[78-L] WWI descriptive record with fadeout

[Philip Carli]

That's the point of "patrols", which were a fairly common American descriptive musical genre from the 1880s up to 1910 or so -- the band comes from a distance, plays loudly as it supposedly passes the auditor, and then goes away.  The most famous piece of the type is F. W. Meacham's "American Patrol" (1885), which I'm sure was recorded pretty early as it was enormously popular.  The interesting thing is when you have the effect done by a mix of voices, conversation, _and_ instruments (as in the "British Troops" selection) rather than strictly instrumental means; you can control diminuendos by volume and orchestration very easily, but less so with voice groups.  PC
________________________________________
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of Michael Biel [mbiel at mbiel.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 12:37 PM
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] WWI descriptive record with fadeout

On 4/21/2011 10:34 AM, Philip Carli wrote:
> There are a number of "patrol" type records with smooth apparent "fade-outs" going back to fairly early days.  Syracuse University has a copy of an Edison-Bell cylinder from about 1905-06 titled "The Suffering Suffragettes" where a small parade comes in from the distance (this is after the announcement), there is a short comic meeting, and then they go off again.  All very slickly done, complete with a Salvation Army-type bass drum keeping time and fading away.

I've got this beat by a decade!  Berliner 8, Coxey's Army Patrol,
probably recorded in 1894, is much the same with the band marching in,
playing a bit, and then marching away.  I have it on tape from when I
recorded Fred Williams' Berliner collection.  It is a thin celluloid
pressing and although it has no recording date it is very similar to his
copy of Berliner 248 The Swiss Boy  Cornet Duet which is clearly dated
Nov 8, 1894.  Both run at about 60 RPM.

Mike Biel   mbiel at mbiel.com

>   Some acoustic studios were big enough to allow some movement away from the immediate recording area; another trick (evident in Edison's "That Mysterious Rag" cylinders, both the 2-minute and 4-minute Amberol versions, 1910) was to evidently have a combination of decrescendo from the singers and slowly turning away from the horn.  These techniques presumably could be combined, I suppose.  All this is a bit of guesswork and observation on my part anyway, but I thought I'd offer them.  Philip Carli
> ________________________________________
> From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] On Behalf Of Royal Pemberton [ampex354 at gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 10:12 AM
> To: 78-L Mail List
> Subject: Re: [78-L] WWI descriptive record with fadeout
>
> I have this on US Victor.  It's an S/8 master (an acoustically made dub)
> with both a slow fade in as well as that slow fade out.  And I can't detect
> when the reproducer started and ended playback unlike many Edison BA
> cylinders at the start, or find any explanation for it being a dubbing
> anywhere.  (There's no real info on it even on EDVR.)
>
> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Julian Vein<julianvein at blueyonder.co.uk>wrote:
>
>> Mike Daley wrote:
>>> I just picked up this Canadian Victor of "British Troops Passing Through
>>> Boulogne," a descriptive record from 1914.
>>>
>>> http://db.tt/LBzKlei
>>>
>>> At the end of the record, as the troops march off into the distance
>> their
>>> singing and footfalls "fade" very smoothly, much like a board fade of
>> today.
>>> This strikes me as unusual in the acoustic era. Are there other examples
>> of
>>> fadeouts at the ends of acoustic records?
>>>
>>> Mike
>>> _______________________________________________
>> Perhaps they were marching into the English Channel?
>>
>>       Julian Vein

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