European Vintage Cutters

This is where record cutters raise questions about cutting, and trade wisdom and experiment results. We love Scully, Neumann, Presto, & Rek-O-Kut lathes and Wilcox-Gay Recordios (among others). We are excited by the various modern pro and semi-pro systems, too, in production and development. We use strange, extinct disc-based dictation machines. And other stuff, too.

Moderators: piaptk, tragwag, Steve E., Aussie0zborn

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buckettovsissors
Posts: 70
Joined: Wed May 17, 2006 7:13 am

European Vintage Cutters

Post: # 497Unread post buckettovsissors
Mon Jul 10, 2006 5:55 am

Ive been searching on ebay and using google ,and I havent been able to find any cutters from the 50s and earlier that where manufacured in europe. No soundscriber ect.
I found lots of magnet record based dictaion machines, but none that cut.
Anyone know a model that was manufatured in europe and cuts?
-theo

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motorino
Posts: 404
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2005 4:53 pm
Location: Aragón, ZGZ
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Post: # 498Unread post motorino
Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:07 am

hi buckettovsissors

i searching too a lot of time, years........public radios and tv.....industrial taking aparts....recording museums (yes, in madrid have in one museum a lot neumann, vms 82 dmm too)

NOTHING!!

here, in spain, i only look neumann and scully......and my special lathe

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Marcos

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buckettovsissors
Posts: 70
Joined: Wed May 17, 2006 7:13 am

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Post: # 499Unread post buckettovsissors
Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:15 am

did you build your speical lathe yourself?

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motorino
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Post: # 500Unread post motorino
Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:32 am

this made in Italy… one copy neumann, has been disassembled completely, repaired, improved and painted, half year working in to...

originally have fixed pitch, but now lead in lead out.. :D
Marcos

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cuttercollector
Posts: 431
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Location: San Jose, CA

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Post: # 502Unread post cuttercollector
Tue Jul 11, 2006 4:48 pm

The reason that you find less variety in everything from "institutional" (semi-pro) to office dictation equipment from Europe, is that Europe for the most part, with the possible exception of the UK, and even Japan abandoned mechanical disc cutting for tape as early as possible, while the US kept on with it as long as possible. There was still Rek-O-Kut and Presto equipment being made into the very early 1960s! The modern concept of an analog tape machine was... ahem... stolen by us in the USA from Germany at the end of WWII, more than 10 years before that. Japan had most of it's manufacturing infrastructure destroyed in the same war, so there was little interest in concentrating on old technologies such as tubes and records. On to transistors and tape! America had the greatest cultural investment in records as a music delivery media and really so did England, so it is only natural that other than the really professional equipment, the other things continued longer and with more variety here in the US and in England than anywhere else. Radio stations were still in fact using their lathes here to cut discs for commercial advertisements for playback on the air till the advent of cartridge tape in the mid 1960s.

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flozki
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Post: # 638Unread post flozki
Sat Sep 16, 2006 1:12 pm

there where tons of them mostly made in the 20-30ies..

but also later on

in order of what i think was the importnce..

1.neumann. the leader from the late 20ies onwards. especially in the 50ies they made many models.
2. lyrec a danish company. very nice. i still want one....
3. telefunken did some lathes (pre WWII?)
4. thorens a swiss company.
5. mag also a swiss company (30-50ies). my fist cutting head was a mag..
french companies as well....
many many more. i have a few books about cutting records from the 20-30ies.. and there are many many adds in the book from all kind of lathe manufacturers...
most gone in the wwII feuerstürme... i guess.

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