Re: [ARSCLIST] Recording Innovations

[Roderic G Stephens <savecal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I found this excellent rundown of early motion picture sounds:

http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/indexes/earlySoundFilms.html

Rod Stephens

--- On Thu, 6/25/09, Roderic G Stephens <savecal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Roderic G Stephens <savecal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Recording Innovations
> To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Thursday, June 25, 2009, 9:11 AM
> We'd be remiss if we didn't mention
> that the original motion picture sound tracks ("The Jazz
> Singer" (1927), "Lights of New York" (1928), for example)
> were on transcription disks, from what I've
> read.   How did they keep them in sync given
> the variances of normal disk recordings changing pitch,
> length, etc. from beginning to end?  I would guess
> synchonous motors would be the answer with bi-phase
> control.
> 
> This is the description given in Wikipedia: "The term
> Sound-on-disc refers to a class of sound film processes
> using a phonograph or other disc to record or playback sound
> in sync with a motion picture. Early sound-on-disc systems
> used a mechanical interlock with the film projector....
> early systems with the film projector linked to a
> phonograph, developed by Thomas Edison (Kinetaphone,
> Kinetaphonograph), Selig Polyscope, French companies such as
> Gaumont (Chronomegaphone and Chronophone) and Pathe, and
> British systems..... Phono-Kinema (some sources say
> Photo-Kinema) was a sound-on-disc system for motion pictures
> invented by Orlando Kellum. The system was used for a small
> number of short films, mostly made in 1921."  
> 
> From the various descriptions, the sound quality of earlier
> "experiments" didn't come up to the later commercial
> enterprises.
> 
> Rod Stephens
> 
> --- On Wed, 6/24/09, Anthony Baldwin <jazztrash@xxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> 
> > From: Anthony Baldwin <jazztrash@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Recording Innovations
> > To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 10:48 PM
> > ... And it would be interesting to
> > establish how many of these suppo
d"
> > developments were kick-started by the early-1930s
> technical
> > and artistic diaspora from Berlin studios such as
> UFA,
> > where, say, lip-synching to a backing track for
> musical
> > numbers was fully in place by 1931.
> > 
> > Tony B
> > 
> > 
> > On 25 Jun 2009, at 1:04, Tom Fine wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > > What they were doing in Hollywood, from the
> early
> > days, was recording different aspects of the final
> > soundtrack on different bits of film and then mixing
> > together from motor-sync'd playback to a final sound
> master.
> > There were crude mixing consoles from early in the
> > electronic recording days, too. One specific example I
> was
> > told about, and I'll ask the guy for the film title
> because
> > I don't remember it, was the final music was mixed
> from
> > three optical elements, one made from each microphone,
> with
> > each microphone focused on a different musician or
> group of
> > musicians. This would be very similar to
> live-in-the-studio
> > multi-tracking. They were also able to pre-record
> music
> > tracks very early, so a singer on film would be
> singing
> > against a playback. And lip-sync'ing and indeed
> orchestra
> > play-sync'ing were developed early on, too. By the
> early
> > 1930's, Western Electric (and probably others) had
> developed
> > amplifier and mixer-network systems allowing for
> mixing many
> > different sound elements into a final soundtrack.
> Also, the
> > whole idea of "stem" mixes came out of Hollywood, a
> way to
> > reduce many elements to a few logically organized
> stems for
> > final mixdown. By the 1940s, the major studios' sound
> > departments had big 3-person consoles for final
> mixing
> > (dialog, music, sound effects). Those guys were aces,
> too.
> > Think of the mono soundtracks for some of the big
> musical
> > pictures, that's a very complex sound universe to fit
> into
> > one channel.
> > > 
> > > -- Tom Fine
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
>