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74-680: Several of the quartet's wax cylinders survive, most recorded by the North American Phonograph Company , and are among the earliest extant recordings of any African-American musicians, along with recordings by George W. Johnson and a single surviving cylinder recorded by Louis Vasnier . The earliest surviving wax cylinder recording of the Unique Quartette — and thus the earliest surviving recording by any African-American musical group (as opposed to soloist, since George W. Johnson's “The Whistling Coon” predates this by two years) —

148-738: 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

222-614: A 12-inch (300 mm) disc, but problems occurred (notably with broken groove walls and overall low volume, often only 40% of that of the regular discs), and the disc failed. In August 1927, discs began to be electrically recorded, making Edison the last major label to adopt electrical recording (over two years after Victor, Columbia, and Brunswick had converted from acoustical recording). Concurrently, Edison tried to freshen its catalogues by recording popular dance bands such as those of B. A. Rolfe and Harry Reser (whose "Six Jumping Jacks" group appeared on Edison as "Earl Oliver's Jazz Babies"),

296-659: A 3000+ playback quota for the Blue Amberol. In that same year, the Edison Disc Record came out. In 1910, artists' names began to be added to the records; previously, Edison's policy was to promote his cylinders (and up until 1915, discs) based on the recognition of composers and the works recorded thereon in lieu of the performers themselves. Thomas A. Edison, Inc. , successor to the National Phonograph Company, continued selling cylinders until they went out of

370-434: 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

444-694: 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

518-497: A longer playing time (up to five minutes) than laterals and could only be played to their full advantage on Edison Diamond Disc Phonographs. This combination produced audio fidelity superior to any other home record playing system of the time. However, Edison Discs and phonographs were more expensive than their competitors'. This, together with the incompatibility of the Edison system with other discs and machines, had an adverse effect on Edison's market share. Nonetheless, Edison Discs for

592-452: 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

666-517: A mixture of sodium carbonate, sodium hydroxide, and distilled water) made better records, and the wax could be manufactured in a shorter period of time. Using hydrated alumina resulted in more desirable blanks, with fewer defects and shorter production time. The Columbia Phonograph Company used Edison recording blanks until 1894. The North American Phonograph Company was dissolved in the fall of 1894, and Edison quit supplying blanks to Columbia, who had purchased 70,000 blanks from 1889 to 1894. Columbia

740-400: A name which has been passed on to their disc-shaped successor , these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engraved on 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

814-407: 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

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888-446: A saponifying agent. It was found these records were much more durable. Problems arose, however, since there was no tempering agent and hot weather caused these records to decompose. Two problems contributed to this, stearic quality varied from different makers; Aylsworth purchased some from Proctor & Gamble and found it contained too much oleic acid. Stearic acid without a tempering agent takes on moisture, and after many experiments, it

962-415: A table then put in lukewarm water. The water caused the records to shrink in diameter so that they could be removed. The records were then trimmed, dried and cleaned, then later put on warm mandrels for 2 hours where they shrank evenly. Jonas Aylsworth developed this formula. In 1908, Edison introduced Amberol Records which had a playing time of just over 4 minutes. The process of making the finished record

1036-609: A time became the third best selling brand in the United States, behind Victor and Columbia Records . With World War I various materials used in Edison Discs came in short supply, and many discs pressed during the war were made hastily and with inferior materials, notably a reformulated phenolic finishing varnish that was introduced when European chemical supplies were cut off. This resulted in problems with surface noise even on new records, and Edison's market share shrank. Prior to

1110-448: Is Edison 694, "Mamma’s Black Baby Boy", recorded in 1893. There are two copies left, one in the Library of Congress and one privately owned. This may also be the earliest barbershop quartet recording by a quartet of any ethnicity. This article on a United States singing group is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Edison Records Edison Records was one of

1184-474: Is a soft oily wax and would not hold up over many plays. They could be a number of formulas tested by Jonas Aylsworth, Thomas Edison 's chemist. Most of the surviving 1888 recordings would be formulated from a combination of ceresin wax, carnauba wax, stearic acid , and beeswax . A record of this kind has a cigar-like smell and is physically very soft when first molded. In a year's time, the record would harden quite considerably. To play these first cylinders,

1258-563: Is the Fifth Regiment March , played by Issler's Orchestra ). At first, the only customers were entrepreneurs who installed nickel-in-the-slot phonographs in amusement arcades, saloons and other public places. At that time, a phonograph cost the equivalent of several months' wages for the average worker and was driven by an electric motor powered by hazardous, high-maintenance wet cell batteries. After more affordable spring-motor-driven phonographs designed for home use were introduced in 1895,

1332-444: Is used to create "mothers" and these are then further processed to make working molds. The Gold molded record used an aluminum-based wax, like the post-1896 Edison brown wax. However, carnauba wax was added, as well as pine tar and lampblack resulting in a black, shiny, durable record. The molds with mandrels placed in the center were heated and dipped in a tank of the molten wax. These were removed and trimmed while still hot and put on

1406-473: The Edison Diamond Disc Record was introduced. Edison Laboratories had been experimenting with disc records for some 3 years, as the general public seemed to prefer them to cylinders. The thick Edison Discs recorded the sound vertically in the groove at a rate of 150 grooves-per-inch (GPI) rather than the typical laterally-cut groove of around 100 GPI, which gave 10-inch (250 mm) Edison discs

1480-714: 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

1554-515: The Goldman Band conducted by founder Edwin Franko Goldman , jazz performers Eva Taylor and Clarence Williams , and radio personalities like Vaughn De Leath and "The Radio Franks" (Frank Bessinger and Frank Wright). Classical performers who became Edison artists in the late 1920s included pianists E. Robert Schmitz and Moriz Rosenthal , violinists Arcadie Birkenholz and Erna Rubinstein ,

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1628-648: The Metropolitan Opera providing the live vocal performance. After the war, disc quality improved substantially as better quality ingredients became available again, and in the brief postwar boom Edison regained status in the industry. Sales for Edison discs peaked in 1920, but declined incrementally thereafter. In 1926, an attempt at reviving interest in the Edison Disc was with a 450-GPI long-playing disc, acoustically recorded and still spinning at 80 rpm, with times of 24 minutes per 10-inch (250 mm) disc and 40 for

1702-475: The Roth Quartet , tenors José Mojica and Giovanni Martinelli , and baritone Mario Basiola . Despite these efforts and constant experimentation at the Edison plant and their New York studio (including moving from 79 Fifth Avenue to more modern premises at 261 Fifth Avenue in early 1929), record sales and morale continued to drop – in fact, one Edison executive later asserted that Edison discs had lost money from

1776-559: The Unique Quartet . A significant technological development at the Edison Laboratories was devising a method to mass-produce pre-recorded phonograph cylinders in molds. This was done by using very slightly tapered cylinders and molding in a material that contracted as it set. To Edison's disappointment, the commercial potential of this process was not realized for some years. Most of the regional Edison distributors were able to fill

1850-499: The model B reproducer must be used. The other later reproducers (such as C) were only designed for the harder black "wax" records. A later reproducer would shave down the grooves very fast, and the sound would be lost forever. In late 1888, metallic soaps were tried. At first, a lead stearate was used, but in the summer months, these records started to sweat and decompose. In 1889, Aylsworth developed an aluminum wax, using acetate of alumina and stearic acid with sodium hydroxide added as

1924-416: 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 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

1998-504: 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

2072-491: 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

2146-500: 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,

2220-604: 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

2294-497: 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

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2368-408: The beginning – and although Edison Diamond Discs were available from dealers until 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. In 1928 the Edison company began plans for making "Needle Cut" records; by which they meant standard lateral cut discs like the "78s" marketed by almost every other company of

2442-457: The celluloid to the side of the heated mold and printed the negative record in positive on the celluloid. The bladder was then deflated, and cold air was used to shrink the tubing so the celluloid print could be removed. The printed tubing was put in a plaster filler. When the plaster was hard the cylinders were then baked in an oven, then ribs made on the inside of the plaster with knives. The records were cleaned and then packaged. In October 1912

2516-471: The commercial development of electric lighting , playing no further role in the development of the phonograph for nearly a decade. Edison's original phonograph recorded on sheets of tinfoil and was little more than a crude curiosity, although one that fascinated much of the public. These earliest phonographs were sold mainly to entrepreneurs who made a living out of traveling around the country giving "educational" lectures in hired halls or otherwise demonstrating

2590-420: 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

2664-407: 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

2738-542: The device to audiences for a fee. The tinfoil phonograph was not fit for any real practical use and public interest soon waned. In 1887, Edison turned his attention back to improving the phonograph and the phonograph cylinder . The following year, the Edison company debuted the Perfected Phonograph. Edison introduced wax cylinders approximately 4 + 1 ⁄ 4 inches (11 cm) long and 2 + 1 ⁄ 4 inches (5.7 cm) in external diameter, which became

2812-604: The early record labels that pioneered sound recording and reproduction , and was an important and successful company in the early recording industry . The first phonograph cylinders were manufactured in 1888, followed by Edison's foundation of the Edison Phonograph Company in the same year. The recorded wax cylinders, later replaced by Blue Amberol cylinders, and vertical-cut Diamond Discs, were manufactured by Edison's National Phonograph Company from 1896 on, reorganized as Thomas A. Edison, Inc. in 1911. Until 1910

2886-486: The employees were transferred to manufacturing radios. Edison's remaining wax masters and thousands of metal master molds, including unissued experimental recordings dating to several years before Diamond Discs were commercially introduced (many in a never-released 12-inch (300 mm) format), were purchased by Henry Ford , and became part of the collection of the Henry Ford Museum . They were recently deaccessioned by

2960-426: The grooves of the cylinders were square, and the sound waves were saw-tooth-shaped and deep. The records came out scratchy and it was very time-consuming. The Gold Molded process involved taking a wax master and putting it in a vacuum chamber. The master record was put on a spinning mandrel, a pump removes the air from a glass bell jar, and two pieces of gold leaf were attached to an induction coil. Electrical current

3034-486: The industry of producing recorded entertainment cylinders for sale to the general public began in earnest. Blank records were an important part of the business early on. Most phonographs had or could be fitted with attachments for the users to make their own recordings. One important early use, in line with the original term for a phonograph as a "talking machine", was in business for recording dictation. Attachments were added to facilitate starting, stopping, and skipping back

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3108-506: The industry standard. They had a maximum playing time of about 3 minutes at 120 RPM , but around the turn of the century the standard speed was increased to (first 144) and then 160 RPM to improve clarity and volume, reducing the maximum to about 2 minutes and 15 seconds. Several experimental wax cylinder recordings of music and speech made in 1888 still exist. The wax entertainment cylinder made its commercial debut in 1889 (a relatively well-preserved and freely available example from that year

3182-607: 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

3256-421: 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

3330-657: The local Edison retailers early practice of producing recordings in small numbers for regional markets, and helped concentrate the USA recording industry in the New York City – New Jersey area, already the headquarters of the nation's Tin Pan Alley printed music industry. In 1902, Edison's National Phonograph Company introduced Edison Gold Moulded Records , cylinder records of improved hard black wax, capable of being played hundreds of times before wearing out. These new records were under

3404-462: The mixture, and how to process it, but no idea as to what the ingredients actually were. It took over a year for Columbia to come up with the formula for cylinders. Columbia placed an ad in the Soap Makers' Journal for a practical man to work with metallic soaps. Adolph Melzer, a soap manufacturer from Evansville, Indiana took the job. Melzer devised a formula comparable to Edison's with the exception of

3478-624: 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",

3552-592: The museum and sent to the Edison Historic Site (National Park Service) in New Jersey. Some of the Edison catalogue is in the public domain and available for download at the Library of Congress website. Phonograph cylinder 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),

3626-402: The names of the components used by Edison were not labeled with ingredients but were instead indicated by number (i.e. 1, 2, 3) keeping the identities of these components a secret. Paraffin , ceresine , and ozokerite all look similar, making the tempering agent even more difficult to identifify by the wax mixer. Wax mixers were given instructions on how much of each numbered component to put in

3700-415: 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

3774-528: The new Blue Amberol Records , made out of a type of smooth, hard plastic similar to celluloid invented by Edison labs, were introduced for public sale. The first release was number 1501, a performance of the Rossini 's overture to his opera Semiramide , performed by the American Standard Orchestra. The plastic Blue Amberol records were much more durable than wax cylinders. The Edison lab claimed

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3848-402: 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

3922-464: 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

3996-522: The record business in November 1929. However, from January 1915 onwards these were simply dubs of their commercial disc records intended for customers who still used cylinder phonographs purchased years before. The book, "Edison Cylinder Records, 1889-1912," by Allen Koenigsberg, APM Press, lists and dates all American Edison wax cylinders (2-4 min.); ISBN   0-937-612-07-3 . Cylinders that are mentioned from 1888 are sometimes called "yellow paraffin" cylinders, but these cylinders are not paraffin , which

4070-401: The recording for dictation and playback by stenographers. The business phonograph eventually evolved into a separate device from the home entertainment phonograph. Edison's brand of business phonograph was called The Ediphone ; see Phonograph cylinder and Dictaphone . Edison also holds the achievement of being one of the first companies to record the first African-American quartet to record:

4144-562: 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 a thicker all-wax cylinder, the surface of which could be repeatedly shaved down for reuse. Both

4218-464: The recordings did not carry the names of the artists. The company began to lag behind its rivals in the 1920s, both technically and in the popularity of its artists, and halted production of recordings in 1929. Thomas A. Edison invented the phonograph , the first device for recording and playing back sound, in 1877. After patenting the invention and benefiting from the publicity and acclaim it received, Edison and his laboratory turned their attention to

4292-484: The small early market for recordings by mechanical duplication of a few dozen cylinders at a time. Molded cylinders did not become a significant force in the marketplace until the end of the 1890s, which was when molding was slow and was used only to create pantograph masters. Before using metal cylinders though Edison used paraffin paper. Mass-producing cylinders at the Edison recording studio in New Jersey largely ended

4366-535: The tempering agent (using cocinic acid, derived from coconut oil instead.) In 1901 The Gold Molded (originally spelled Moulded) process was perfected for commercial use by Thomas Edison and Jonas Aylsworth (Edison's Chemist) with input from Walter Miller, the Recording Manager of Edison Records. This discussion was gleaned from facts provided by Walter Miller, Jonas Aylsworth, Thomas Edison, Adolphe Melzer, and Charles Wurth. At first, no method of mass production

4440-405: The tension between the styli to control recording volume and tracking. The Edison team experimented with Vacuum Deposited Gold masters as early as 1888, and it has been reported that some brown wax records were molded, although this is unproven. The Edison Record, "Fisher Maiden", was an early record that was experimented with for the process. The 1888 experiments were not successful due to the fact

4514-453: The time, but they sold poorly not only because Edison's market share had declined to the point where it was no longer one of the leading companies and Edison had few distributors compared to leaders like Victor , Columbia , and Brunswick , but also because their brief existence did not allow them to establish any kind of market presence. After Edison Records closed down in October 1929, many of

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4588-420: The time. Although several hundred lateral cut masters and stampers had been made by January 1929, the first "Needle Cut" discs were not released until August, and new titles were issued at a rate of only a few at a time each week for ten weeks before the company ceased record sales, thus only about 100 titles ever commercially appeared. The audio fidelity was often comparable to the best of other record companies of

4662-412: The war Edison Records started a marketing campaign, hiring prominent singers and vaudeville performers to perform alongside and alternating with Edison records of their performances played on top-of-the-line "Laboratory Model" Edison Diamond Disc Phonographs. At various stages during the performances, all lights in the theater would be darkened and the audience challenged to guess if what they were hearing

4736-568: The working title of "Edison Hi-Speed Extra Loud Moulded Records", running at the speed of 160 RPM instead of the usual (ca. 1898–1902) speed of 144 RPM or (ca. 1889–1897) 120 RPM. Until ca. 1898, Edison's speed was 125 RPM. In 1908, Edison introduced a new line of cylinders (called Amberol ) playing 4 rather than 2 minutes of music on the same sized record, achieved by shrinking the grooves and spacing them twice as close together. New machines were sold to play these records, as were attachments for modifying existing Edison phonographs. In November 1912,

4810-419: 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

4884-452: Was applied, and a magnet was spun around the outside to turn the mandrel, and the gold vaporized applying a very thin coating on the master. This master was put on a motor in a plating tank and copper was used to back the gold. The master record was melted, then taken out of the mold to reveal a negative of the grooves in the metal. The master cylinder had to have the wider feed as the grooves shrink in length through each process. The master mold

4958-461: Was available for cylinder records. Copies were made by having the artist play over and over or by hooking two machines together with rubber tubing (one with a master cylinder and the other a blank) or copying the sound mechanically. By the late 1890s, an improved mechanical duplicator, the pantograph , was developed which used mechanical linkage. One mandrel had a playback stylus and the other for recording, while weights and springs were used to adjust

5032-460: Was essentially the same as the Gold Molded records, however, a harder wax compound was used. In 1912, celluloid was used in place of wax, and the name was changed to Blue Amberol, as the dye was blue. What differed from earlier process was that a steam jacketed mold with an air bladder in the center was used. Celluloid tubing was put in the mold and the end gate was closed. The rubber bladder expanded

5106-548: Was found that Ceresine was ideal. To make the wax hard, sodium carbonate was added. Even so, a few batches of records still had problems and became fogged. The fog problem arose from acetic acid left in the wax and was solved when higher temperatures were used to make sure the acetic acid was boiled out of the wax. As such, the records from 1889 to 1894 are a reddish-brown color due to the long cooking time. By 1896, Edison started using hydrated alumina in place of acetate of alumina. The use of hydrated alumina (sheet aluminum dissolved in

5180-554: Was frantic to find a solution to make cylinder blanks in-house, and the recipe for making Edison's wax was a well-kept secret. Thomas MacDonald experimented with wax alloys with poor results: the records fogged or decomposed in the summer, just like the early Edison blanks. The Columbia company had a deadline to either supply recordings, or have their contracts canceled and be sued for loss of records. Columbia resorted to hiring old Edison Phonograph Works employees, such as Mr. Storms, in order to learn their secrets. Unfortunately for Columbia,

5254-515: Was live or recorded; accounts often said that much of the audience was astonished when the lights went back up to reveal only the Edison Phonograph on stage. According to a book published by the Edison company titled Composers and Artists whose Art is Re-Created by Edison's New Art (ca. 1920), the first such comparison test or "tone test" as Edison copywriters referred to them, took place at Carnegie Hall on April 28, 1916 with Marie Rappold of

5328-449: 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 the recording medium, and engraving, rather than indenting, as

5402-460: 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

5476-463: 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

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