Hi Mike:
That's great news about the old Bell Labs records! A couple of years ago, those of us on the AES
Historical Committee looking into having the master tapes for those LPs digitized and released as a
CD by the AES. We could never track down who actually owns the tapes nowadays and who owns the
rights to the recordings.
It would be much better for Ward Marston to go back and re-master from the source disks, and release
as a CD or higher-resolution download. I have listened to the Bell Labs LPs many times and enjoy
them very much as historical documents. If Ward Marston is saying he can do even better as far as
higher fidelity and less surface noise, that's fantastic.
Question -- was anyone involved with optical recording doing sync'd tracks stereo before 1931? If
so, do any of those recordings survive? I'm not talking about various "accidental stereo" stuff, I'm
talking about intentional 2 (or more) mics recording a single source feeding separate recording
tracks (in the optical-recording world of that time, I'd assume it would be two or more sync-locked
recorders, one for each mic).
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Biel" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Alan Blumlein 1933 stereo recordings
All too often it is forgotten that Arthur C. Keller of Bell Labs was
doing stereo recording of the Capitol Theater Orch as early as 1927
(those masters seem to have been pilfered from Bell) and with Stokowski
and the Philadelphia Orch in 1931 and 32, stereo starting in March 1932.
Some Stokie recordings were issued on 2 LPs by Bell Telephone Pioneers,
and Ward Marston announced at ARSC NYC a few months ago that he is
planning on re-doing those recordings because he can do a much better
job now and that he was never satisfied with the LPs -- his tapes
sounded a lot better. Although the Keller stereo recordings were two
groove, he was also working on a single groove 45-45 system for which he
was awarded patent 2,114,471.
http://www.stokowski.org/Harvey%20Fletcher%20Bell%20Labs%20Recordings.htm
Mike Biel [log in to unmask]
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Alan Blumlein 1933 stereo recordings
From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, June 27, 2012 6:58 am
To: [log in to unmask]
Hi Don:
This seems to be the recording of which you write:
http://shop.lpo.org.uk/shop/recordings/detail.asp?5004,0,0,0,0
I listened to the sound sample, which is allegedly a "stereo" and to my
ears, the music is coming
just from the center (ie mono) but there's different disk surface noise
on the left and right sides.
I've heard more impressive Blumlein stereo, I think in a BBC radio
documentary. Is there anything
better on that CD?
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 5:40 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Alan Blumlein 1933 stereo recordings
> On 26/06/2012, Michael Shoshani wrote:
>
>> On 06/26/2012 06:04 AM, Bewley, Nigel wrote:
>>> Alan Dower Blumlein (1903-1942) was a prolific British inventor and
>>> innovator of technology and was involved in projects as diverse as
>>> the development of radar and sound recording. In 1933 he developed
>>> his ideas on recording audio in stereo and the rest, as is often
>>> said, is history....
>>>
>>> Listen to Blumlein's experiments in stereo recording on the British
>>> Library Sounds website here:
>>>
>>> http://sounds.bl.uk/Sound-recording-history/Alan-Blumlein-recordings
>>>
>>> Nigel Bewley
>>> British Library Sound & Vision
>>>
>>
>> It's a pity that the Beecham material is unavailable outside the EU.
>> The EMI centenary box set seemed to have no stereo separation
>> whatsoever on the Blumlein/Beecham material it contained.
>>
>> I am curious as to why Beecham is restricted, when at least two other
>> recorder tests that clearly contain material derived from gramophone
>> records (and thus under the same copyright) are very much available
>> outside the EU. Is it because the two grams-sourced recorder tests are
>> pretty much a cacophony and thus perhaps not considered musical?
>>
>>
> Do you have the CD "Beecham Conducts Pioneering 1930s Sound Recordings"
> LPO-0040 ?
>
> This contains exceprpts from the Jupiter Symphony in stereo, and
> Blumlein's "Walking, Talking" tests.
>
> There are also examples of early German tape recordings from 1936 (in
> mono).
>
> Regards
> --
> Don Cox
> [log in to unmask]
>
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