Muzak and Vinylite 4 Ever

A commenter on this blog recently suggested that the upside of Muzak was that they created the vinyl record. This is not conjecture. In fact, according to Muzak’s own website, in 1933 they “began transmitting music over phone lines. Central studios played records – the first 33 1/3 rpm records and the first ever done on vinylite rather than shellac.” This is a claim to have made used and broadcasted the first vinyl records in existence. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. More here.

In 1948 Columbia records began marketing the 7-inch, 45-rpm vinyl discs we now refer to as 45s. In that era, they were described as being made of "vinylite." The first 45 rpm record players were actually developed by Philco in 1938; ten years earlier. But a WWII vinyl shortage and continuing success with shellac 78s. 

But these were not the first vinyl records. Let's back up. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) what we call vinyl was first invented in 1838, by Henri Victor Regnault. It was invented again by Eugen Baumann in 1872. Neither  ever applied for a patent. So when Emile Berliner invented the record in 1888 and chose to use vulcanized rubber it wasn't because of patent infringement. There were two reasons. PVC is too soft for the mechanical playback devices  from that era. Their amplification was powered by friction. In 1913, Friedrich Klatte took did patent PVC but only in Germany. That's all beside the point, it wasn't until 1926 that Waldo L. Semon invented plasticized PVC.  This plastic had far greater utility, the Navy began using it as wire insulation. It's only after this date that we can seriously entertain vinyl records.

Sure enough it's only a few years later, in 1930 that RCA Victor vinyl long-playing records. these were marketed as "Program Transcription" discs. They were 12 inches in diameter and spun at 33.3 rpm. Roland Gelatt's book The Fabulous Phonograph, attributes the commercial failure of the device to the financial strain of the great depression. It was not a good time to debut a new media format with new playback devices. RCA's deluxe line of electric phonographs such as the RAE-59 were designed to handle playback. They were made of a plastic they called "Vitrolac" and it was made of PVC.  These were unquestionably the first vinyl records. You can argue that Muzak as an early adopter helped the format, but arguing that they were the fist to broadcast them requires that we believe no one else tried it for 3 years. Dubious.

Plastic Precursors

Oh plastic, how you both simplify and complicate our lives. We don't use it in baby bottles anymore because maybe it leaches hormone-mimicking chemicals. But it's still the chassis of virtually every electronic device, and certainly every portable radio. People are going back to glassware for food storage over similar fears, but it still coats all electrical wiring everywhere. Where would I be without saran-wrap and wiffle bats?  From the aglets of our shoe laces to the bezel of the car stereo... plastic is everywhere. Real modern plastics are over 100 years old. Below is a list of landmarks in plastics for better or worse.

The modern word plastic originates in the Latin word "plasticus" from the Greek "plastikos" meaning moldable in the sense that clay and mud are moldable. The modern definition of the word plastic dates to 1905 from it's use by Leo Baekeland the inventor of Bakelite. Interestingly source cite his use prior to his invention...  The idea surely came from the popular use of vulcanized rubber invented by Goodyear in 1839. Before that little in the home was elastic. Thomas Hancock stole his patent in the UK. But we didn't coat wires in it. We only had started using gutta-percha after it's 1843 discovery by William Montgomerie. Nothing else was even slightly flexible. All we had was shellac and lacquer (cellulose acetate). More here.

The first real plastic was Polystyrene. It was discovered in 1839 by Eduard Simon. His early attempt rendered it from a natural resin. But it's commercial scale manufacture was only developed by BASF in the 1930s. Xylonite and Parkesine were invented in the 1860s and reinvented as Celluloid in 1863 by John Wesley Hyatt. But it wasn't a good insulator; too flammable. real modern plastics start in 1872 with PVC. Below is a list of the highlights.

• 1839 - Ploystyrene - Eduard Simon (first sold in the US in 1937)
• 1872 - PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) - first created by Eugen Baumann 
• 1894 - Rayon - Charles Frederick Cross, Edward John Bevan 
• 1908 - Cellophane - Jacques E. Brandenberger 
• 1909 - Bakelite (Phenol-Formaldehyde) - Leo Hendrik Baekeland 
• 1926 - Vinyl (plasticized PVC) - Walter Semo
• 1933 - Saran Wrap (Polyvinylidene chloride)  - Ralph Wiley, at Dow
• 1935 - LDPE (Low-density polyethylene)- Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett
• 1936 - Acrylic (Polymethyl Methacrylate) -Otto Rohm
• 1937 - Polyurethane - Otto Bayer
• 1938 - Teflon (Tetrafluoroethylene) - Roy Plunkett, at DuPont
• 1939 - Nylon and Neoprene - Wallace Hume Carothers
• 1941 - PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) - Whinfield and Dickson 
• 1951 - Polypropylene - Paul Hogan and Robert Banks 
• 1954 - Styrofoam - Ray McIntire, at Dow
• 1970 - Mylar (Thermoplastic Polyester) - DuPont
• 1978 - LLDP (Linear Low Density Polyethylene) - ICI corp.
• 1985 - Kevlar (Liquid Crystal Polymer) - Stephanie Kwolek, at DuPont

The plastic we use in electrical insulation in wiring is PVC, aka vinyl. This is not because it is best at resisting the electrical potential. There are quantifiable qualities to electrical wiring that pushed the world into PVC. Firstly, wiring has to be flexible. A rigid wire would never be able to get from the circuit breaker to your stereo on the 2nd floor. A rigid wire would also be impossible to loop across a circuit board. It's nice for it to be fire resistant too.

But after that we quickly get to electrical qualities. We measure it's electrical insulating properties as volume resistivity or dielectric strength. Volume resistivity is expressed in terms of sample resistance, which is measured in ohms. All very dry and scientific. Dielectric strength is more fun. It is expressed in terms of destruction of test samples by various voltage magnitudes. Ceramic has excellent dielectric strength, but is entirely inflexible. Polypropylene, Polystyrene and Polyethylene all have superior resistivity but fail on the fire test. Teflon is superior to all of them in resistivity but it's famous non-stick slipperiness allows things like gaskets to creep out of position. the result is that each application has an ideal plastic with no sole single right answer. More here.

A History of Vinyl

It was the year 1950 that improvements in the manufacture of Polyvinyl Chloride (also called PVC or vinyl finally spelled the death of Shellac records. Here.

Vinyl was initially discovered by was discovered by French physicist Henri Victor Regnault, and it's first practical production process designed by Fritz Klatte (pictured) in 1912. He discovered that the reaction between acetylene and acetic acid could be catalyzed to produced vinyl chloride. This predated it's use in media by such a long period of time that his patent expired in 1925. One year later it was rediscovered by Waldo Semon, who recognized its potential and patented it for the second time. His employers at B.F Goodrich used it for insulation, raincoats, shower curtains and gaskets. More here.

After it's benefits were demonstrated, (durability, flexibility and longevity) it was adopted as the new material for record production. On June 26th 1948 in New York CBS called a press conference to announce the introduction of the LP or long player. 12 inches wide, turning at 33 1/3 and using the innovation of vinyl had resulted in a record that could hold up to 30 minutes of music per side! It was called "microgroove" technology.

RCA retaliated by bringing their own vinyl medium to the market, a 7-inch 45 rpm micro-groove vinyl single and compatible turn table.

By 1954 45 rpm singles were out on vinyl making available a higher fidelity single and then about 8 years later RCA debuted the stereo LP, an innovation that would have been impossible on shellac.

Lac beetles and your record player

Lac is a substance that is secreted by the insect "Coccus lacca" or "Laccifer lacca" often referred to as the lac beetle. It belongs to the family of mealy bugs called “Coccoidea”. For the record it is not actually a beetle its a butterfly larvae. This substance is collected by hand from a variety of trees that play host to the insect. The main lac host trees are Palas, Ber and Kusum. On an average three hundred thousand insects produce one kilogram of lac resin.
The bags of sticklac are heated over an open fire. As the lac melts, the bags of lac are squeezed with a tourniquet producing enough pressure to force the melted lac to the outside surface of the bag. Much of the lac is processed into thin sheets which are crushed into brittle flakes for preservation and storage. Here is a mp3 blog focusing on shellac 78s. And an eBook for kids.

The raw Lac called "Sticklac" is harvested from tree trunks and branches. The lac is then cleaned and processed into a variety of different forms including industrial shellac, food grade shellac (Ex. jelly beans) and even that stinky goo we use to finish old furniture. Yes, Shellac is non-toxic and is approved for use in food by the FDA. More here. and Here.

It was Edison that first used Shellac to make his recording cylinders, it was an innovation that followed had wax cylinders. Record gooves cut into shellac survived playback much better than wax as you might imagine. But this has been a decade of rapid media change...

During WWI, demand was high among the homesick troops for music from America. As a result special 12 and 16 inch radio transcription records playing at 33 1/3 were shipped to special army DJs and POWs in order to boost morale. They contained both important troop information and top hits of the day, often recorded free of charge by big artists such as Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters. These were called "V-discs." The "V" stands for Victory.

Shellac is brittle and V-discs often arrived cracked or broken, and as Japan invaded Asia the source of shellac, the Lac beetle of South Asia, became scarce. Shellac discs also had undesirable technical shortfalls: the playing time discs was limited to 10 minutes per side. With shellac there was a groove density limitation of about 80 per inch, more than that risked the groove walls collapsing. And making discs larger than 16 inches to increase playtime was just unfeasible. A new medium was needed! Enter a Polyvinyl Chloride also called PVC or more commonly... vinyl. (more on that tomorrow...)