I made a mistake at 27:43 when I said microgroove needles were .7 mm radius. They are .7 mill radius, a mill was a thousandth of an inch so it's 0.7 thousandths of an inch or 0.007 inch radius.
wow so many different records! :-) ,loved the video, although I must correct you on one thing, the germans invented the "Magnetophon" that used tape not wire ;-)
There are many photos from WW2 of german mobile radio listening posts with pair of workplaces side by side each having a magnetophone - german for reel to reel tape recorder, in front of the operators. As I've seen on some documentary movie first production units work with paper tape that "ate" heads realy fast and when polymer based tape came by the end of the war there wasn't resource to bring it up to comercially usable standards. I don't know whether such experiments were common in the west, but in late socialist Bulgaria there was a funk fusion band called FSB that made an album called 78 r.p.m. which was issued an a 12", 45 RPM vinyl. There is simple explanation of such a rarity: before becoming a popular band FSB were a studio band for state owned record company Balkanton and abbreviation FSB decodes as Studio Formation Balkanton, just in Bulgarian regular word order differ from English, so it wasn't an unsolvable problem for a band with such background to have their album issued on a non standard format.
Few discrepancies: 1. Edison Voicewriter disc is +/- 24 RPM like the talking books for the blind in Britain 2. Longest duration has a few contenders that beat the Seeburg handily. A) Edison Long Play Disc - 40 mins at the standard 80 RPM (not 78) B) Radio Shack Microsonic triple-play LPs from the 70s 45 mins/side C) Tri-Micron LPs from France the longest of which runs for 57 mins/side D) 16 RPM commercially-released LPs that carry 90 mins/side (Prestige Jazz etc) A few were even in Stereo (Will Kennedy Dancetime Orch) E) And don't forget Jack White's Third Man Records experiment of a 4 RPM LP Listed as 3 RPM for their Third Anniversary but quadruple speed mastered at 16 RPM. 3. Smallest stylus has a couple contenders as well A) Highway Hi-Fi records for cars (16 RPM -1957) 0.25 (quarter) mil - half the Seeburg size. B) Auto-Com 7 inch 16 RPM flexidiscs made for attractions w a portable player - 2/3 mil. Not counting vinyl videodisc players (CED and VHD - down in the single-digit microns)
Thanks, loved the video! Im very interested in music formats. Im a 13 yr old interested in music. Its such a shame that people dont use cds or vinyls or cassettes anymore! the 16 inch was awesome thank you for sharing
You could have mentioned that a modern stereo cartridge will play a vertical cut record ( hill and dale Diamond Disk) just fine, although out of phase because it responds to both vertical and horizontal modulation.
The British company Odeon made double-sided records in 1904, four years before Columbia introduced them to the U.S. in 1908. A lot of their content, especially classical music, was licensed from Odeon.
33 1/3 was first decided upon by the folks who made Vitaphone "sound on disc" movies in 1927. They arrived at that number because they were smoking opium.
Very nice record collection. You have some very rare and sought after records. I've been collecting records and phonographs since I was 13 and I'm 67 now. Throughout the years I've owned maybe 5 7 inch Victor's, which came before the ten inch. Now I have 1 because I sold the other four a couple years ago when values were high. I've absolutely never owned an early double sided Columbia advertisement record however. I've only heard of them and have seen only two, one that sold at auction and the one you have. I do have at the very least 1500 78's of all sizes. I have quite a few diamond discs and several Pathe Freres records. As well as several hundred 2 minute wax and 4 minute celluloid amberol cylinder records. How many records do you have would you say? It seems that no matter how large or small your collection is, it's one full of gems of all shapes and sizes. Often times even a small collection of very desireable records is worth much more than a very large collection full of a combination of both rare and common records.
The 7 inch Victor is like a Berliner? I've never had a Berliner, too expensive and sound like crap. What sort of music is on a Berliner, somebody whistling?
Let me explain. A man named Emile Berliner invented the first disc phonograph, which he called the gramophone. 1887 I do believe was the year. The Berliner records are the very first disc records. Before that you had Edison and Columbia cylinder records. Actually there were various cylinder record companies but Edison was the first. The reason the early 7 inch records sound so bad is because they're over 100 years old and have been used a whole lot. But what really was the death of those early 7 inch records was the early front mount phonographs they were played on. With a front mount phonograph, the horn, the reproducer, and the often times heavy wood or aluminum tone arms all, rest on the record, played by a steel needle. But soon after the front mount machines were introduced, the designers of the things realized the toll that was taken on the records and came up with the rear mount machine. With the rear mount phonograph, the only thing that put a strain on the records was either the reproducer, or both the reproducer and tonearm depending on what machine you got. All Victor machines were better for records because the reproducer was connected to the tonearm by way of something called a u tube so that the only weight on the record was the reproducer. It was leaps and bounds ahead of any other disc record phonograph on the market. Columbia made their phonographs cheaper comparitively to Victor machines which were equipped with the best equipment on all models, and they costed less. Victor sounded, looked, and performed the best. That is until Edison started making disc records in 1912. Before 1912, the two biggest competition companies for disc phonographs were Victor and Columbia. After 1912, Columbia was placed at #3 while Victor and Edison went neck and neck releasing the best designed and most high quality and best sounding disc machines of the day. Edison machines had many strongholds on Victor as far as sound design and build quality goes, but Victor was no lizzard in the bushes. On Victor machines, you played records with a steel needle which had to be replaced each and every time you played one record. With an Edison machine, the reproducer was equipped with a diamond stylus which sounded superior and lasted 100 times longer. Hence the reason Edison disc records are called diamond discs.
I was just asking, because 7 inch is the size of Berliners, and since Johnson had made most of the equipment for Berliner in the 1890's, I was asking whether these early Victor 7 inch records were Johnson's carry-over version of Berliner's acid-etched records, or whether he was using his cutting method of recording by then. The reason Berliners sound so bad is the etching process was a very poor method in terms of fidelity.
Well, technically speaking, the process which he used for etching did suck, as you were saying. But no, Johnson's method was not the same as Berliners. Johnson's method was pressing records from masters from the beginning. And yes, Johnson was consulted for most of Berliner's early equipment. He was a machinist in NJ. I'm sure you already knew that. You seem to know much much more than most. Most people don't know a Victor machine from a Silvertone or a Lakeside lol. We need more knowledgeable young people to carry on this musical heritage.
28:11 is the so called pico grooves. The initial concept of 16 rpm was, to make grooves more tiny. The microgroove 16 rpm was a compromise. By the way, with the 18 µm stereo stylus, you are pretty close to the Seeburg records.
20:44 I heard, that for the early Diamond Discs with edged labels, a 25 µm micro groove stylus would fit and for the later with paper label a 1950's normal groove stylus with 65 µm
I wonder why seeburg didn't make their muzak records 12 inch? A 12" record at 16rpm could hold quite a bit of music. A stack of those could play for hours without hearing the same song twice. I used to work in a Kmart in the 80's that used a cart machine similar to 8-track that repeated itself every 45 mins which was extremely annoying to the employees. A new tape was sent once a month.
Hi there, very interesting Video, Im from Middle East /United Arab Emirates /Dubai I bought an Old Gramophone im still learning about it . I wanna buy my 1st vinyl record. that's why your video are very Helpful. Thank you so much for your time and your effort. God Bless you. Sara
I've no idea what the maximum capacity of a Seeburg record was. I have several of them, and they seem to average about 40 minutes per side, plus or minus a minute or so. They *CAN* be played on a regular 16 rpm record player, but on a limited basis. You should use a NEW 'stereo' needle, and it is recommended you play them only long enough to transfer the audio to tape or digital media. There are spindle adapters available for them, even ones that will allow you to use them on a early to mid 1960s Magnavox changer (which has the capacity to detect odd-sized records and play them automatically). There's a chap on eBay who sells them; I had a manual spindle adapter 3d printed so I can play mine. 8 rpm records were only used for 'talking book' records for the blind, lent out by libraries. The record player you have with the 8 rpm setting is most likely an ex- Library of Congress unit that had been loaned out to the blind and handicapped for the express purpose of playing these recordings. I don't believe any 8-rpm record players were ever offered to the general public. Of course, i could be wrong, so if anyone has more information, please feel free to share and/or correct me. One 'odd format' you should try to find would be an old Chrysler Highway Hi-Fi record; it's a 7" vinyl disk with the small 'LP' style hole. They ran at 16 rpm also, but had ultra-fine (0.25 mil) grooves. The capacity of these records was some 40 minutes per side for music, and up to an hour for speech. Allegedly the audio quality was very good despite the slow speed, probably because of the ultra-microgroove needle. A record player in an automobile, imagine that! Of course, it was plagued with problems and quickly discontinued.
Our studio just got awarded the transfer contract for all the analogue talking books for the blind from 1931 to 2000. Subsequent to that we are doing all the Seeburg, Muzak, Rowe Customusic, Allied Artists and all the other 16 RPM labels around (of material that's not available elsewhere - which leaves out e.g. Prestige Jazz 16 RPM) Many of the original master tapes used to make them (or the original metal parts from the wax or lacquers prior to the use of tape in 1948) have been either deteriorated due to age or lost entirely. In the case of the background music formats, only the commercially released pressings and tape dubs remain. The earliest talking books are 78, then 33, 16, 8 and one 4 RPM test disc and player in 1966 that was to be able to house six hours on a side, with experiments beginning for an 8 hr/side version that was supposed to have had a groove pitch in the 600s - but between the high rejection rate of pressings and the number of ruined lacquers, experiments were halted. We are using an ELPJ turntable that was donated to us and we are having it sent back to the manufacturer in Japan to have it's speed ranges and groove pitches expanded. In the case of the talking books and in the case of the background music discs, we have access to several large collections of meticulously maintained and very rarely played if not virgin discs and tapes to use as masters from which to restore. Currently we have a Seeburg LPC 1 R that's been sent out to be reconfigured to play the Seeburg/Rowe nine inch background music discs with the two inch hole. The phonograph will have a different single-speed motor installed as well as a new record clamp and play mechanism borrowed out of a non functional Seeburg AMS so that its' native speed will be 16 instead of 33. As there is no need for any other speed, the 33 autospeed unit will be reconfigured to stop down to 16 in the unlikely event somebody comes across one of the 1959 test discs that have a normal LP hole. These will have special half-mil stereo-ready styli and cartridges in the unlikely event somebody ever runs across one of the stereo experimentation discs of the same year. We have three in the works now, already commissioned by buyers so if anybody wants any other conversions done - they can contact us through our RU-vid account. The last one we have commissioned is an AMS unit designed originally for the 9-inch 16 discs as well as the normal 12 inch 33 discs that is being reconfigured so that the mechanism is visible as on the best restaurant models of some years earlier.
@@ndiamone9136 For reasons unknown to me, I only just now found this message. I was never notified of a reply, so I apologize for my delayed response. Thank you for that information. I'm curious; what is to be done with the music you transferred from the Seeburg/Rowe records? Is there a project to release this music to the public?
@@xaenon Since we have yet to receive the funding to send the ELPJ Laser Turntable back to Japan for re-calibration to 8 RPM and 16 RPM capability, all transfer work on vinyl-based legacy background music materials and talking books is on hiatus. We are however continuing to accept 2-track and 4-track cartridge and open reel tapes and cassettes, both 15/16 IPS as well as 1-13/32 (halfway between 15/16 and 1-7/8 - it's master is 11-1/4 IPS instead of 15 and makes a C-90 cassette play for an hour per track instead of 45 mins) as well as other types of non-commercial materials from which to transfer. Those we can record off of with the gear we have already pre-adapted for the purpose - mostly because in the case of cassette - the 4 tracks are Portastudio format and are equidistant from one another vs Musicassette format which has Side 1 L/R with almost no guardband - then the guardband is down the center and then Side 2 L/R with almost no guardband - and we have a Tascam Cassette Portastudio that goes all the way down to 15/32 IPS (1.2 CPS). For cartridge and open reel - those are all in the standard 4-track stereo format of any 4-track stereo or quadraphonic reel deck you care to name - so we just spool the cartridges out onto a reel and play it normally on a 4-channel inline or quadraphonic playback deck and take all 4 channels at once into the digital audio work station. But for vinyl since we want to preserve it in its' original state, the background music has to wait until A) the turntable is sent back to its' manufacturer to be re-adapted and B) all the vinyl talking books are done first since that was the original intention of the project. The background music disc transfers were always just a side benefit. Most if not all of the sources of the BM discs still remain and more are coming available all the time - so even though we can't transfer them as of yet - we are still accepting donations of mint or near mint copies of primarily any 16 RPM music disc by any manufacturer, followed by the 7 inch 33s with the 45 hole followed by the 7-inch 33s with the 33 hole and 45s with 45 hole and 45s with 33 hole and 10-inch and 12-inch 78s and 12-inch non-commercial 33s by the background music labels etc etc etc. All the session masters for the original recording dates or disc/tape mastering tapes used for final production are presumed to be either discarded long ago, burnt up in vault fires, or deteriorated beyond use, leaving release pressings/tape dubs in their place from which to master. Since JUST the huge Seeburg library of 2-inch hole 16 RPM consists of titles in the tens of thousands (multiply out 28 discs times 5 times a year times 27 years plus 7 replacement discs every month times 12 mos a yr times 27 years) - then add in the Rowe versions, then add in the 7-inch CustoMusic 33s with the 45 hole and so on and so on and so on - you can see that we will be doing this for a LONG time. As far as what's to become of the transfers - since the talking book people have zero desire to get the restored product re-cut back onto vinyl - we'll be using those resources to do the same for all the BM discs. Due to the fact that that 1 all the companies who recorded the music are long gone without anybody picking up the rights to the music (only occasionally the company name) 2 the music being recorded in Europe all of which is long out of copyright anyway and 3 the fact that 16 RPM (or odd sized holes or inside out recording or any number of other tricks) means that the music ``cannot be played on a standard commercially available phonograph'' and is therefore relegated to the term of ``repurposed art'' - all three of which means no copyright fees necessary. We intend to use Direct to Metal Mastering (DMM) technology to re-cut the materials right back onto the exact same types of vinyl as that from which they were mastered, press them onto colored vinyl that matches the original label colors and sell those as sets to collectors in order to recoup the costs. In this way, those that have originals - the same as people who have original 78s and buy reproductions to play on their jukeboxes - can keep the originals in as close to unplayed condition as possible and still enjoy both the music as well as the sight of the record going around - not something you can do with an e.g. jukebox conversion that plays over and is controlled by an iPhone. So if anybody has any idea where we can get foundation, philanthropist or arts funding to get this project off the ground or sources for mint or near-mint copies of original materials from which we can transfer, they can contact us through here.
Although there actually were some 3-inch 78s produced (mainly for children's toy phonographs), the Elvis recording (17:45) attached to the TV Guide cover (from 2004) is actually a CD with a label printed to make the disc look like a record.
I have a 3 inch record I took out of a chatty kathy doll. It's made of nylon, has 10 grooves that play 10 different baby talk lines about 3 seconds long each. The baby talk line depends on which groove the needle randomly starts in. It goes really fast probably around 200 RPM.
I have had good results with .7 especially the elliptical stylus, I do have a turntable with a .6 which sounds pretty good, I just can't afford a 1,500 dollar tabletop jukebox nor do I have the space for one, plus I heard that they require lots of maintenance to get running, especially the idler tires that fall apart over time
My father Ricky Roy in 1957 sang on mercury (71230) Because you're mine (all mine)/lonesome teenager. I have it on 45. Was it on 10 inch also??? Would buy it if it could be found ! For framing !!!
Never heard of that format. Why is your 10 inch shellac considered LP? I don't think shellac can take a microgroove, that format requires vinyl or other plastic.
I just got a one sided 1908 Victor from a record shop, for only one buck! The only problem is there is a little bit of the label right on the dogs face that has been torn off. It's nice because you can handle the record with ease and not worry about touching the grooves as much.
i have a modern turntable that plays 33-45-78rpm speeds with a 10% 20% & 50% pitch range You can get around any speed between 16.66 rpm and 117rpm [the numark TTX1 TURNTABLE FOR DJS] YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO GET THIS ON EBAY] IT WILL PLAY ANY RECORD YOU WANT.
This guy has a similar video showing a bunch of European formats including the 20 inch Pathe records. Enjoy. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zTQu1X8a8LM.html
I heard, that the best results with Edison Diamond Discs is by using micro stylus (for the older ones with no paper labels) and normal stylus (for the paper label ones)
Wrong. The best results with Edison Diamond Discs is to buy a Diamond Disc player. It's the only way to play them. They are big and bulky pieces of furniture but you see them in antique stores all the time, usually around $400 and weigh around 300 pounds. The Chippendale is the best model.
I had a C-19 once they are remarkable. Here's one for $500 www.ebay.com/itm/Edison-C19-Diamond-Disc-Wind-Up-Phonograph-Record-Player-Cabinet-Holds-72-1919/263518780948?hash=item3d5af17e14:g:YAsAAOSwBkRZ-DqA
Well, I think, it sounds better with playback on modern equipment. The Diamond Discs is the best sounding format, what is recorded and played without any electricity and can show the advantages, when played electrically.
Because you're a kid and don't know anything about records. You probably call them vinyls hahaha. Let me ask you, if the record is hard enough to stand a diamond needle, why would human hands damage it?
@@hyzercreeki am collector,i have a variety of record players for a variety of formats i collect 78s,Edison diamonds,pathe,(sadly no edison cylinders),and many...many others,i am way past my beginning stage of a collector,i am 20 years old by the way,and to answer your question,it is not about the hardness of the record...yes,many vynil and styrene records are designed to be played by a diamond or sapphire stylus,but your fingers produce oil that can over time degrade the quality of the groove,i may not have decades of experience but i love my hobby as a collector and know how to clean and take good care of my records.
@@hyzercreek my main turntable is the AT-LP-120 with the ortofon red(i am hoping to get the the mono cartridge for 78s as well),and for shellac records i have the palliard gramophone with upgraded reproducer to play electrically recorded ones
@@Stevenstevio Oil doesn't degrade vinyl, that's garbage. Dirt on your hands wears down the vinyl but I wash my hands. Do you have any more wrong suggestion young one? I handle new and mint condition records by the edges and label only and pamper them. But these old beat-up records, it doesn't matter how you handle them.
I had a collection of the red 45's. First hand knowledge that the reds were not generally distrbuted to the general public. They were given to people inside the music industry. They have good sound and don't wear out or warp like the black vynil.
