Schu Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 (edited) The University of California at Santa Barbara library has undertaken an heroic digitization effort for its world-class archive of 19th and early 20th century wax cylinder recordings, and has placed over 10,000 songs online for anyone to download, stream and re-use. http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/index.php Edited November 10, 2015 by Schu 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimjimbo Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Mallette will be all over this for sure..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZEUS121996 Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 :emotion-21: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Awesome. Thanks for the link Schu. DL in progress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Wait a second....MP3? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted November 10, 2015 Author Share Posted November 10, 2015 (edited) I am looking... I wonder if there is an pay option for higher quality? frankly, there probably isn't a lot to gain in fidelity. Edited November 10, 2015 by Schu 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Travis In Austin Posted November 10, 2015 Moderators Share Posted November 10, 2015 What do you expect from college kids? They have been working on that for years, I guess they wanted to do it in one big batch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyOwn Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Double Awesome.....Thank You Schu :emotion-21: :emotion-22: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CECAA850 Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Mallette will be all over this for sure..... I hope he gets it out of his system before April. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted November 10, 2015 Author Share Posted November 10, 2015 Been listening for a few hours now online... it's nothing but awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldtimer Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 UCSB--changing the world, one party at a time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 A friend of mine worked at the Edison Hisoric site in Orange, NJ. They had different artists come in and record on wax cylinders, then transfer back to a digital format for cd release. While testing, my friend played his '30s National steel guitar. They liked it so much they decided to use/keep it. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 Mallette will be all over this for sure..... Haven't breathed yet... Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 Hardly anything like 10k as well over half are awaiting digitizing. However, an incredible journey to another time and technology. I am amazed at the quality of some of these. I was just listening to "I'm Going Back to Dixie" and marveling at the balance between the singers and the near perfect image of the band with all instruments evenly represented. I'll bet an attempt to do this today would be a miserable failure. These engineers had mastered a totally unforgiving medium. I am equally sure that by 1908 there were audio hobbyists sharing tips and tweaks and the best recordings...and arguing about the best materials for horns, needles, and tracking weights. This recording would have been considered "audiophile" IMHO. This is a wonderful collection and they've done a wonderful job of digitizing these without messing around with them. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted November 11, 2015 Author Share Posted November 11, 2015 (edited) so far I am loving it...will download them all listen to the chimes in this hawaiian song... awesome Edited November 11, 2015 by Schu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebes Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 Very cool. Lots of fun stuff to listen to. Thanks for sharing this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted November 12, 2015 Share Posted November 12, 2015 Edison used different kinds/sizes of horns depending on what was being recorded. Very interesting how they fine tuned the technology. He and others tried different materiels for the cylindrs as well, but i guess most folks know this. Bruce Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dingman Posted November 12, 2015 Share Posted November 12, 2015 One of the first "viral" videos I ever saw on the internet was of that gentleman attempting to show off a wax cylinder (I think on the original Laport tech show - can't even remember the name now). Thanks for sharing this Schu, very interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted November 12, 2015 Share Posted November 12, 2015 Isn't it interesting that around 35 years since it was first mooted the "laser" turntable or some other non-mechanical method of playing analog recordings has yet to be perfected? Granted, not a lot of demand for it anymore but as demonstrated here there are untold millions of old records yet to be digitized. I mentioned a few years ago that I thought it should be possible to digitize a recording the same way we do photographs. Scan it at very high resolution then let a computer "read" the groove information. A complex program, for sure, but one that is conceivable and so possible. Such a program could easily separate impulse noises and such and would eliminate the mechanical noise of the stylus against the groove wall entirely. I read back in the very earliest days of digital audio (70s) that it was believed that stereo information was encoded on acoustic recordings that a computer could recreate. This is due to the time/phase relationships due to the distance and angle from the horn of each instrument. That would be interesting, indeed, and one would think we'd have the horsepower today to achieve it. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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