr
>>>>> Are you kidding???? There had been traveling recording sessions all
>>>>> over Europe and Asia going back to 1902 if not earlier.
>>>>>
>>>> Nope...not kidding...just referring to North America...!
>>>>
>>>> Steven C. Barr
>>> While that stipulation had not been given, you are still quite wrong. A
>>> notable example of remote recordings by several companies in 1908 were
>>> the presidental candidate recordings. Edison and Victor recorded Bryon
>>> in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Taft was recorded in Hot Springs, Virginia by
>>> Columbia, Victor, and Edison. Columbia traveled to Mexico City in 1904
>>> and perhaps Cuba in 1906. Victor also recorded in Cuba I believe.
>>>
>>> Mike Biel mbiel at mbiel.com