Old Rubber Olates

[Walter]

I purchased several dozen 7" reels of tape from a flea market and one of the tapes ,copies of old recordings of Billy Holiday,is marked from old rubber plates.I wonder if the person who transfered them was in fact just calling old 78's rubber.Or was HARD RUBBER USED AT SOME TIME FOR RECORDS?
The tape is dated 1980.

[Craig Maier]

Chemical Formulations of 78 RPM Records

Walter,

I was under the impression that most 78 RPM records were made from a combination of ground up rock mixed with shellac (which is an excretion from an insect - - - Coccus Lacca). Details on the formulation of Edison Lateral Cut 78's can be found at the following link:

http://www.diamondcut.com/vforum/sho...ht=Rock+Record

But, you got my curiosity going, so I did a little searching on the net. I found that the first Berliner recordings from 1889 were made of vulcanized hard rubber. These records were sold more as toys than as a serious musical media. Certainly, however, they pre-date Billie Holiday's career by a long time period. I suspect that her recordings were mostly released on the standard shellac based 78 format, or perhaps a phenolic base.

Some other 78 RPM record formulations / record compositions include Celluoid, Phenolic, Durinoid and Metallic Soap. I even remember owning some childrens records in the early 1950's that were made of Vinyl to make them more "kid proof", since most shellac based 78's are pretty brittle.

[Walter]

Thanks for your research.I think the records transfered were in fact regular 78's.

[Dan McDonald]

Hi Walter -

Are these tapes of live performances, or does it look like commercially released material transferred to tape? Just curious.

Dan

[Walter]

Dan I think some one just copied records to tape.
Most of the tapes from that lot were copies from albums.
Dont think tapes were ever played after they were transfered,some of them are wrapped in aluminum foil and contents listed on outside of boxes.
The one marked OLD RUBBER PLATES dose not have a listing.
I also have many old NBC tapes from the fifties Several of Autro Toscanini and NBC Symphony in rehearsal and other programes.

[Dan McDonald]

I was given a batch of tapes about 15 years ago by the daughter of a music professor, who had heard that I was interested in old music and tapes. I went through them one by one - all various things from the 50s, some rock 'n roll 45s, some popular albums, some recordings of djs off the radio. Then one at the bottom marked "Pete Seeger." I put it on and instantly noticed it was "live." I called the woman who had given me the tapes and apparently the professor was a friend of Pete's and Pete had allowed him to set up a mic and open-reel recorder on the stage when he gave a concert at the university.

I tracked down the date by looking through the student newspaper at various reviews of Seeger's concerts through the years until I found one that described what had happened at this concert. I transferred to CD and sent Pete a copy - he was very happy to have it and sent a personal note of thanks back.

It's over 3 hours long, and really represents the college-folk scene in the mid-1950s better than anything else I've ever heard. The quality is still 1950s open-reel, but the experience is just great.

Dan

[Walter]

I recorded Web Pierce live at a performance at a local
club back in the late 70's and during a break he listened to my recording ( made on a Uher portable 4 speed like the one that got Nixon into truble) His comment was that sounds so good I might buy a copy.My Brotherinlaw was performing with Web is how I came to make this recording.
Some times used DAT tapes show up at flea markets they most allways have live music on them.