[78-L] Long playing early lacquer

[Michael Biel]

I can't believe that all of you are forgetting the Columbia ARC "Longer
Playing Record" as well as the Durium Hit of the Week 5-minute record. 
Both are around 1931-32 and were the 78 answers to the Program
Transcription.  Frank L. Dyer had taken out several patents in the late
20s about thinner grooves and even threatened his former employer Edison
with suits over their LP and the RayEdiphonic slow-speed broadcast
recordings.  Indeed, if you look at the Library of Congress Talking
Books label you will see that they are noted as being made under the
Dyer patents and that the discs are part of a project named after (I
believe) Dyer's mother.  Those discs are made using the Victor Program
Transcription grooving, as evidenced by the L in the first position in
the matrix prefix.  I looked up those Dyer patents a month or so ago,
and they are valid narrow groove patents.

I might also add that there are some listings in the Bell Labs BTL
matrix book from around 1927 detailing several narrow groove test discs
they made for Victor.  I saw a photocopy of the book listing BTL 1-1000
in LC in the 1970s.  (Note that this book post-dates the Western
Electric recordings made in the early to mid-20s before the
establishment of Bell Labs.)   

I am interested in that July 1934 lacquer, and am wondering if it might
be from the same studio of the discs seen very briefly in Leah's
documentary when Seth Winner is showing a box of discs.  They ones with
bright green paper labels are from July-Aug 1934 and look like they
might be demo blanks that Presto was releasing to a few studios for
evaluation.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  


-------- Original Message --------

From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>


On 10/6/2010 12:48 PM, Elizabeth McLeod wrote:
> on 10/6/10 12:27 PM David Lennick wrote:
>
>> I've just played an early lacquer 78RPM aircheck (July 1934) that runs four
>> minutes and fifty seconds AND has a large label, meaning that at least
>> another
>> minute could have been accommodated. It looks almost microgroove. This was
>> cut
>> by Sound Reproductions, 67 West 44th Street, New York. Was anyone using a
>> really small groove experimentally at that time? Edward Wallerstein says
>> this
>> was happening, in a memoir that a few people have questioned for credibility
>> and timelines.
>
> I have a 12" lacquer aircheck from "Super Sound Recording Studios" in New
> York from March of 1935 which packs a full fifteen minutes onto one side
> at 33 1/3, which seems to be pretty tightly grooved -- the sound isn't
> especially Super, however, and gets positively fuzzy as it approaches the
> center of the disc. It's not microgroove in the modern sense, but it
> plays best with a 2.0 stylus.
>
> Elizabeth
> ____________________________

Viotor got 15 minutes per side on Program Transcription L7001, Stokowski

conducting Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The early "Red, White and Blue"
programs 
(pre-AFRS) ran a very tight 15 minutes a side, usually at low level and
with no 
bass. This disc sounds very good indeed at 78. Its owner would have
played it 
on a normal record player of the day but didn't manage to wear out the
grooves.

I notice a bunch of Titan Transcriptions in Kurt's current auction,
listed as 
12-inch and which look to contain a lot more audio than you'd expect
(the 
equivalent of 16-inch discs).

dl