[78-L] NBC Reference Record

David Lennick dlennick at sympatico.ca
Wed Oct 20 08:43:18 PDT 2010


Okay, I've been sent label scans, and they all have the slanted mike..the 
labels also all have CT 1645 in addition to the names of the performer and the 
broadcast date (which was 6-24-1939). So obviously these discs were dubbed from 
a file copy. (I'm not at liberty to disclose the info about whose orchestra is 
on the broadcast, but it's a Canadian dance band picked up by NBC from the CBC.)

dl

On 10/20/2010 9:19 AM, Elizabeth McLeod wrote:
> The easiest way to get a estimate on the era the label comes from is by
> the microphone logo, if no date code is present. Original 1936-39 labels
> would have a round carbon-mike style logo with NBC in the center.
> 1940-42, a straight up-and-down drawing of a 44 style mike with NBC o the
> side. '42 to about 1953, they used the familiar slanted-mike surrounded
> by lightning bolts. '53 to the early sixties, the chimes logo. And then
> from the early sixties to the early seventies (!) the labels used the
> snake logo.
>
> Not to say that older labels can't appear later, due to using up old
> stock, but you won't find a slanted-mike label on an original 1939 disc.
>
> Elizabeth
>
> on 10/20/10 2:07 AM Michael Biel wrote:
>
>> The Reference Recording title was used as early as 1935.  The labels
>> then were on colored paper.  By around 38 they went to the white labels
>> with the blue stripe around the edge.  Sometimes there is a printing
>> date in the bottom center of the label.  They also should indicate which
>> facility recorded them.  They used the Orthocoustic label only on discs
>> that fit the Ortho standard.  I spent the weekend dubbing off some tapes
>> I made in 1972 of the NBC discs we had at Northwestern.  Great 1940 Ted
>> Weems on Beat the Band.  Direct off the discs.
>>
>> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Re: [78-L] NBC Reference Record
>> From: David Lennick<dlennick at sympatico.ca>
>> Date: Tue, October 19, 2010 10:50 pm
>> To: 78-L Mail List<78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
>>
>> Correction, slide auto..1/4, 2/5, 3/6. But you knew that.
>>
>> On 10/19/2010 10:48 PM, David Lennick wrote:
>>> For Mike or Elizabeth or anyone else..when would dubs of NBC radio programs
>>> have the "NBC Reference Recording" labels? I was brought a couple of sets of
>>> discs this morning of dance band broadcasts from 1939. One was clearly a dub
>>> from very beat up originals, rerecorded in Toronto in the late 40s, and the
>>> other had the NBC labels. The quality on the NBC discs was very good,
>>> definitely not dubbed from earlier lacquers unless they were transferred
> from
>>> sixteen-inchers (they were cut on alternating tables with the sound fed to
>> one
>>> and then the other and in drop auto sequence).
>>>
>>> The bandleader died in 1942 and there's no history of how these discs came
> to
>>> be in the possession of his daughter, who was 13 at the time.
>>>
>>> dl
>>>
>>
>> ________________


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