[78-L] 14" Pathes and weird noises

[Steven C. Barr]

From: "James Tennyson" <jtennyson at sympatico.ca>
> Okay, I did my homework on this  and for bibliographic correctness the
> article is  " A Ghostly Knock that Spoiled an Expensive Record"  by 
> Allison
> Gray. It appeaed in the May May 1922 issue of  The American Magazine.  Her
> source for the story was  the  excellent Reinald Werrenrath. The article 
> was
> reprinted in  The New Amberola Graphic for Summer 1986.  It is one of the
> best contemporary articles on  life in the studios in the acoustic era.
>
> I understand that the thumping noise you described in the Victor acoustics
> was traced to the  recording engineer blowing wax shavings away from the
> recording stylus. When you listen to it , it sounds like just that.  There
> was  am article about this which appeared  about 1923  called " How a
> Ghostly Knock Spoiled a Costly Phonograph " record. It was reprinted in 
> the
> Amberola Graphic. I 'll see if I can find it later.
> I wonder if buyers were advised to slow their machines to 68 or 70.  Pathe
> seemed to make a point of using prominently
> mounted, large speed dials on many disc machines; a couple of mine are 
> about
> 2" across - they obviously expected the
> customer to use it.  (Same as the one on this -
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2IoUtImvKE  .. and if one srew is removed
> from the arm rest at the rear, 14" discs can be played on this machine)
> Their "90-100 tours" note was a bit unhelpful,
> leaving you to guess.
> After listening to many transfers of Pathe records, I decided that one of
> the noises was an elevator in their building,
> and that the master cylinders were recorded at (or near) 160rpm.     Early
> '20s Victor records also have low-pitched
> noises - a sort of heavy blowing, brushing, or 
> metal-parts-dragging-heavily
> noise, within the first minute on dozens of
> discs recorded in NYC.  An especially loud example has been claimed to be 
> a
> thunderstorm, but it's the same noise as on the
> others.  Whiteman's "April Showers" has a good example at 4-5 seconds.
>
As I understand it, Pathe's recording process (the huge "master cylinders" 
and
the dubbing to various disc formats) caused the low-frequency noises we now
hear as mysterious "thumps and bumps." Since this was inaudible on their
machines of that time...they either never heard it, or figured their record
buyers w/couldn't hear it...?!

Steven C. Barr