This video is a comparison of present day Big Ben chimes and the rare 1890 audio recording one. Big Ben: en.wikipedia.o... Audio File: simple.m.wikip...
If you mentally remove those warps off the old recording, you can clearly hear that at that time bells actually sounded better. They were newer and were of their best pitch.
Can't really know what frequencies were amplified in those old recorders. It may be an involuntary edit because of time passed since then and the recording medium
Other people: OMG the 1890 recording of the bell scares me! Me, a person who knows that it's just due to the low quality of recordings back then: I like it
If the noises and warping audio were removed, the bells would have been very clear to hear, especially Big Ben. The very first decade of the 20th century was when vehicles became to be made across the world, and that means Big Ben truly was heard for many miles as told by the tower’s owners. But now with London being very busy 24/7, the bells can be heard at least across the river in London, but not that much further than that.
Tape didn’t exist in 1890, this old chime was done on an Edison Wax Cylinder, much like a record, but these were cylindrical, as tge name is implying, and they could not keep a constant speed, it was always fluctuating.
Logically, either the bells sounded the same as they do now or they sounded even better, owing to being fairly new. But the poor quality of Victorian sound recording equipment does them no favours. If anything, it makes Big Ben sound drunk.
It sounds like the wax cylinder or whatever it was recorded on has warped some for the 1890 recording, but you can definately make out what it must have sounded like from it.
Lucas Burchill it’s not fake Big Ben was made in 1850’s and I know that there were no TVs and no cameras at all but they used a audio box to hear Big Ben and also it was 40 years back in the time.
The 1890 one just sounds like the batteries are low... Source: I have a clock that plays the Westminster chime (the same piece of music as Big Ben plays) and it sounds similarly warped when the batteries are about to die.
If you turn down the volume of your device and listen to the 1890 one, it sounds less weird and probably more like how it _actually_ sounded back then.
The 1890 chime sounded creepy because of the recording device they used the tech then isn't that advance so if ur in 1890 you'll hwar the same as present.
From what I can hear the 1890 sound was in a lower tonality. I guess the rest is just the distortion because of old recordings and all that. I kinda prefer the actual one, sounds better to me.
"Expect the first spirit when the bell tolls one. Expect the second the next night at the same hour. And the third apon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate"
This answers a lot of questions I had. Whenever I hear the present day chimes I hear F A G C, F G A F, A F G C, C G A F. I read somewhere that it’s actually supposed to be tuned a half step lower. When I heard the 1890 chimes I heard the notes as E, G#, F#, B, and so on. I guess after 160 years of the bells being struck in the exact same spots the tuning has gone out of wack. The bells may be tuned in E but today it sounds like they’re chiming in F.
In 1976 the Chiming train suffered a catastrophic failure which broke the drum that rings out the Westminster chimes. As a result, they had to have that particular part remade which slowed down the chimes by a fraction. If u listen to any recording of the chimes before 1976 you will hear that they are a tiny bit faster then the present day chimes.
I'm curious to know where the 1890 recording was. I'm thinking either at the foot of the tower, on Westminster Bridge, on the court between the palace and Westminster Abbey, or right up on the belfry.
The recording was made atop the clock tower itself. There was no electronic amplification until 1925. The 1890 recording is the sound energy itself against a diaphragm to which the attached stylus cuts directly sound sound wave to a rotating wax cylinder.
