78rpm-record production in the U.S.A. (1937)

with Duke Ellington and his Orchestra
Vocal By: Ivy Anderson
Tune: Oh Babe, Maybe Some Day

• Category

  Music

[MisterEvasion]

They were pretty clever! For the equipment they had, what ingenious methods!

When you think about it, today's digital recordings aren't really the recorded sounds at all, but merely a close representation of actual sounds converted to information. Going a step further, you can say that the electrical impulses of analog recordings are not as 'real' as acoustic. I guess with each advance made in recording, we trade off a part of the actual essence for what we 'experience' as higher quality.

[Kevin Salatino]

It's worth the wait for the last 30 seconds of the fabulous Ivy Anderson.

[sanfranphono]

Thanks for making this film available.

Seems like they were cutting edge at Master/ Variety: Acetate disc and silver nitrate plating. That is still pretty much the process how LPs are made. RCA at the time was still using gigantic wax cakes and gold sputtering.

Check on youtube for the movie "Command Performance" to see how RCA Victor made their records in 1941.

[KrugozorPlastinka]

Nice video )

[Bob Ammann]

No editing, yes but I read somewhere the standard practice was to make up to 3 takes of a number.

[Nostalgico80]

Precious documentary.

Yes, it was already different from the acoustic recording era, because in 1937 it was possible to fix in the right way the volume of the musical instruments of the combo before the signals passed to the recording arm, but the sensation of immediacy was still the same.

[TuxedoRonny]

This was neat, I sure wish someone was producing durable 78's the likes of which I could play on my acoustic machines, does anyone know of such a thing? I'd gladly pay decent money to get "fresh" recordings of my favorite songs that I wouldn't have to be gentle with, and I'd otherwise not want to play acoustically!

[Disques 13 Swing]

Ivie Anderson Forever!!!

[mauser1898k]

Thanks for your tip with the oven. I just got a 30 cm shellac, it had oval shave (like a wok pan), and now it is flat like hell.

Thanks from Hungary!

[lrd9999]

I remember getting a refund on an early CD player because it sounded so fake; oversampling (in which the samples from the CD are convolved with a sync-pulse to produce the "missing" samples between them) eventually got rid of the worst flaws in digital recording technology. Now, the biggest curse in recording technology is competition to make each track sound louder than the ones played before and after it (See the wikipedia page on "loudness war").

[jampop77]

no "lets record that again" or audio editing in those days!

[CoolDudeClem]

It's strange how little has changed when it comes to making records, sure the technology has improved, but from the point of recording onto the laquer disc onwards it's virtually the same.