Eugene, If one has a wax cylinder player and a microphone and a tape recorder the transfer should be easy. One can't lose fidelity when recording to a higher fidelity medium (as long as one avoids ambient noise). A complicated system using the electrical output from the wax player to its speaker isn't needed, and in fact might be counter productive. The characteristics of the recording room might make a truer representation of the sound as it was heard by the listeners of the time than any direct transfer. Come to think of it, I don't think there was any electrical signal. I think the wax cylinder was like the early gramophone (which I had in the thirties) with a mechanical transfer of the vibrations to the speaker. Substituting a piezo-electric needle connection would probably make more noise. Better to play the cylinder and record it on a mic in an acoustically friendly room.
Best, Jon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eugene C. Braig IV" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:20 PM Subject: Re: early recordings > I know Neil Gladd <http://www.neilgladd.com/> is preparing a couple such > projects from early mandolin recordings (i.e., not recordings of early > mandolin) for Belmando Records <http://www.belmando.com/>. He's done such > stuff before and shared images of the work in progress. I can't recall if > he'd posted the images at his site somewhere or sent them by e-mail. In > any event, Yes, transfer from wax is done on occasion. > > Best, > Eugene > > At 12:12 PM 11/24/2004, timothy motz wrote: > >Tony, > >I wouldn't want to imagine what a wax-cylinder drive would look like. > >Talk about legacy equipment! I doubt that it would fit in the extra > >drive bay on a PC. And anyway, the memory capacity just wouldn't > >compare with a CD or even a Zip drive. > > > >Seriously though, there are companies (almost on the cottage industry > >level) that produce CDs from wax cylinders. I've dealt with a guy > >that markets a collection of American popular music from about 1900 > >through the 1920s that he's transfered from wax cylinders. I've > >added the music to museum audio presentations and kiosks. If there > >are early recordings available on wax cylinder, you can probably have > >them transferred. > > > >Tim Motz > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > >
