I think yeah, if you're a big-time archive or rich collector, then buy the stylus-cartridge device. For the rest of us, those who might have mild interest in Edison cylinders and might own one or two players, then experimenting with acoustic recording is fine. My father's tricks worked well and his results sounded great -- enough so that some were used in commercial projects (the whole reason he developed his methods). Like I said, I don't know any of the secret sauces, but I believe the overall approach was actually to EMBRACE the horn -- treat the Edison player as an acoustic instrument. He had great-condition players that he restored by hand and an ample arsenal of big horns, so I think he experimented to get the best horn/player combo to fit the acoustic space in which he worked. And he knew a thing or two or three about microphone technique and had a very well-stocked microphone closet. So this wasn't weekend amateur tinkering. Like I said, the stylus/cartridge approach probably yields more flexible results in a modern context, and is non-dependent on having a great-condition player and big horn. I had some good results recording from a concert cylinder player for a private collector. He was extremely happy with our results. We did a lot of experimenting and ended up also embracing the horn and the acoustic space, favoring an instrumentation-grade (ie high-spl) electret mic placed about 1 foot in front of the center of the horn bel (about like mic'ing a tuba front-on). I was surprised that the best horn for the job was a tuba-sized brass unit; I would have thought the larger wooden units would sound better but they didn't. There's only so much you can do for these things, they just don't approach fidelity to original source, but they can be made quite listenable, and I think the best clues about this go back to how people actually used to enjoy listening to them in their day (the best systems had big horns -- little horns are shrill and tinny, kinda like trumpets ;) ).
I should mention that I have a video of the Syracuse University sound archives from back in the late 70's or early 80's. One of the systems they show off is a fully acoustic way of transferring "78" disks of various types. They had two mechanically synchronized players with BIG acoustic horns. They would use some sort of method of playing two copies of the same disk, recording from both horns and using some sort of cancelling mechanism to make the music stand out from the noise. I forgot the name of the old guy who ran this setup, but Bob Hodge will know exactly of which I speak. I also don't remember any particulars about how this worked, Bob probably knows that too.
So no offense, but I think it's a blanket statement to say all recording from acoustic horns is "perverse." Er, one could argue that caring about such low-quality sound and out-dated content is a bit perverse but I'm certainly not.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Smolian" <smolians@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 7:40 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Modern Cylinder Phonograph
The idea of recording off a horn seems completely perverse to me.
Horn design was empirical and, at various frequencies, created nodes during recording. Those are inevitable. Adding those inherent in the playback mechanism increases distortion needlessly when electrical reproduction is available. Using elecrical reproduction in an uncalbrated or uncontrolled manner and using the results to claim equality with acoustical reproduction ignores that, properly done, electrical results are superior, i.e., do not create additional bad sound.
That it is so expensive is unfortunate (good word here) but using less good sound - electrical or acoustical- because it is less expensive violates the purpose of the transfer process- to give as faithful a reproduction of the original as possible.
Steven Smolian
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Breneman" <david_breneman@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 7:14 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Modern Cylinder Phonograph
--- Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My dad had a few tricks on recording from Edison horns, but I don't know any of them.
I think the main goal, if you're doing it accoustically, is to have as little air mass between the diaphragm of the reproducer and the diaphragm of the microphone as possible. I picked up a couple old Shure lavs a few years ago. (These are the "old school" lavalier mics that hang around your neck on a cord, not the modern type that clip to a necktie, collar, etc.) Each one is about the size of a small felt tip marker, and I'd imagine they'd be just about the right diameter to plug into the rubber hose in place of the horn, which would provide the mic with vibration isolation as well as close coupling to the reproducer diaphragm. The only thing that's kept me from trying this is that the TV studio I got them from cut the cords off to make cords for other mics! I need to take the time to get a mic cord, cut the female end off it and solder it to the terminals of the mic (the cord is permanently attached for compactness). Perpetually deferred project.
David Breneman david_breneman@xxxxxxxxx
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