Re: [ARSCLIST] Question re DuoDisc records

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Lewis wrote:

> Yes - the rumble on DuoDiscs is significant, but thankfully more easy to
> eliminate than noise of the kind you find on cardboard discs. The speed of
> homemades is highly unpredictable - I've run into some that ran partway
> between 33rpm and 45rpm.

And I ran into an entire batch recorded at 56RPM, marked as such on the
label..evidently someone had a dual turntable setup, in Montreal in the mid 40s,
and was able to adjust the machinery to get the maximum recording time available
on a ten-inch disc without going to 33. Hundreds of these discs turned up in
Toronto some time in the 80s, all airchecks of musical and drama and comedy
programs and newscasts (and using the absolute maximum space on each disc and
eliminating commercials, dammit).

> I once transferred a sermon given by a prominent
> Ohio minister and University head that was recorded onto DuoDiscs from a
> WCKY radio broadcast. The voice sounded fine to me, but then I played it for
> a man who had heard this minister speak many times and knew him. He said "oh
> no, the pitch of the voice should be much lower," and he imitated the
> minister for me. I applied the change in speed, and it corrected the whole
> recording, even the musical segments. The man was right, and I guess I was
> lucky to connect him with the recording, as the minister in question died in
> 1953.

I've just heard a transfer of "The Crepitation Contest", of all things, slowed
down so that Sid Brown actually sounds normal. It looks as if the original
recording was sped up to fit it onto a 16-inch side and all subsequent copies
have maintained that borderline chipmunk effect.

dl