It was immediately concerning. This transcription disc started at the center, the opposite of modern convention. It's easy to absorb the direction but the physicals were strangely difficult to visualize. The record only ever can spin in one direction. That direction is clock-wise. 
There is only one groove on either side of an LP (typically) This groove runs from the center to the outside edge. But the spiral can be clock-wise or counter clock-wise. That spiral determines if the needle needs dropped at the center or at the edge. [The hum is in the original recording]On August 10th, 1943 John Miller recorded two songs on a 78 rpm Audiodisc transcription disc. Both sides start at the center. He even credited the original writers of each song. The Lord's Prayer is by Albert Hay Malotte, and Open the Gates is by Phoebe Palmer Knapp. I don't know anything about our vocalist, John Miller, except that he gifted this recording to a woman named Betty with the following caveat:
"What a disillusionment! You had an idea I could sing the Lord's Prayer I see now I should have never tried to record it. In addition to being in bad voice & playing for myself...believe it or not, I was plenty nervous. Hope the novelty of it at least will give you some pleasure out of playing this."
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Hi there, Instantaneous records were frequently recorded from the center out, called "center start", because of the recording process itself. When the record was made, a tiny swirl of cellulose nitrate was removed from the laminate. It would tend to gather in the middle of the record. If you record starting at the center of the record, the swirl gathers "behind" the cutter. If recording from the outside in, the swirl might become entangled in the cutter, spoiling the recording. An operator would stand by with a little brush to remove the waste as the record was made to prevent this. I doubt there was an operator in this case, as the vocalist mentions that he played the piano himself, sang the song, it isn't too much of a stretch that he operated the recording device as well. Nice Xfer, regards Joe Salerno
ReplyDeleteI hadn't considered the scrapings, that makes perfect sense for the center start in that case. What's strange then is that the majority of discs start on the outer edge. glad you like the transfer, My Rek-O-Kut does a decent job but the original recording was so faint it was a struggle to get a decent signal-to-noise ratio.
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