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61-470: Edison had previously made only phonograph cylinders but decided to add a disc format to the product line because of the increasingly dominant market share of the shellac disc records (later called 78s because of their typical rotational speed in revolutions per minute) made by competitors such as the Victor Talking Machine Company . Victor and most other makers recorded and played sound by

122-738: A diamond stylus. Beginning in 1915, new Edison cylinder issues consisted of re-recordings from Edison discs; they therefore had lower audio quality than the disc originals. Although his cylinders continued to be sold in steadily dwindling and eventually minuscule quantities, Edison continued to support the owners of cylinder phonographs by making new titles available in that format until the company ceased manufacturing all records and phonographs in November 1929. Cylinder phonograph technology continued to be used for Dictaphone and Ediphone recordings for office use for decades. In 1947, Dictaphone replaced wax cylinders with their Dictabelt technology, which cut

183-576: A case of cylinders and his dog, named Nipper . Barraud's original painting depicts Nipper staring intently into the horn of an Edison-Bell while both sit on a polished wooden surface. The horn on the Edison-Bell machine was black and after a failed attempt at selling the painting to a cylinder record supplier of Edison Phonographs in the UK, a friend of Barraud's suggested that the painting could be brightened up (and possibly made more marketable) by substituting one of

244-448: A finer groove pitch (150 threads per inch, or "TPI") and could play longer than lateral ten-inch records—up to 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 minutes per side. Among their advantages over the competition, they were played with a permanent conical diamond stylus, while lateral-cut records were played with a ten-for-a-penny steel needle that quickly wore to fit the groove contour and was meant to be replaced after one use. A feed screw mechanism inside

305-481: A fourth story is that Johnson took the name from the popular 'Victor' bicycle, which he had admired for its superior engineering. Of these four accounts, the first two are the most generally accepted." The first use of the Victor name was on a letterhead, dated March 28, 1901. Herbert Rose Barraud's deceased brother, a London photographer, willed him his estate, including his DC-powered Edison-Bell cylinder phonograph with

366-434: A gearshift and a 'model K' reproducer with two different styli, which allowed it to play both two-minute and four-minute cylinders. Cylinder records continued to compete with the growing disc record market into the 1910s, when discs won the commercial battle. In 1912, Columbia Records , which had been selling both discs and cylinders, dropped the cylinder format, while Edison introduced his Diamond Disc format, played with

427-694: A harder (and more fragile) form of wax to withstand the smaller stylus used to play them. The longer playing time was achieved by reducing the groove size and placing them half as far apart. In 1912, the Edison company eventually acquired Lambert's patents to the celluloid technology, and almost immediately started production under a variation of their existing Amberol brand as Edison Blue Amberol Records . Edison designed several phonograph types, both with internal and external horns for playing these improved cylinder records. The internal horn models were called Amberolas . Edison marketed its "Fireside" model phonograph with

488-409: A lateral or side-to-side motion of the stylus in the record groove, while in the Edison system the motion was vertical or up-and-down, known as vertical recording , as used for cylinder records. An Edison Disc Phonograph is distinguished by the diaphragm of the reproducer being parallel to the surface of the record. The diaphragm of a reproducer used for playing lateral records is at a right angle to

549-452: A mechanical groove into a plastic belt instead of into a wax cylinder. This was later replaced by magnetic tape recording. However, cylinders for older style dictating machines continued to be available for some years, and it was not unusual to encounter cylinder dictating machines into the 1950s. In the late 20th and early 21st century, new recordings have been made on cylinders for the novelty effect of using obsolete technology. Probably

610-409: A perfectly flat surface for best results, so Edison made his Diamond Discs almost one-quarter of an inch (6 mm) thick. They consisted of a thin coating of a phenolic resin virtually identical to Bakelite on a core of compressed wood flour , later also china clay , lampblack for color, all in a rabbit-hide glue binder. With very rare exceptions, all were about ten inches in diameter, but they used

671-399: A playing time of 24 minutes per 10-inch disc (12 on each side) and 40 minutes per 12-inch disc (these were the only 12-inch Diamond Discs ever sold to the public). A special reproducer and modified feed screw mechanism were required to play them. There were problems with skipping, groove wall breakdown, overall low volume (about 40% of that of the regular Diamond Discs), and a failure to exploit

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732-407: A relatively soft wax formulation and would wear out after they were played a few dozen times. The buyer could then use a mechanism which left their surfaces shaved smooth so new recordings could be made on them. Cylinder machines of the late 1880s and the 1890s were usually sold with recording attachments. The ability to record as well as play back sound was an advantage of cylinder phonographs over

793-597: A thicker all-wax cylinder, the surface of which could be repeatedly shaved down for reuse. Both the Graphophone and Edison's " Perfected Phonograph " were commercialized in 1888. Eventually, a patent-sharing agreement was signed, and the wax-coated cardboard tubes were abandoned in favor of Edison's all-wax cylinders as an interchangeable standard format. Beginning in 1889, prerecorded wax cylinders were marketed. These have professionally made recordings of songs, instrumental music or humorous monologues in their grooves. At first,

854-672: A time when other makers' recording speeds had not been standardized and could be as slow as 70 rpm or even faster than 80 rpm, but were typically somewhere around 76 rpm, leaving users who cared about correct pitch to adjust the playback speed for each record until it sounded right. Above all, there was, and still is, general agreement that the Diamond Disc system produced the clearest, most 'present' sound of any non-electronic disc recording technology. Although Victor 's Victrolas and similar record players could not play Diamond Discs (at best, only very faint sound would be heard, while

915-466: Is a continuation of the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR) project by Ted Fagan and William Moran to make a complete discography of all Victor recordings as well as adding the recordings of Columbia, Brunswick and other historic American labels now controlled by Sony Music Entertainment . The Victor archive files are the main source of information for this project. In 2011,

976-714: The Archéophone player, designed by Henri Chamoux and the "Endpoint Cylinder and Dictabelt Machine" by Nicholas Bergh. The Archéophone is used by the Edison National Historic Site, Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, Ohio), the Department of Special Collections at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library , and many other libraries and archives, including the Endpoint by The New York Public Library for

1037-620: The phonograph using a thin sheet of tin foil wrapped around a hand-cranked, grooved metal cylinder. Tin foil was not a practical recording medium for either commercial or artistic purposes, and the crude hand-cranked phonograph was only marketed as a novelty, to little or no profit. Edison moved on to developing a practical incandescent electric light , and the next improvements to sound recording technology were made by others. Following seven years of research and experimentation at their Volta Laboratory , Charles Sumner Tainter , Alexander Graham Bell , and Chichester Bell introduced wax as

1098-504: The British musical group The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing released the track "Sewer", from their debut album, Now That's What I Call Steampunk! Volume 1 on a wax cylinder in a limited edition of 40, of which only 30 were put on sale. The box set came with instructions on how to make a cylinder player for less than £20. The BBC covered the release on Television on BBC Click , on BBC Online , and on Radio 5 Live . In June 2017

1159-491: The Cthulhu Breakfast Club podcast released a special limited wax cylinder edition of a show. In April 2019, the podcast Hello Internet released ten limited edition wax cylinder recordings. In May 2023, Needlejuice Records released wax cylinder singles for Lemon Demon songs "Touch-Tone Telephone" and "The Oldest Man On MySpace", from albums Spirit Phone and Dinosaurchestra , respectively. Because of

1220-754: The Edison Diamond Disc Phonograph and with the Edison Diamond Disc Reproducer, and we decline responsibility for any damage that may occur to it if this warning is ignored." The very good reason for such discouragement was that Diamond Disc grooves were too narrow and fragile to propel a soundbox across a record surface, as lateral machines did; Edison's precise mechanical feed system on the Disc Phonograph for its weighted "floating" reproducer replaced that stress on its records. Diamond Discs enjoyed their greatest commercial success from

1281-604: The Indestructible Record Company in 1906 and Columbia Phonograph Company in 1908. The Edison Bell company in Europe had separately licensed the technology and were able to market Edison's titles in both wax (popular series) and celluloid (indestructible series). In late 1908, Edison had introduced wax cylinders that played for nominally four minutes (instead of the usual two) under the Amberol brand. They were made from

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1342-695: The Mask and Wig Club, released in April, 1925. On March 21, 1925, Victor recorded its first electrical Red Seal disc, twelve inch 6502 by pianist Alfred Cortot , of works by Chopin and Schubert. In 1926, Johnson sold his controlling (but not holding) interest in the Victor Company to the banking firms of JW Seligman and Speyer & Co. , who in turn sold Victor to the Radio Corporation of America in 1929. The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR)

1403-497: The Performing Arts . In an attempt to preserve the historic content of the recordings, cylinders can be read with a confocal microscope and converted to a digital audio format. The resulting sound clip in most cases sounds better than stylus playback from the original cylinder. Having an electronic version of the original recordings enables archivists to open access to the recordings to a wider audience. This technique also has

1464-573: The Phonograph moved the reproducer across the record at the required rate, relieving the groove of that work and thus reducing record wear. This design was in response to the patent held by the Victor Talking Machine Company that states that the groove of the record itself is what propelled the reproducer across the surface of the record via the needle. The playing speed for Diamond Discs was specified at exactly 80 revolutions per minute, at

1525-492: The Victor imprint. Victor recorded the first jazz and blues records ever issued. The Victor Military Band recorded the first recorded blues song, " The Memphis Blues ", on July 15, 1914, in Camden, New Jersey. In 1917, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded " Livery Stable Blues ". The advent of radio as a home entertainment medium in the early 1920s presented Victor and the entire record industry with new challenges. Not only

1586-454: The brass-belled horns on display in the window at the new gramophone shop on Maiden Lane . The Gramophone Company in London was founded and managed by an American, William Barry Owen. Barraud paid a visit with a photograph of the painting and asked to borrow a horn. Owen gave Barraud an entire gramophone and asked him to paint it into the picture, offering to buy the result. On close inspection of

1647-416: The company left the record business in late October 1929, the last vertically cut direct masters were recorded in the early summer of that year. Priority had been redirected to introducing a new line of Edison lateral or so-called Needle Type thin shellac records, compatible with ordinary record players, but although their audio quality was excellent this concession to commercial reality came too late to prevent

1708-483: The company to the verge of bankruptcy, Victor switched from the acoustical or mechanical method of recording to the new microphone -based electrical system developed by Western Electric in 1925. Victor called its version of the improved fidelity recording process "Orthophonic", and marketed a new line of phonographs referred to as " Orthophonic Victrolas ", scientifically developed by Western Electric to play these new records. Victor's first electrical recordings, issued in

1769-420: The competition from cheaper disc record phonographs, which began to be mass-marketed at the end of the 1890s, as the disc system machines could be used only to play back prerecorded sound. In the earliest stages of phonograph manufacturing, various incompatible, competing types of cylinder recordings were made. A standard system was decided upon by Edison Records , Columbia Phonograph , and other companies in

1830-516: The crude steel needle seriously damaged the groove) and Edison Diamond Disc Phonographs could not play Victor or other lateral-cut discs, third-party suppliers came up with adapters, such as the Kent adapter, to defeat this incompatibility, but typically with less than optimal sound quality. The Brunswick Ultona, the Sonora, and the expensive "Duo-Vox" phonograph made by the piano manufacturer Bush and Lane were

1891-399: The customer base consisted solely of entrepreneurs with money-making nickel -in-the-slot phonographs in arcades, taverns, and other public places. Soon, some affluent individuals who could afford expensive toys were customers, too. By the late 1890s, relatively inexpensive spring-motor-driven phonographs were available and becoming a fixture in middle-class homes. The record industry boomed. At

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1952-407: The cylinders after purchase. Their general appearance allowed bandleader John Philip Sousa to deride their contents as "canned music", an epithet he borrowed from Mark Twain . On March 20, 1900, Thomas B. Lambert was granted a US patent (645,920) that described a process for mass-producing cylinders made from celluloid , an early hard plastic. ( Henri Jules Lioret  [ fr ] of France

2013-576: The demise of the Edison Phonograph and Records Division just one day before the 1929 stock market crash . Phonograph cylinders Phonograph cylinders (also referred to as Edison cylinders after its creator Thomas Edison ) are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound . Commonly known simply as "records" in their heyday (c. 1896–1916), a name which has been passed on to their disc-shaped successor , these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engraved on

2074-489: The disc market with his Diamond Disc Phonograph system, which was incompatible with other makers' disc records and players. Like cylinder records, the sound in a Diamond Disc's groove was recorded by the vertical method, as variations in the depth of the groove cut. At that time, with the notable exception of Pathé Records , which used yet another incompatible format, a disc's groove was normally of constant depth and modulated laterally, side-to-side. The vertical format demanded

2135-465: The format by releasing a limited number of discs. Only 14 different Edison Long Play discs were issued before they were discontinued. In August 1927, electrical recording began, making Edison the last major record company to adopt it, over two years after Victor Records , Columbia Records , and Brunswick Records had converted from acoustical recording. Sales continued to drop, however, and although Edison Diamond Discs were available from dealers until

2196-607: The last a song about the site of the recording. These recordings were officially released online as MP3 files in 2001. Small numbers of cylinders have been manufactured in the 21st century out of modern long-lasting materials. Two companies engaged in such enterprise are the Vulcan Cylinder Record Company of Sheffield , England, and the Wizard Cylinder Records Company in Baldwin, New York . In 2010

2257-421: The late 1880s. The standard cylinders are about 4 inches (10 cm) long, 2 + 1 ⁄ 4 inches (5.7 cm) in diameter, and play about two minutes of recorded material. Originally, all cylinders sold needed to be recorded live on the softer brown wax, which wore out after as few as 20 plays. Later cylinders were reproduced either mechanically or by linking phonographs together with rubber tubes. Over

2318-503: The mid-1910s to the early 1920s, with sales peaking in 1920. Although they arguably had better audio fidelity, they were more expensive than, and incompatible with, other makers' products and ultimately failed in the marketplace. Not least among the factors contributing to their downfall was Thomas Edison's insistence on imposing his own musical tastes on the catalog. As an elderly man who favored old-fashioned "heart" songs and had various idiosyncratic preferences about performance practices, he

2379-624: The most famous of these are by They Might Be Giants , who in 1996 recorded "I Can Hear You" and three other songs, performed without electricity, on an 1898 Edison wax recording studio phonograph at the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange, New Jersey . This song was released on Factory Showroom in 1996 and re-released on the 2002 compilation Dial-A-Song: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants . The other songs recorded were "James K. Polk", "Maybe I Know", and "The Edison Museum",

2440-449: The name in "His Master's Voice" In America , he writes, "One story claims that Johnson considered his first improved Gramophone to be both a scientific and business 'victory.' A second account is that Johnson emerged as the 'Victor' from the lengthy and costly patent litigations involving Berliner and Frank Seaman's Zonophone . A third story is that Johnson's partner, Leon Douglass , derived the word from his wife's name 'Victoria.' Finally,

2501-415: The nature of the recording medium, playback of many cylinders can cause degradation of the recording. The replay of cylinders diminishes their fidelity and degrades their recorded signals. Additionally, when exposed to humidity, mold can penetrate a cylinder's surface and cause the recording to have surface noise. Currently, the only professional machines manufactured for the playback of cylinder recordings are

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2562-548: The new technology and introduced its new records and the Orthophonic Victrola on November 2, 1925, dubbed "Victor Day". Victor's first commercial electrical recording was made at the company's Camden, New Jersey studios on February 26, 1925. A group of eight popular Victor artists, Billy Murray , Frank Banta, Henry Burr , Albert Campbell, Frank Croxton , John Meyer, Monroe Silver , and Rudy Wiedoeft gathered to record "A Miniature Concert". Several takes were recorded by

2623-461: The old acoustical process, then additional takes were recorded electrically for test purposes. The electrical recordings turned out well, and Victor issued the results that summer as the two sides of twelve inch 78 rpm disc, Victor 35753. Victor's first electrical recording to be issued was Victor 19626, a ten-inch record consisting of two numbers recorded on March 16, 1925, from the University of Pennsylvania 's thirty-seventh annual production of

2684-402: The only customers for them were proprietors of nickelodeons —the first jukeboxes —installed in arcades and taverns, but within a few years, private owners of phonographs were increasingly buying them for home use. Unlike later, shorter-playing high-speed cylinders, early cylinder recordings were usually cut at a speed of about 120 rpm and can play for as long as three minutes. They were made of

2745-415: The only non-Edison machines that came from the factory equipped to play Diamond Discs as well as Victor and other 'needle-type' records, along with Pathé's sapphire ball stylus hill-and-dale format that used a vertical groove that was U-shaped in cross-section. Edison discouraged all such alternatives by cautioning on some of the record sleeves: "This Re-Creation should not be played on any instrument except

2806-506: The original windows is located at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C. In the company's early years, Victor issued recordings on the Victor, Monarch and De Luxe labels, with the Victor label on 7-inch records, Monarch on 10-inch records and De Luxe on 12-inch records. De Luxe Special 14-inch records were briefly marketed in 1903–1904. In 1905, all labels and sizes were consolidated into

2867-446: The outside surface which can be reproduced when they are played on a mechanical cylinder phonograph . The first cylinders were wrapped with tin foil but the improved version made of wax was created a decade later, after which they were commercialized. In the 1910s, the competing disc record system triumphed in the marketplace to become the dominant commercial audio medium. In December 1877, Thomas Edison and his team invented

2928-482: The painting, the contours of the Edison-Bell phonograph are visible beneath the paint of the gramophone. In 1915, the "His Master's Voice" logo was rendered in immense circular leaded-glass windows in the tower of the Victrola cabinet building at Victor's headquarters in Camden, New Jersey. The building still stands today with replica windows installed during RCA 's ownership of the plant in its later years. Today, one of

2989-576: The potential to allow for reconstruction of damaged or broken cylinders. Victor Talking Machine Company The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer, incorporated in 1901. Victor was an independent enterprise until 1929 when it was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and became the RCA Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America until late 1968, when it

3050-468: The prestigious Red Seal label. After Victor merged with RCA in 1929, the company maintained its eminence as America's foremost producer of records and phonographs until the 1960s. In 1896, Emile Berliner , the inventor of the gramophone and disc record, contracted machinist Eldridge R. Johnson to manufacture his inventions. There are different accounts as to how the "Victor" name came about. RCA historian Fred Barnum gives various possible origins of

3111-464: The production of several hundred cylinders to be made from the mold. The process was labeled "Gold Moulded" because of the gold vapor that was given off by gold electrodes used in the process. The earliest soft wax cylinders were sold wrapped in thick cotton batting . Later, molded hard-wax cylinders were sold in boxes with a cotton lining. Celluloid cylinders were sold in unlined boxes. These protective boxes were normally kept and used to house

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3172-528: The recording medium, and engraving, rather than indenting, as the recording method. In 1887, their " Graphophone " system was being put to the test of practical use by official reporters of the US Congress , with commercial units later being produced by the Dictaphone Corporation . After this system was demonstrated to Edison's representatives, Edison quickly resumed work on the phonograph. He settled on

3233-548: The same time, the Berliner Gramophone Company was marketing the first crude disc records, which were simpler and cheaper to manufacture, less bulky to store, much less fragile, and could play louder than contemporary wax cylinders, although they were of markedly inferior sound quality. Their quality was soon greatly improved, and by about 1910 the cylinder was clearly losing this early format war . In 1912, Thomas Edison , who had previously made only cylinders, entered

3294-438: The spring of 1925 were not advertised as such; in order to create an extensive catalog of records made by the new process to satisfy anticipated demand, and to allow dealers time to liquidate their stocks of old-style Victrolas, Victor and its longtime rival, Columbia Records , agreed to keep electrical recording secret until the autumn of 1925. Then, with the company's largest advertising campaign to date, Victor publicly announced

3355-435: The surface. In the late summer and early fall of 1929 Edison also briefly produced a high-quality series of thin electrically recorded lateral-cut "Needle Type" disc records for use on standard record players. The record industry began in 1889 with some very-small-scale production of professionally recorded wax cylinder records . At first, costly wet-cell -powered, electric-motor-driven machines were needed to play them, and

3416-419: The years, the type of wax used in cylinders was improved and hardened, so that cylinders could be played with good quality over 100 times. In 1902, Edison Records launched a line of improved, hard wax cylinders marketed as "Edison Gold Moulded Records". The major development of this line of cylinders is that Edison had developed a process that allowed a mold to be made from a master cylinder, which then permitted

3477-483: Was increasingly out of touch with most of the record-buying public as the Jazz Age of the 1920s got underway. It was not until mid-decade that he reluctantly ceded control to his sons. In 1926, an attempt at reviving interest in Edison records was made by introducing a long-playing Diamond Disc which still rotated at 80 rpm but tripled the standard groove pitch to 450 threads per inch by using an ultra-fine groove, achieving

3538-421: Was music becoming available over the air free of charge, but a live radio broadcast made using high-quality microphones and heard over amplified receivers provided sound that was startlingly more clear and realistic than a contemporary phonograph record. Victor was initially dismissive of the encroachments of radio, but after plummeting sales and much apathy and resistance from the company's senior executives brought

3599-460: Was producing celluloid cylinders as early as 1893, but they were individually recorded rather than molded.) That same year, the Lambert Company of Chicago began selling cylinder records made of the material. They would not break if dropped and could be played thousands of times without wearing out. The color was changed to black in 1903, but brown and blue cylinders were also produced. The coloring

3660-463: Was purportedly because the dyes reduced surface noise . Unlike wax, the hard, inflexible material could not be shaved and recorded over, but it had the advantage of being nearly permanent. A 1905 Edison Phonograph may be seen and heard playing a celluloid cylinder at the Musical Museum , Brentford, England and the quality of the sound is surprisingly good. This superior technology was licensed by

3721-449: Was renamed RCA Records . Established in Camden, New Jersey , Victor was the largest and most prestigious firm of its kind in the world, best known for its use of the iconic " His Master's Voice " trademark, the design, production and marketing of the popular "Victrola" line of phonographs and the company's extensive catalog of operatic and classical music recordings by world famous artists on

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