Scully Acoustic Wax Lathe on "American Epic" TV Show

[Deke Dickerson]

I'm surprised and a little shocked that nobody here has mentioned the PBS recording lathe-meets-rockstars documentary "American Epic." Anybody here catch the episode last night?

Deke

[markrob]

Hi Deke,

Totally missed that! Thanks for the heads up.

Mark

[Ben]

Wow, that looks super interesting .... I missed that too.

Thanks Deke

[emorritt]

Already have my copy on BR from the PBS store. The machine is a John Scully (not Larry, his son) unit designed specifically for acoustic recording. Don't know where they found this extremely rare machine.

[markrob]

Hi,

You can watch the full episode with the live sessions online here:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/american-epic/video/american-epic-sessions/

Mark

[2bitcomputer]

What an amazing machine,
Look ma, no motors...!!

[fredbissnette]

not available in my country of canada lol

fuck you internet i got pirate bay

asshats

[Matt]

I have been watching. I thought I heard him say it took him a decade to assemble everything. Such a beautiful machine.

[tragwag]

LOVE it! This is incredible. haven't had a chance to watch it all yet, am I right to assume they're running at 33 RPM, using heated stylus and suction?
sounds really really amazingly great, and I'm guessing most of the artifacts come from the use of that microphone? (I don't know the type, maybe they'll explain later)
thanks so much for posting the link!!

EDIT: the suction system is a BELLOWS, how cool?
it's definitely 78 RPM, looks like heated stylus still though, sounds amazing.
D Spec head on there, I think? From the looks of the dampening. though I might be wrong, they usually only show the front view of the head, whereas I'm used to seeing aerial photos of the D spec for whatever reason.

[Babooino]

are they really cutting on wax?

[Matt]

I found a little one minute clip with the owner of that lathe talking about it.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-american-epic-recording-machine-nicholas-bergh-20170721-story,amp.html

[timinbovey]

Deke --

Not only did I see it, but I immediately purchased the DVD set AND the set of CD's with 100 songs recorded back in the day on those machines that have been painstakingly restored from original shellac 78's. The sound is amazing.

But there were things that bugged me about the show, and I finally managed to contact the producers, and Nick himself (the man who built and runs the recording system in the show) and he took time to answer all my questions in great detail. I'm heading out the door for work so don't have time to post more, but I'll share the info later.

Color me very impressed with this show.

Tim in Bovey