[rollei_list] Re: Large Format film availability
----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Goldstein" <egoldste@xxxxxxxxx> 
To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 3:47 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: Large Format film availability
Actually producing the physical record was relatively inexpensive. When I was first recording in the 70s, there were a lot of small private labels pressing records in runs of hundreds for about a buck a piece. These were very good pressing with premium jackets. This did not include recording or mastering costs. It also did not include distribution and marketing, which is usually what makes you or breaks 
you...
How about recording booths? You went into a booth (like a passport photo booth), closed the door, put in your quarters (maybe a buck or two?) and speak or sing into a microphone while your record was cut. This is one way families sent WWII GIs messages from home... some of 
those recordings still survive...

Anybody remember?

Eric Goldstein
I don't know about the premium jackets but plain ones with no printing were no more than 50 cents each. We mostly made custom records for schools or individuals who took care of whatever distribution there was. We offered a custom studio service, arranging for disc mastering if desired or a complete package with boxed records delivered to the customer. We did enough work to have known who was good. We had no interest in being in the sales or distribution businesses. I certainly do remember the "Record your own voice" booths. They spit out about seven inch records usually on a cardboard base. Maybe a minute recording time. We also had a home disc recorder (Wilcox-Gay Recordio) but could never make it work because it was missing the lead screw. Blanks are still available though expensive and so are cutting styli so old machines can still be used. One of these days I will find a portable recorder somewhere. I actually have most of two Western Electric disc lathes in storage. They were made for motion picture recording but they are iron castings and thoroughly impractical for use. These were interesting machines with probably the most elaborate mechanical filter ever for the turntable drive. The mechanical arrangements and cutter design are described in papers published in the BSTJ and JSMPE. I also have some original documentation from a nameless studio but it went by three initials. I suspect a lot of people have home records stashed away and maybe don't even know what they are. Some people recorded radio shows but most of these are stuff like seven year old Betsy playing the violin. There were also V-mail talking letters during WW-2. These were often the records from the booths you mentioned. Not the same as V-Discs which were pressings on paper of various famous performers, sometimes outtakes. I have (if they've survived) some Bing Crosby outtakes. He made up lyrics if he couldn't remember them (which was often) often very funny. Disc is a curious medium: the audible quality is better than it should be. Its fairly easy to calculate the amount of distortion generated by scanning losses and inaccuracies. In records recorded close to the label the distorion can reach astonishing levels, 15% or 20% harmonic and very high IM. But it doesn't seem that audible. In fact, tape is much better in many ways and digital is superior to either but people still like the way discs sound (including me). Many recordings from the 78 days survive because the metal parts used to make the stampers were preserved. These may be either positive (like a normal record with grooves) or negatives (like molds with raised lines instead of grooves) but both can be played. In fact many CD releases are made from metal work played with laser scanners. Since there is much less noise, distortion, and losses than on the pressing the quality of these transfers is often astonishingly good. Some of the engineers of the period really knew what they were doing but no one outside of the control room (and maybe not even there) heard the results until now. 

Lots more along this line but enough OT for now.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
---
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