Wax Record Recording

[McGee2021]

I've had a magically large, heavy and over all bulky device known to some as an ediphone, to others a voicewriter, and to the 1 percent, a dictograph. Along with it a vast collection of unused wax rolls that go onto the shaft for recording. I have done numerous repairs on it, as has my father, my grand father, and my great-grand father. Even though it was obsolete technologie even when it was made, we have always found a use for it. Well, that's the thing. Right now, i'm out of uses for it. After a long, tedious day of thought for ideas for it, with none of them involving scrapping it, tearing it apart, or anything of any related matter, i finally had a simply wonderous idea. I could use it for recording NBTV. It records at a high speed, it can store on each role up to 20 minutes of sound, even though that my sound far-fetched, i have tested it and found it to be true, and, it has extremely high quality sound. With it, there would be no curve distortion as there would be on a phonovision disc. The only problem is, getting it to record. The handset that you speak into has a button on it that i have taken apart, and it is of very strange design. Not that it has multiple connections on it, it is just all-out strange. The handset also has a custom socket which you plug into the side of the cassi that is of unusual design also. The only help i need is the connetions of the socket on the chassis to the televisor camera. I also have an extremely rare attachment that looks like a normal telephone, works like a normal telephone, but plugs into the machine to record wired conversations. If pictures are needed of the interior, the socket, or any other part, i will be glad to post them. Sorry for the long description.

[Viewmaster]

I tried this a few years ago. My Edikow machine. See this.........
http://www.retinascope.co.uk/nbtv.html

Limited success, you may be better at it. I used a loudspeaker as a driver for the cutting stylus
which worked well. I ran at 375RPM ( 2 NBTV frames per rev)

The cylinder was driven with a DC motor using NBTV sync techniques to lock the speed
at exactly 375 RPM via a toothed belt drive.

It is very difficult not to either under or over modulate the grooves as the
cutting stylus MUST be kept at the same distance from the wax cylinder surface.
I used the 'ball in fron't system. (This is standard practice in disc recording)

Good luck if you try it

[Viewmaster]

Well that answer was a bloody waste of my time.

[McGee2021]

Well that answer was a bloody waste of my time.

Not quite. I have already ordered some tubes to make an amplifier that would be original to the 1930's. To tell you the truth, i think i might be able to improve on your system.

[Lawnboy]

I was actually considering trying this same experiment. I bought an Ediphone  dictation machine last summer with the intention of recording an unsynchronized NBTV signal and see what can be recovered. I got it working and managed to record a few seconds of sound, but the quality really is poor. The unit came with quite a few cylinders, unfortunately all but one are completely covered in mold and unusable for recording. If I had access to a shaver the cylinders could be refinished and made like new again, but those machines are rare so that seems unlikely.

[Viewmaster]

If you have access to a small lathe and a spare mandrel (buy on ebay), one can shave them yourself
with a razor suitably held in the lathe tool post !

Good quality sound is achieved by increasing recording speed and using a well damped recording stylus
mounted on parallelogram suspension driven by a loudspeaker .

[Harry Dalek]

If you have access to a small lathe and a spare mandrel (buy on ebay), one can shave them yourself
with a razor suitably held in the lathe tool post !

Good quality sound is achieved by increasing recording speed and using a well damped recording stylus
mounted on parallelogram suspension driven by a loudspeaker .

Hi Albert

Something i was wondering for a while since this is being discussed ,was your experiment a vertical or horizontal recording as in the recording method in the pictures posted ,you said parallelogram suspension ?

I tried some time back sound transmitting NBTV from a speaker to a mic via air the results were pretty poor worked great for the narrow SSTV bandwidth not the wider NBTV .

Something i didn't try was a sweep test to see where the problem was ,the speaker or mic or both must have a bandwidth range not sultable i was also wondering if you had tried recording a sweep test to see what bandwidth could be recorded,it must be possible as baird got video on records .

A while back i was looking at how others have done mechanical home made recorders they were using foil and cd and dvd for the record types and even the old laser analog video lp size disc ...funny the analog video still played after being cut with a sound recording ! no dvd would work after that i should think .

[Viewmaster]

If you have access to a small lathe and a spare mandrel (buy on ebay), one can shave them yourself
with a razor suitably held in the lathe tool post !

Good quality sound is achieved by increasing recording speed and using a well damped recording stylus
mounted on parallelogram suspension driven by a loudspeaker .

Hi Albert

Something i was wondering for a while since this is being discussed ,was your experiment a vertical or horizontal recording as in the recording method in the video you said parallelogram suspension ?

I used Lateral cut. Anyway a parallelogram mounting can be used for either way to control the stylus.
Just reverse it's mounting by 90 degrees for hill and dale.
I made mine with two thin pieces of phos bronze shim.

BTW, I was concerned at the time that the sync pulses would not be very reliable when replayed
from the wax cylinder so designed the system to generate then off cylinder recording separately.

[Harry Dalek]

I used Lateral cut. Anyway a parallelogram mounting can be used for either way to control the stylus.
Just reverse it's mounting by 90 degrees for hill and dale.
I made mine with two thin pieces of phos bronze shim.

BTW, I was concerned at the time that the sync pulses would not be very reliable when replayed
from the wax cylinder so designed the system to generate then off cylinder recording separately.

Was one way better or much the muchness good thinking of the idea to try both ways !

I suppose any one trying what you did will soon find out the problems you ran into some times things that seem easy can be very hard to solve !

[McGee2021]

I was actually considering trying this same experiment. I bought an Ediphone  dictation machine last summer with the intention of recording an unsynchronized NBTV signal and see what can be recovered. I got it working and managed to record a few seconds of sound, but the quality really is poor. The unit came with quite a few cylinders, unfortunately all but one are completely covered in mold and unusable for recording. If I had access to a shaver the cylinders could be refinished and made like new again, but those machines are rare so that seems unlikely.

Most of the older ones that i have were covered in mold, and i had to do a tedious restoration process as to not damage what was already on them. The ones that i had that were not recorded one i simply skimmed the mold off and put a fresh coat of blue wax on them. I made extras by taking old ones, skimming all off the wax off, and putting a mold around them. I tried to use a cardboard tube, but the rolls have a special slope on the interior to keep them from sliding off the machine. I have all three machines, only the shaver was working when i recieved it. The picture is the telephone attachment i was speaking of in the first post.

[Viewmaster]

I used Lateral cut. .

Correction..........that should read hill and dale cut.

[DrZarkov]

Electric recorded cylinders can sound very good, as this example of a new recorded record on a plastic cylinder shows: http://www.vulcanrecords.com/shop/misce ... n-england/
I think with lateral cut on normal PVC (vinyl) tubes (10 cm diameter) the quality could be so much improved, that there will be practically no difference to an LP, even with the common 80 RPM. There are many examples of home made records on normal vinyl, sounding as good as a commercial record. One trick, beside good mechanics, is to record it with half speed (Audacity is your friend), that improves the recording quality a lot.

[Lawnboy]

The picture is the telephone attachment i was speaking of in the first post.

Hmm I've never heard of a phone attachment (not that I know much about these machines anyway), but I did some searching and found that it's called a "Televoice Writer." My chassis doesn't have any kind of external plug, only a covered hole where one could have been placed, but even if it did, my guess is that it was just for controlling the Ediphone. Recording must still have been done acousticly, which is too bad. Having a built in recording transducer would have made for some interesting experiments!

[Dave Moll]

The nearest modern equivalent is probably this gizmo, which picks up the magnetic field from the earpiece (receiver) of a telephone, for the purpose of recording a telephone conversation. It can probably, at least with older 'phones, pick up the field emanating from the induction coil within the body of the telephone, which is how older versions often worked.

N.B. I feel I need to mention that in some parts of the world the recording of telephone conversations is prohibited or requires the party at the other end of the line to be informed that the call is being recorded.