Re: [ARSCLIST] Cylinder multi-horn recording (was: "How could anybody... Rant")

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 27/04/07, Eric Jacobs wrote:

> On 26/04/07, Don Cox wrote:
> 
>> Acoustic recordings were often made with more than one horn. I
>> haven't been able to find a picture of this, or to find out how the
>> sounds were combined.
>> 
> 
> In the case of the few photos I've seen of early acoustic recording
> with multiple horns (13 horns in one photo, each horn attached to a
> separate cylinder machine), the horns were used to create duplicates
> of the performance (on brown wax cylinders, before there were molded
> cylinders). The use of these duplicates is unclear. Just surmising,
> the dupes may have been used to select the best one, which then became
> a master for pantographic duplication, or perhaps these duplicates
> were all masters for pantographic duplication.

In the very early days, before cylinders could be molded, every one was
a direct recording. Multiple cylinders were made from each perforance,
and the artists sung the song over and over again.

> 
> I'm not sure the sounds were ever combined.  Was it possible to have
> a multi-horn feed on a single cylinder machine? 

Not cylinders, but acoustically recorded discs, were sometimes recorded
with several horns, especially in the 1920s.

>  I think any strategy
> that required time synchronizing multiple cylinders would have been
> far too difficult with the cylinder playback technology - the machines
> were too imprecise in terms of absolute speed and speed stability.
> 

Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx