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Hi Randy, Can you tell us  which speed these mp3's represent?  33 1/3? 
32?

Tim Gillett

Perth,
Western Australia


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Randy A. Riddle" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2019 10:39 AM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] An Odd Radio Transcription


> In a few weeks on my blog, I'm going to be posting a rather odd
> transcription disc I ran into a few months ago.
>
> At least I think it's a transcription disc.
>
> It's a ten inch laminated Columbia pressing from Sollie & MacGregor.
> It's "Coleman Cox", program 11 on one side and program 12 on the
> other.  The matrix numbers are MS-1311 and 1312.  The matrix also
> includes the show title and number and the notations "Time 4:50" and
> "Time 4:51".
>
> Cox was an author from California who published some books in the
> 1920s.  I found him in some radio listings from the NY Times and the
> LA Times from around 1935 where he's described as a "Philosopher".
> The shows are odd, in that early to mid-30s kind of way, with Cox just
> saying some kind of pithy proverbs with a bell sounding after each
> one.  The theme song of the show is "Jingle Bells", oddly enough.
> Each show runs about five minutes with a proper intro and outro.
>
> Sounds normal for a 30's transcription so far, right?
>
> Well, here's the weird part - the disc runs at about 32 rpm.  If you
> play it at 33 1/3, it sounds like Mickey Mouse and obviously isn't the
> right speed.  I manually adjusted the speed when I transferred the
> disc so it sounded right and checked the actual speed with the RPM app
> on my iPhone.
>
> Anyone hear of an odd speed being used on purpose like this in the 30s
> for transcriptions?  Was this some kind of production/mastering error?
>
> If this was intentional, perhaps to save on syndicating a five minute
> show on a ten inch rather than twelve-inch disc, I can't see an odd
> speed disc like this going over well with station engineers.
>
> When I first got the disc and previewed it, noticing I had to really
> dial down the speed, I thought it might have been mastered at the
> British Talking Book speed used about that time, but that was 24 rpm,
> which is much slower than what we have here.
>
> Any ideas on this oddity?  I've owned a lot of transcriptions over
> various time periods and never run into an off-speed disc like this.
>
> Here's a link to label scans and mp3s of the content if you want to
> puzzle over it for a bit.
>
> https://duke.box.com/s/ioohdj1uiqifk8yfagshphqzesu1o0qy
>
> Thanks!
>
> Randy
>
> -- 
>
> Randy A. Riddle
> Mebane, NC
> Cool Cat Daddy Productions
> www.coolcatdaddy.com
> [log in to unmask] 


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