Hello everyone!
My name is Matt Ringressi, I'm a musician, collector and historian of 1940s-50s hillbilly music, with a special focus on blue grass. I'm based in Forlì, Italy.
I have had a project in mind for a while, one that might seem quite senseless to some:
For years now I have been looking to recreate the sounds of early blue grass music with my main band Ruben & Matt and the Truffle Valley Boys (http://www.trufflevalleyboys.com/), both stylistically and aesthetically.
Some of my favourite recordings are pretty much home recordings made on lathes (as opposed to reel), and not very high end ones, too. Often times, just one microphone was used. I would love to experiment with this technology a bit.
I have studied the sound that I have in mind for many many years and I am totally conscious of the limitations of this kind of recording technique, especially on the qualitative level, but that is what I want.
My question is: I am looking for a rather inexpensive lathe to experiment these ideas. Again, I am not very demanding on the fidelty, I don't want a multi-thousand dollars professional lathe, just want something that a band would have used for a home recording in the 1940s, that is working pretty much out of the box.
I have read Wilcox-Gay Recordio's, Rek-O-Cut's, Bell's, all existed and were used back in the day. But I know no further.
What is a fair price for a full working unit? I have basic electronics knowledge, but am quite scared of buying one on eBay, as I have no clue of how to restore one and what would be needed.
Being based in Italy doesn't help, but I have an USA P.O. Box that I could use to receive the machine, and then handle the transfer overseas myself.
Thanks everyone for your help!
Matt.
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driftinmatt
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2016 6:46 am