RCA VICTOR MANUFACTURE & RECORDING OF VINYL RECORDS 1956 INDUSTRIAL FILM 60054
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- čas přidán 10. 03. 2018
- This 1956 education film explains the process of making vinyl records. It is a Jam Handy Picture and presented by RCA Victor. The record process being followed is for Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, recorded by Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The film opens with a woman wearing a coordinating 1950s skirt, sweater, neck scarf, and pearl bracelet. She places a record in her RCA high fidelity cabinet record player and the music plays (:26-1:54). The history of making that record follows. The music is first recorded at Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts. An RCA Victor recording light blinks. The music is recorded using both stereophonic and monaural equipment; shown is a room with various high-fidelity recording equipment. Initially, RCA used RT-21 quarter-inch tape recorders wired to mono mixers, with Neumann U-47 cardioid and M-49/50 omnidirectional microphones before switching to an Ampex 300-3 one-half inch machine (1:55-3:27). The film switches multiple times between the orchestra, the console, the magnetic tape recorder, and the speakers. Eventually the final recording is approved (3:28-6:53). The sound tape is transferred to a lacquer master disc, which is first inspected. The disc is attached to the turntable and the specifics set (6:54-8:35). The playing time determines the number of grooves per inch. A diagram is used to explain this (8:36-8:58). A test cut to determine the groove width is checked through a microscope before the tape machine is started (8:59-9:24). The cutting stylus is a minute piece of perfectly ground and electrically heated sapphire. The groove cutting process is continuously monitored. When finished, a perfect lacquer master is created (9:25-10:12). The original tape is stored in a vault (10:13-10:24). The lacquer master is sent to the processing plant in Indianapolis. It is then checked under a microscope (10:25-11:20). A metal copy is made by first silvering the lacquer master, shown being electroplated (11:21-12:48). A diagram is used to explain this, followed by making a mold from the metal master (12:49-14:05). The mold is thoroughly cleaned before listened to by a woman trained to hear imperfections in the recording (14:16-14:40). The stamper is made out of nearly pure hard nickel. It is ground smooth on the back, optically center pressed, trimmed to the exact diameter, and given a formed edge before being sent to the 2-ton compression record press (14:41-16:05). Granular pieces of pure vinyl are forced by hydraulic pressure into a soft plastic glob and inserted into the press. The labels are also stamped into the vinyl (16:06-17:00). The first pressing is inspected, listened to, and additional records made (17:01-17:28). Shown is an automatic machine stamping out extended play 45s and making tape copies (17:29-18:14). The packaging area includes a conveyer belt as women clean and pack the records into their covers. Advertising is done via showing multiple RCA record covers (18:15-21:05). A mechanical shipping machine uses punch cards to track each order. An automatic addressing machine and bundler are shown in the shipping department (21:06-23:13). The orchestra is shown again (23:14).
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Why is the audio from the narrator and music in this film so soothing 😌 I just love these old films and the old technology of the time. It just had a charm that cannot be reproduced today ❤😢
It's Tchaikovsky's "Romeo & Juliet," that's why. The audio isn't just "background music," it's the record illustrated.
The RCA Living Stereo recordings from the 50's has a better quality than today's recordings. This is truly amazing.
What a flashback in time for me. Recording, mastering, plating, pressing. And looking at the finished products of many of the RCA line-up (towards the end) is just amazing. Elvis, Fats Waller, The Three Suns, and soooooo many more. Thanks for finding and posting this film, and taking me back 50 years. BTW, I'm not sure why they didn't use covers of Romeo and Juliet with the RCA catalog number on them, but the number is LM 2043. 2:34 It's been decades since I've used one, but what a beautiful Ampex unit. 18:00 Master playback and slave duplication! Wow, what memories! This was the department at Cook Laboratories that I was in charge of back in the 70's. Ours was made by Liberty, so it looked a bit different, but the setup was the same. Ours was for cassette tapes where as these are for 7" two track reels.
Ampex 300 and 3200 tape machines-used and maintained these at VOA,Wash DC!Superb and actually easy t o maintain machines.Liked working with them.
After watching this, a few years back, I found a copy of that actual record. Sounded amazing on a modern system (and hey, it was recorded in Boston!).
What a sweet video! Vinyls are a whole era!
They're RECORDS!!
I was completely stunned when I put a near-mint 1957 recording made for Contemporary records on my turntable. It felt like it was being played in the same room. It made me wonder about all those impeccable records, which were being played on those big old consoles, which were pretty unforgiving to LPs.
Fascinating peek into this process!
Fascinating
RCA records is my favorite label
Amazing
Thank you for this video
Interesting comparisons of BOTH covers of the original Broadway cast album of "Damn Yankees" (1955). The original is featured at 18:37.
Gwen Verdon, as "Lola", became a sensation with her steamy rendition of "Whatever Lola Wants" during the show. Later copies featured her (in her "daring" outfit, which she stripped down to, towards the end of the production number) on the cover, at 18:49.
A lot of jobs were given. Good times
Great
23:38 -- "...or an illusion." What does that mean?
"It's traveled a long way- *for* an illusion". That is, the way it was recorded and prepared for vinyl records (and tape).
Of course all of these uploads are appreciated but, man, the truly distracting logo and time stamp. Couldn’t you move it to the lower right or left? Anywhere other than dead center and large enough to cut off the titles at the beginning?
At @;33.Ampex 300 recorders running, at what speed, 15ips? Not 30?
Looks like 15 ips to me. But the playback for cutting the master looks like 30 ips. Editing goof I suppose. And tape mastered on 1/4" tape? This is late 50's.
@@quantumleap359 Thanks for responding.
Both the recorder and the mastering playback machine are running at 15 ips. A 2400 foot 10 1/2 inch reel of Scotch 111 tape would have only lasted 16 minutes at 30 ips, too short for the classical music being recorded.
@@gotham61 A one-time producer of 78rpm record re-issues onto Vic LPs told me he used 30ips. I thought 30ips was a standard. Apparently not. Thank you.
@@moldyoldie7888The sound quality differences between 15 and 30 ips are a bit of a mixed bag. While high frequency response and noise are improved at higher speed , there is also a phenomenon called head bumps which results in poorer bass performance as the speed goes up.
I guess the recording industry and RCA was sensitive of it's image and wanted to be seen as 'bringers of great art to the world'. They did feature some blues artist but no Country & Western or Rock & Roll. I guess that was considered tainted at the time. Also not much about recording technique which was well past the 2 track live recording shown. Les Paul was doing 4 or more tracks with innovative separation and studio mixing of instrumental and vocal tracks at this time. It is sad for someone who lived in Indianapolis when RCA was a pillar of the local economy and a world leader to think of what it has ended at.
Elvis, the king of rock n roll, signed with RCA in 1954, and remained with them until his death.
RCA also had a huge country music division, and probably the top studio in Nashville, RCA Studio B, which opened in 1957. Country legends like Chet Atkins, Porter Wagoner, and Jim Reeves recorded for RCA in the 1950s.
This film was made on March 12th 1956, about two years before Les Paul received his famous Octopus multitrack recorder.
So basically the only people allowed to get through their day without being forced to wear a tie are the conductors, the shippers and the women.
this video is very interesting but the overlay counter sucks
Here's the issue: Tens of thousands of films similar to this one have been lost forever -- destroyed -- and many others are at risk. Our company preserves these precious bits of history one film at a time. How do we afford to do that? By selling them as stock footage to documentary filmmakers and broadcasters. If we did not have a counter, we could not afford to post films like these online, and no films would be preserved. It's that simple. So we ask you to bear with the watermark and timecodes.
In the past we tried many different systems including placing our timer at the bottom corner of our videos. What happened? Unscrupulous CZcams users downloaded our vids, blew them up so the timer was not visible, and re-posted them as their own content! We had to use content control to have the videos removed and shut down these channels. It's hard enough work preserving these films and posting them, without having to spend precious time dealing with policing thievery -- and not what we devoted ourselves to do.
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@@PeriscopeFilm there’s nothing wrong with the counter. You do what you need to do. Thanks for uploading this. I found it quit interesting
Really, that's your complaint? smh...
@@PeriscopeFilm This film exists elsewhere on CZcams, but this one seems to be of higher quality. I don't blame you for the time counter. It protects your investment. Everyone on CZcams expects free content, perfect to their standards. Too bad.
@@ci3008
This is not a complaint but a bad video finding simply a shame because this report was interesting