Some test transfers and audio restorations I recently made from a number of Edison Diamond Discs and vintage 78 recordings from circa 1916 to 1928.

Recordings of Antiquity...

I found a this very early recording of a Pianoforte solo by Harriet Cohen of Bach's Fugue No.1 In C Minor (BWV 846) from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I on a Columbia "Magic Note" 78rpm record dated October 11th 1928 which makes it one of the earliest known commercial recordings of this piece.  

Just to put this in context - the truly amazing thing to think about is that microphones and electric disk cutting had only been in use for 3 years prior to this recording – all recordings prior to 1925 were basically people playing huddled around enormous acoustic horns directly driving the cutting machine.

It was one of a two part series Columbia released covering several of the 24 preludes and fugues Bach published in 1722.

During this era Johann Sebastian Bach was Capellmeister and Director of the Chamber-music of the Prince of Anhalt-Cothen.

It was transferred with a lovely old 1958 Pye Black box I restored and modified it with a transformer based balanced output for direct recording via the tube amp and tone controls.

Surface noise reduction and click removal along with some EQ was applied in iZotope RX and just a touch of reverb was added to help smooth things out a little.

First issued on Columbia L-2239 in 1928.

78rpm Transfer and Audio Restoration by D.A.Wilson, March 2022.

J.S.Bach Fugue No.1 In C Minor BWV 846 (96 Year Old 78rpm Recording)

Edison DD 50285 Side "R"

It is hard to believe this acoustic recording is 106 years old!

Transferred from an acoustically recorded 10 inch Edison Diamond Disc "Re-Creation" recorded in 1916 literally measuring 1/4 inch thick and weighty with it!   

These unusual records ran at 80 RPM and the audio was not recorded as a lateral groove as with standard 78s but depth modulated similar to a wax cylinder recording requiring a special acoustic diamond pickup to play these records.

If you attempt to play these records on a conventional gramophone or mono record player almost no audio is heard.

I managed to transfer this recording by playing the record at 45 RPM recording the raw audio from one channel of a standard stereo cartridge fitted with a diamond stylus and then correcting the speed, applying an appropriate playback EQ curve, removing the clicks and surface noise in iZotope RX5.

Transfer & Audio Restoration by D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2019.

106 Year old Edison Diamond Disc: Rossini - William Tell (1916)

Edison DD 50285 Side "L"

Transferred from an acoustically recorded 10 inch Edison Diamond Disc "Re-Creation" recorded in 1916 literally measuring 1/4 inch thick!

These unusual records ran at 80 RPM and the audio was not recorded as a lateral groove as with standard 78s but depth modulated similar to a wax cylinder recording requiring a special acoustic diamond pickup to play these records.

If you attempt to play these records on a conventional gramophone or mono record player almost no audio is heard.

I managed to transfer this recording by playing the record at 45 RPM recording the raw audio from one channel of a standard stereo cartridge fitted with a diamond stylus and then correcting the speed, removing the clicks and surface noise in iZotope RX5.

Transfer & Audio Restoration by D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2019.

Edison Record Diamond Discs

108 Year old Edison Diamond Disc: Rossini - William Tell (1916)

Edison DD 80803 Side "R"

Transferred from an acoustically recorded 10 inch Edison Diamond Disc "Re-Creation" recorded in 1924 literally measuring 1/4 inch thick!

These unusual records ran at 80 RPM and the audio was not recorded as a lateral groove as with standard 78s but depth modulated similar to a wax cylinder recording requiring a special acoustic diamond pickup to play these records.

If you attempt to play these records on a conventional gramophone or mono record player almost no audio is heard.

I managed to transfer this recording by playing the record at 45 RPM recording the raw audio from one channel of a standard stereo cartridge fitted with a diamond stylus and then correcting the speed, removing the clicks and surface noise in iZotope RX5.

Transfer & Audio Restoration by D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2019.

100 Year old Edison Diamond Disc: A Suite of Serenades No. 1 (1924)

Edison DD 80803 Side "L"

Transferred from an acoustically recorded 10 inch Edison Diamond Disc "Re-Creation" recorded in 1924 literally measuring 1/4 inch thick!   

These unusual records ran at 80 RPM and the audio was not recorded as a lateral groove as with standard 78s but depth modulated similar to a wax cylinder recording requiring a special acoustic diamond pickup to play these records.

If you attempt to play these records on a conventional gramophone or mono record player almost no audio is heard.

I managed to transfer this recording by playing the record at 45 RPM recording the raw audio from one channel of a standard stereo cartridge fitted with a diamond stylus and then correcting the speed, removing the clicks and surface noise in iZotope RX5.

Transfer & Audio Restoration by D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2019.

100 Year old Edison Diamond Disc: A Suite of Serenades No. 3 (1924)

Twelve Talks on Melody by Sir Walford Davies - a series of music lectures transferred from 12 sides of rather worn acoustically recorded 78 rpm records first released in 1922.  

The now 102 year old raw recordings were digitally cleaned up in iZotope RX5.

HMV C1063-C1068

Transfer from original 78s and Audio Restoration by D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio.

Melody Lectures

Sir Walford Davies: Twelve Talks on Melody (1922)

D.A.Wilson is an Electronic Engineer, Sound Designer & Vintage Synth Specialist with a particular interest in combining vintage tube, classic analog and modern digital technologies working as a synth engineer looking after a very considerable amount of vintage studio equipment for Will Gregory (Goldfrapp / Moog Ensemble) and a number of other internationally celebrated electronic musicians and producers.  Having undertaken several major restorations and produced custom electronic designs for a number of major artists including Jean-Michel Jarre, Dani is also known for fully restoring two out of the world's four remaining 1979 Crumar GDS and partially restoring 1938 Novachord 346 (the only known operational Novachord in the UK) to playable order along with developing and producing the new Elfin family of 8-bit polysynths and the popular MIDI Front Panel Animator (FPA), Filter Defeat Module (FDM) and XD-280 Drive Emulator upgrades for the AKAI S612 sampler.

Demos of the S612 Upgrades in Action: 

https://soundcloud.com/hideaway-studio/sets/hideaway-studios-s612-front


Hideaway Studio Kontakt Sound libraries may be purchased directly from: 
https://www.lootaudio.com/category/kontakt-instruments/hideaway-studios
 

..and a nice introduction by Cory Pelizzari to the Hideaway Studio Kontakt Libraries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-C7a3ChC9U&feature=emb_title


For more on releases from Hideaway Studio for Kontakt please visit the blog at:  www.hideawaystudio.net