The Unwound Third > Phonograph Blues

Idiots Guide to Recording / Making 78 Shellac Records These Days?

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sustaireblues:
Very cool looking gizmo!
Okay, who's going to bite the bullet and check it out for us?  ;D

Joe

blueshome:
There are still some disc cutters around which pop up on the second hand market occasionally but they require a lot of expertise and maintenance to keep going and rigging especially to record direct - the purest form. Use an RCA44 or similar and  all valve (tube) electronics unless you want to record acoustically through horn....... .

Geting somewhere to make a master would be possible but obtaining the right blend of "shellac" to produce the disc would be difficult I think, as would somewhere to press it..

The modern vinyl 78's will had been recorded to tape and transferred to disc in the same way as any other modern disc..

So, you've made your shellac 78, are you then going to play back on an old Victrola? The only way if you want to get the original sound.

However, the recording engineers of the 20's and 30's were geniuses when it came to setting up a room and placing mics (no they didn't set RJ up in the corner to sound better - it doesn't work in my experience), hence the listenable sounds we can still hear today despite the crudeness of the recording technology.

David Kaatz:
There is a group doing this now, called the 78 Project. Probably not shellac either, but direct to disk I believe. See:
http://the78project.com/ or:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/the78project/the-78-project-feature-length-documentary-film/posts
I was hipped to this when Roseanne Cash and her hubby John Leventhal were recorded by these folks. There is video available, search youtube.

Dave

Papa Pea Vine Patton:
You cut to lacquer disc (either direct or from tape source) and then plate it to produce metal parts to press 78's.

Lacquer is also what's used to make LP's.   Same process.

Lacquer (replacing beeswax) came into use in the 1930's.   I believe the Robert Johnson 78's were direct cut to lacquer.

All the retro 78's (like Waits / Beach Boys etc.) that come out now are microgroove vinyl.    Not widegroove shellac.    And of course, they are not suited to play on anything but modern machines.

I don't know where you'd get shellac now.    Shellac was just one of many different ingredients used in the production of 78, and not even the main one.    I think on average that a "shellac" 78 contains about 30% shellac mixed with a bunch of other things, depending on the brand.

Paramount used to use sand as an ingredient in their 78's, which I think at least partly accounts for why they are so noisy.

DanJM:
Maybe this could help http://www.vinylrecorder.com/index-e.html

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