[78-L] acoustic vanity

[Michael Biel]

There were vanity records in the acoustical era but they were all 
attached to record companies like Columbia, Emerson, Rodeheaver, Victor, 
etc.  There were no "recording studios" because even the majors only did 
a few a year, so that Market Street Recording Studio was IMPOSSIBLE.  
But you could probably have as few as five pressed.  Somewhere I have a 
photocopy of a Columbia booklet with their info, and this might be 
essentially the amount in a sorta test pressing stage.

As for home recordings, other than the aluminum PathePost which was 
mainly European, you do not see home recordings until the electrical 
era.  The first Speak-O-Phone recording facility was in a St. Louis dept 
store around Thanksgiving 1927, so if the show had been set later in the 
decade it might be legit.  I did see that episode and recorded it at the 
time.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com

On 1/26/2011 11:34 PM, Steven C. Barr wrote:
> From:<neechevoneeznayou at gmail.com>
>> Recently I happened to catch an ep of COLD CASE, a crime drama about
>> some detectives who solve old murder cases. This one is called "Torn",
>> #91, from April 8 of 2007. I don't care for this series, but this case
>> happened in 1919-20 (which is why it even caught my attention, I was
>> hoping there might be a phonograph sighting) and involved the murder of
>> a suffragette. There were a few scenes with records and machines, and as
>> one might expect, the historical accuracy was somewhat lax. The first
>> scene in question (remember, 1919) used Al Jolson singing "You Made Me
>> Love You" with a big band accompaniment as background.  In another scene
>> we see a close up of an Edison Disc, Sophie Tucker "Some of These Days"
>> on 4M-691 (???) and quickly a character plays it on an early external
>> horn machine, steel needle out of focus in the distance. I'm no expert
>> on Edison labels, but surely this was a prop person's creation. Did
>> Edison have a double strobe on his label ever? It looks like a double
>> strobe anyway. I think it was 12".
>>
>> But the real question is about something that happens at the end of the
>> show. A detective has found a record and comments that it had been made
>> by the deceased person's mother. What we see looks like shellac with a
>> printed label - "Market Street Recording Studio" in big letters. Was
>> there such a studio? Would there have been a sound studio in 1920? Or a
>> place to make a personal recording? There's even an address in Philly
>> but most of it is not visible. Date of recording is August 18, 1920
>> (date of 19th amendment ratification). Sounds and looks like vinyl to me
>> when the fellow puts it on the same phonograph to play it, and I don't
>> think it is turning at 78 rpm. Certainly it's a prop. As far as the
>> story goes, it would have required plating and pressing to produce a
>> shellac record, and the time and expense for one disc would be way out
>> of line, even if someone provided this service in 1920.
>>
>> So here's the question - in 1920, would it have been possible to make a
>> vanity record or a home recording on disc? I know it could be done on a
>> cylinder, I've heard those played at an ARSC Conference. Was there a way
>> to make a single home-recorded disc for family use? And if so what
>> material would this be? Certainly not shellac.
>>
> Yes...it WAS possible to make "vanity records" in 1920...or even before!
> Columbia, for example, will happily make you "Personal/Private
> records" if you paid for them. They even had a special matrix-number
> series for such discs! These were usually pressed in limited quantities...
> but NOT (AFAIK) one at a time (that would have been possible...
> but VERY expensive...!)
>
> "Home-made" recordings first appeared in the early twenties. The
> ones I have seen were soft metal; you placed them on your phonograph
> and then sang/played as loudly as possible. They were "pre-grooved."
>
> Steven C. Barr