A Victrola Guy channel

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playing on an original Edison standard c cylinder phonograph through a 14" witches hat horn...

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an original cylinder i found for the Korean project, unfortunately it developed a crack after shaving, so i keep these old cylinders for test recordings.

this is an mp3 transfer at 120 rpm...

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acoustic voice recording using a speaking tube....

JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.


`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.


`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

[THEVICTROLAGUY]

a copy of the original disc recording. THERE IS A LOT OF INTEREST in these old recordings, it is surprising that no one is making modern disc recordings of some of these songs, many are impossible to find in playable condition. there are several on line archives that have high quality mp3 recordings of these original songs. many of these cylinders sell for $ 100 each, i have no doubt that a disc recording with a copy of an original label would do just as well, perhaps better, the disc format is a lot easier to play than a cylinder. ebay sales are easy and quick a disc recording of some of these songs would be quite easy to sell.

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this was originally recorded on an Edison wax amberol four minute cylinder. to do this transfer i am using a two minute cylinder running at 100 rpm. this gives a total playing time of 4:20. a historic recording made march the 30th 1910, 104 years ago...

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, was a polar explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic, and one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

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CASEY AT THE BAT / COPY OF ORIGINAL RECORDING / 1906 / 5:05

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one of my final tests of the four minute recorder before i tear it apart for the stylus.

the original recorder was pot metal and was badly swollen, i transferred all of the parts to a new body. the diaphragm has a small split which is causing the echo, this limits how loud i can drive the recorder, but i wanted to test the recoder before i spend the time to install the stylus on one of my polymer diaphragm recorders.

once i have the stylus mounted on a new polymer recorder there will be a dramatic improvement in the quality and volume of the new recordings. if this goes as planned i will be offering the new custom CANAPHONIC AMBEROL four minute cylinder copies. other than Vulcan records in England i know of no one currently offering custom four minute cylinders.

a four minute Edison recorder is quite rare, i have gotten emails from two lifelong collectors who have never seen one. i found it quite by accident on ebay for $ 80.00 mistakenly sold as a two minute recorder. about 1912 Edison introduced the indestructible blue amberol celluloid cylinder, that effectively ended the Edison cylinder phonographs ability to record. while Edison made thousands of two minute recorders, there are relatively few four minute recorders that survived, i have been looking for two years for one of these. it utilizes a cupped point sapphire rod .021" in diameter, about the size of a common sewing needle, the stylus holder is unique as well and completely different than a two minute stylus holder. these is virtually no information on these recorders and to my knowledge this is the only working four minute recorder currently being used to make cylinder recordings.

i should have this project completed in the next few days.

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recorded using the polymer four minute recorder on a stentor dictation cylinder. Jeff wrote this for all the troops deployed overseas and their families. this has the potential of being a very popular war time song, perhaps someone would like to make a disc recording of this. i have included the link to Jeff's webpage, you can also contact him by email. jeffdiamond@gmail.com

http://www.jeffdiamondisawesome.com/

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the results of a new recorder i just built. for some time i was using isinglass in place of the mica diaphragm, but finally settled on polymers. this new recorder produces bright crisp recordings without any high frequency distortion from over modulation, they produce a quite flat response, with the high end at 4,000hz, with a few transient spikes at 6,000hz, little low end as this is an acoustic recording, the long sound waves are almost impossible to capture with this process, bass usually produces noise and " blasting ", the acoustic equivalent of " feedback ", basically a harsh rasp in the recording at a specific frequency, blasting will sometimes actually produce a lift out of the cutting stylus or begin a physical bouncing on the surface of the cylinder, usually resulting in a drop out or loud echo in super loud passages or where the blasting occurs.

while it has extreme limitations, the acoustic process can produce some very good recordings with results on par with and sometimes better than a portable cassette tape recorder, while that doesn't sound too impressive, you have to remember we are using a hill and dale acoustic recording process on a cylinder made of aluminum soap on a machine made before the invention of the aeroplane. the cylinder phonograph in this video was made circa 1903.

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using parts for the four minute recorder i built a new two minute recorder tonight with rather good results. this is an mp3 transfer to a brown wax recording blank from my ipad.

THE BEATLES / YESTERDAY / NEW RECORDER

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i modified an original 1921 dictaphone cylinder shaver by removing the swarf chute and installing a vacuum swarf tube, i also replaced the dull sapphire cutter with high carbon steel, which can be resharpened. this has increased the speed of the shaver significantly, the operation i am performing used to take 15 minutes or more, i can now do it in 5. i am removing nearly 1/4" of material from the blank.

[Steve E.]

A Victrola Guy channel. Great stuff!

(I've consolidated a whole lot of Victrola Guy threads into one thread here. The downside is that we lose the actual view count of these items....It's MUCH higher than what we see in the index.)

[Steve E.]

I love that Ink Spots song!