In the U.S. Pathe's first electrical recordings were done at Compo's New York studio. Record Research's Perfect issue had two pictures of a Pathe exec holding an "old" cylinder master and a 20-inch pressing (maybe from TMW). The article implied that lateral ("needle-cut" in Pathe parlance) was to be the preferred format. The home office was probably more reluctant to abandon vertical but in any event Pathe was very comfortable with dubbing and the idea of dual systems strikes me as unlikely.-David Diehl
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Smolian <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sat, Oct 10, 2020 9:25 pm
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Pathe transition from acoustic to electrical recording.
I am looking at the Ninon Valin discography in Record Collector 48 no. 2, June, 2003. The authors are Floris Juynboll, Richard Bebb and David Mason.
On page 110 they discuss Pathe's transition from hill and dale to lateral cut discs and the introduction of the electrical system and, apparently, a shift from the master cylinder to the wax disc recording medium. This is sometime in May, 1927. From 1926 through 1930, some items were also recorded and issued as electrically recorded vertical cut discs.
What is unclear is, when the electrical disc masters were made, were the lateral masters recorded on one machine simultaneously with the vertical on another with different matrix numbers, the same matrix number which, if so, must have confused the part schlepping crew no end, or was one copied from the other.
Signed,
Confused
Aka Steve Smolian
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